Poppa Dave

Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, college kids would no more have been without their LPs of Pianist Dave Brubeck's Jazz Goes to College, Brubeck Time* and Impressions of Eurasia than their paperbacks of Steppenwolf or The Catcher in the Rye. But five years ago Brubeck suddenly disbanded what was probably the most popular jazz quartet of the post-World War II era. He had earned his secure nook in history and was hankering after other accomplishments. For one thing, he wanted to compose serious music--and he soon turned out three major religious works, including The Gates of Justice, a Negro-Hebraic summons to brotherhood, and Truth Is Fallen, a lament for the victims of Kent and Jackson State premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1971. For another, he had been playing as many as 250 one-nighters per year on the road and he wanted to spend more time with his six children. He did that--and now the musical public is beginning to do so too.

Two Generations. The musical Brubeck brood ranges in age from Darius, 25, like his father a composer-pianist, to Charles, 11, no mean slouch on cello and piano. It includes Danny, 17, who plays drums in Darius' jazz combo, and Chris, 20, the leader of a rock group known as New Heavenly Blue. (Every family has its black sheep; among the Brubecks there are two: Michael, 23, a horse-trainer, and Sister Catherine, 18, whose ambition is to teach underprivileged children.) When the family gets together to perform, as happened recently at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island, they are billed as Two Generations of Brubeck. But no gap is visible or audible. The Brubecks are in fact one of the best pop music shows on the road. Their program is essentially a series of casual entrances and exits in which each Brubeck has his moment alone in the spotlight, then mixes it up with the others. That includes Poppa Dave, who could not stand it on the sidelines and now fronts a svelte replica of the old Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Darius and his quartet offer a thinking man's kind of jazz, usually overlaid with intricate rhythms and marzipan harmonies from the Near and Far East. Chris and New Heavenly Blue display a crackling rock style deftly blending country, pop and jazz. Dave, now 51, plays with all the style and elegance of Van Cliburn summoning up memories of Meade Lux Lewis. But Jazz Great Gerry Mulligan's attacks on baritone sax are crisp and clean, and Brubeck and Mulligan bob and glide together like Astaire and Rogers doing the Big Apple. For a finale, Mulligan, the three Brubecks and nine assorted sidemen are likely to jam for wondrous minutes on something like Mulligan's Tune for an Unfinished Woman.

Later this month, Dave's quartet (augmented by Former Sidekick Paul Desmond) takes off for a four-week tour of Australia and Japan, not to pick up with the young Brubecks again until mid-October. Darius, meanwhile, will be writing some new material for the quartet. Chris will be playing with New Heavenly Blue on weekends, while also trying to raise a B average to an A at the University of Michigan, where he is majoring in music and the bass trombone. Danny will be deciding whether to stay in Darius' group or head south to the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Being the sons of a famous musician obviously has advantages, musical and fiscal, as Darius, Chris and Danny readily admit. But not always. Once, as a student aged ten, Darius had a contest composition rejected, because the teacher thought it had been written by someone more experienced. "Tell your father that was really a good piece," he said. That was doubly ironic. Dave Brubeck, even in the days of his study with Darius Milhaud, did not know how to read or write music.

* So named by Brubeck in honor of his TIME cover story in 1954.

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