\nInterview by Colin W. Sargent<\/em><\/p>\n
Jazz great Dave Brubeck’s<\/strong>\u00a0love affair with Maine goes back to the 1950s. Born on December 6,1920, in Concord, California, he was trained at an early age in classical music by his mother and was performing as a pro by the time he was 13. He studied classical composition with Darius Milhaud, the famous French composer, and formed The Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone in 1951.Their distinctive harmonic approach and daring improvised contrapuntal choruses caused a stir in the jazz world, creating \u201cWest Coast\u201d or \u201ccool\u201d jazz. He composed several large-scale works, including two ballets, a musical, an oratorio, four cantatas, a mass, numerous solo piano pieces, and works for jazz combo and orchestra, a number of them jazz standards, notably<\/p>\n \u201cTake Five,\u201d\u00a0\u201cBlue Rondo a la Turk,\u201d\u00a0\u201cIn Your Own Sweet Way,\u201d and \u201cThe Duke.\u201d<\/p>\n As one of America’s foremost goodwill ambassadors, Brubeck has entertained world leaders at the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Moscow and performed before eight U.S. Presidents, princes, kings, heads of state, and Pope John Paul II. He’s also a perennial summer guest at the Black Point Inn in Scarborough, which appears on the cover of his Grammy-winning CD, Just You, Just Me<\/em>.<\/p>\n Can you describe the first time you came\u00a0to Maine, and what it was like for you?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: Well, not counting Bowdoin\u00a0College (I performed at a number of\u00a0Maine colleges in the 1950s \u2013 I\u2019ve even\u00a0been up here when it was all snow and\u00a0people had those little red flags on their\u00a0fenders \u2026 you know, it was really a lot of\u00a0snow, I remember) \u2026 not counting that,\u00a0do you know Swan\u2019s Island. One of my\u00a0close friends lives there, Eric Kunzel,\u00a0conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony,\u00a0and I used to go visit Eric on Swan\u2019s. It\u00a0was fun to go to Swan\u2019s Island because\u00a0the crab were so abundant that you could\u00a0eat all you want and not feel like you\u00a0were spending a lot of money. The\u00a0people would give you crab and say,\u00a0\u201cHere, take this.\u201d Fishermen would\u00a0come by once in a while. We like\u00a0Monhegan Island, too. You know the\u00a0Black Point Inn? We like to go there, too<\/p>\n You\u2019ve even featured two empty\u00a0Adirondack chairs from the inn facing the\u00a0seashore on one of your recent CDs. What\u00a0about the inn inspired you?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: Oh, it\u2019s just a wonderful, relaxed\u00a0place; the food is great. My wife just said\u00a0to me, \u201cI wish we could go back to BlackPoint<\/strong>,\u201d but we\u2019re so busy we can\u2019t go\u00a0back this summer. Our first summer\u00a0there was about three years ago.<\/p>\n How do you know you\u2019re really in Maine?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: A lot of things come to mind.\u00a0There\u2019s whale watching, but it doesn\u2019t\u00a0work because it wasn\u2019t on purpose! A\u00a0whale came right up to our very small\u00a0boat almost like it was looking at us and\u00a0dove right under. You could hear him.\u00a0And it was so wonderful that he didn\u2019t tip\u00a0us over or do something funny, you\u00a0know. Whale being almost eye level with\u00a0you, and then diving down. Our boat was\u00a0stalled; the motor had conked out. The\u00a0captain was on a two-way radio trying to\u00a0get help out there and then this whale\u00a0came up. The sea was absolutely calm,\u00a0and it was foggy.<\/p>\n What was wonderful about Monhegan\u00a0was eating all the crabs outside. They\u00a0didn\u2019t serve them in the restaurant. You\u00a0went out on wooden tables on the lawn\u00a0so you could make all the fuss and mess,\u00a0and I remember them telling us they\u00a0have no electricity on the island. That\u00a0was funny, because Edison\u2019s son was\u00a0living out there.<\/p>\n Who were your early influences on the\u00a0piano \u2026 was it people like Teddy Wilson?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, Teddy Wilson was important\u00a0but Art Tatum was a big\u00a0influence, and I knew him\u00a0slightly because I wanted to\u00a0and then I got to actually play\u00a0in Boston at Storyville, you remember\u00a0that club, opposite Tatum. I was like the\u00a0intermission pianist for Art Tatum.\u00a0Before either of them there was Billy\u00a0Kyle. He was with Louis Armstrong.<\/p>\n Can you describe a galvanizing moment\u00a0when you just knew you were breaking\u00a0through and doing something that maybe\u00a0had never been done before? I mean, for\u00a0Chuck Yeager it was easy. He could feel\u00a0the sonic boom. But where were you when\u00a0you first broke the sound barrier?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: A couple things stand out. One time\u00a0when I was in the Army in World War II\u00a0I hadn\u2019t been able to play for over a\u00a0month and I found a piano on a stage out\u00a0in the woods where they gave concerts,\u00a0and I was so glad to see that piano and I\u00a0went up and played it and rather than\u00a0sound bad to myself, I sounded great. It\u00a0was so thrilling and inspiring to touch a\u00a0piano again. And that was a big\u00a0happening for me, and I could hear all\u00a0the harmonies I was doing and I knew\u00a0they were different than most guys and it\u00a0was a very inspiring hour or so I spent out\u00a0there, all alone. Nobody came around.\u00a0We shipped out of Texas and then we\u00a0went up and shipped overseas. You know\u00a0where Lynn, Massachusetts, is? I\u00a0remember visiting with a soldier that\u00a0lived there. It\u2019s near Boston, in a camp\u00a0where you just boarded huge ships. We\u00a0got on a big ship called the\u00a0Washington<\/em>,\u00a0which was a passenger liner and we went\u00a0out with a convoy and then the captain\u00a0of the\u00a0Washington<\/em>\u00a0got tired of staying\u00a0with the convoy because there were\u00a0submarines trying to get you, so he\u00a0figured out if you go a certain distance\u00a0and then change course completely a\u00a0submarine can\u2019t keep you in their sights,\u00a0so we zigzagged away from the convoy\u00a0and went to Europe that way.<\/p>\n Do you believe in the myth of the\u00a0repeatable moment? Many people visit\u00a0Maine every summer to recapture a\u00a0perfect moment they had once. What are\u00a0you looking for that\u2019s uniquely here?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The last time I had that feeling in\u00a0Maine is near Cadillac Mountain.\u00a0We were on the\u00a0QE2<\/em>, and it\u00a0was a jazz cruise. We went into\u00a0Bar Harbor and then we took buses\u00a0and went sightseeing and then went\u00a0back down to the Newport Jazz Festival,\u00a0which I\u2019ll be playing t this year. That\u00a0was beautiful, the scene, the\u00a0QE2\u00a0<\/em>from\u00a0up on the mountain down on the harbor.\u00a0The ship looks so huge from up there!\u00a0We\u2019ll be on the\u00a0QE2\u00a0<\/em>going to London\u00a0this summer. I like ocean cruising\u00a0because I can get a lot of work done and\u00a0people can\u2019t bug me because I can just\u00a0get in that cabin and work.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the loneliest song you ever wrote?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: It\u2019s called \u201cSo Lonely,\u201d written on\u00a0Maui in the Hawaiian islands. I wrote\u00a0three songs that haven\u2019t been recorded\u00a0because it was a year ago January. One\u00a0was called \u201cSo Lonely,\u201d and one was\u00a0called \u201cAll My Love,\u201d which I dedicated\u00a0to my wife. The third is \u201cDay after Day.\u201d\u00a0We\u2019ll probably record those in three or\u00a0four months, on our next album, which is\u00a0solo piano. I do \u201cHarbor Lights\u201d and\u00a0\u201cRed Sails on the Sunset,\u201d some wonderful\u00a0songs, and it\u2019s going to be called\u00a0\u201cOver the Rainbow.\u201d I do that, too.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your most biographical song?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: Oh there\u2019s a lot of them. Yeah. The\u00a0one I\u2019m writing now for the Stockton\u00a0California Symphony is full of inside\u00a0things that only I would pick up. There\u00a0are hidden little things all the way through it.<\/p>\n What writer writes most like the way you\u00a0play?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: Maybe Thomas Mann. He\u00a0understood music.\u00a0Dr. Faustus<\/em>\u00a0is full of\u00a0references to music. I\u2019ve set quite a few\u00a0poets and art songs to music. I usually\u00a0look for a cadence or a rhythm, yeah. I\u00a0just did Robert Penn Warren and Carl\u00a0Van Doren. For children I\u2019ve just set \u201cI\u00a0Have a Little Shadow that Goes In and\u00a0Out with Me\u201d and \u201cThe Wind.\u201d<\/p>\n Ever thought of buying property up here,\u00a0or would that spoil it?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: No, I\u2019ve wanted to. I almost did,\u00a0out on Swan\u2019s Island. In fact, I was all\u00a0ready to go and they couldn\u2019t give me\u00a0clear title, so my friend who is an\u00a0attorney said you don\u2019t want to buy\u00a0property that somebody else might\u00a0come and kick you off of after you\u2019ve\u00a0built a house, so that ruined that.<\/p>\n So you really like islands.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n DB: Yeah, I like islands. Or peninsulas.\u00a0Any way you can be near the ocean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jazz great Dave Brubeck used to come to Maine every summer to stay at the Black Point Inn. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[943],"tags":[848,844,263,843,845,127,847,846],"class_list":["post-17650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personalities","tag-art-tatum","tag-black-point-inn","tag-bowdoin-college","tag-dave-brubeck","tag-jazz","tag-maine","tag-monhegan","tag-swans-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17650"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18553,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17650\/revisions\/18553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"dave-brubeck\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/dave-brubeck-289x300.jpg\")
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