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.

Dave brubeck take five wallpaper