![]() Tasked with forming a band, Brubeck recruited men sent back to the Depot for rest. If they had backgrounds as musicians, he gave them an opportunity to show their chops. “I remained just behind the frontline for the rest of the war.” “I was so lucky that that happened,” Brubeck stated. He and the other two men would entertain the troops. No stranger to talent-he hosted Bing Crosby at the 17th that same month-Brown had different plans for the young California pianist. He impressed the commander of the 17th, Colonel Leslie Brown, who selected Brubeck and two others to stay. Brubeck responded to a call for a piano player. When a group of women from the Red Cross visited the site, entertainment was needed. In September 1944, in a place in north-central France called the “Mudhole,” with his thoughts turning to battle, everything changed, however, for Dave Brubeck. Brubeck knew that, with his background as a sharpshooter, real combat was not far away. As a replacement soldier, he was to join General George Patton’s 3rd Amy. A stop with the 17th Replacement Depot was only to be temporary. Courtesy of .įrom Normandy Brubeck traveled to Verdun in a cattle car. He stepped foot on Omaha Beach almost three months after the bloodshed and carnage of D-Day.ĭave Brubeck’s Registration Card. As he remembered, Brubeck never really had the chance to even touch British soil, though, before heading on to France. Once training was completed, Private Brubeck departed for the European theater of operations aboard the troopship SS George Washington, a vessel that had been transporting American service members to Britain since January 1944. My colleague here at the Museum, Collin Makamson, found out that Brubeck qualified as a sharpshooter during this period. There he joined the band, meeting his future bandmate, Paul Desmond, in the process. Training required him to relocate to Camp Haan, an 8,000-acre base in Riverside, California. In August 1942 Brubeck was conscripted into the United States Army. ![]() He had already registered for the draft two months after Pearl Harbor. Graduating from College of the Pacific in 1942, world history intervened in Brubeck’s plans for a career. Coming to idolize the great Duke Ellington, he so enjoyed playing jazz piano in night clubs that he changed his major to music. Music-jazz music-captured his imagination, however. After performing in dance groups in high school, Brubeck enrolled in 1938 in the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, hoping to pursue a degree in veterinary medicine. During his teenage years, ranching (his father owned a 45,000-acre ranch in northern California) competed with music for his time. Growing up in a musical family, he began studying piano with his mother when he was only four. The son of Howard Peter and Elizabeth Brubeck, David Warren Brubeck was born in Concord, California in December 1920. World War II shaped the kind of person, musician, and composer Dave Brubeck became. “Take Five,” “The Duke,” “In Your Own Sweet Way,” “Strange Meadow Lark,” or, my favorite, “Blue Rondo A La Turk,” are essential listening. The group Brubeck led in the late 1950s and 1960s which produced much of this music, drummer Joe Morello, bassist Eugene Wright, and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, helped define the super-popular and lucrative “West Coast” sound for generations. It is also the bestselling jazz single of all time. Along with the Miles Davis Quintet’s “So What,” the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s “Take Five” is the most recognizable jazz tune from the post-1945 era. You do not have to be a jazz aficionado to instantly recognize Dave Brubeck. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Associated Booking Corporation.Įveryone knows his music. Left to right: Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Joe Morello, and Eugene Wright. ![]() Top Image: The Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1962. ![]()
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