SALT LAKE CITY — The Brubeck Brothers will open the 20th season of Jazz SLC with a Dave Brubeck tribute Monday, Sept. 16, at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
“We’re going to play a tribute to Dave’s work," Chris Brubeck said. "My father and mother always loved coming to Salt Lake to be part of the jazz series and we’re thrilled to be opening up the season.”
Gordon Hanks, founder of the Jazz SLC concert series, is ecstatic about having the Brubeck Brothers as headliners for the 2013-14 season.
“All the Brubecks are fantastic musicians and over the years we developed a wonderful relationship with Dave and his wife," Hanks said. "I can’t think of a more fitting way to acknowledge the family’s contribution to the world of music. And the fact they are doing a tribute to their father is icing on the cake.
“This season is a milestone for us,” continued Hanks. “Who would have thought that 20 years ago we would still be around today? It says a great deal about this community and their love for jazz. We went from having to almost beg big-name jazz musicians to come to Salt Lake to a point where two decades later, we have to turn them away.”
The series continues to draw some of the top jazz musicians in the world.
“I knew that I didn’t stand a chance with any bank, so after talking with my family, I decided to fund the jazz series out of my own pocket,” Hanks said. “I was at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Series in Moscow, Idaho. I’d gone up specifically to talk with some jazz musicians to see if I could convince them to come to Salt Lake for the first season. I got a chance to sit down with the late Gene Harris and told him my story. He listened carefully and asked me one question. 'Man, are you really serious about this?' I told him I was and he said he’d come to Salt Lake and he’d get his friends to do the same. And he did. He was a prince of a man.”
The first season saw Hank Jones and Herb Ellis, Clark Terry, Kenny Burrell and, as promised, Gene Harris on the keyboards.
Chris Brubeck (bass and trombone) will be joined on stage by his brother Dan on drums, Mike DeMicco on guitar and Chuck Lamb on piano. The concert is a tribute to Dave Brubeck and will showcase much of his earlier work, re-imagined by Chris Brubeck, who is a composer.
“Life Times,” he said, “is certainly one of my favorite albums and the quartet loves playing this at jazz concerts. In a way, it’s kind of like having Dave on the stage with us.”
If being born under the shadow of one of the world’s greatest jazz piano players was a challenge, Chris Brubeck doesn’t show any signs of it getting in the way of his own work. “I suppose you could feel overshadowed by Dave’s reputation, but I felt like my relationship with my father has always been sort of a partnership. We’ll continue his legacy with the extra dimensions of having written classics with him. I honestly don’t think we felt having a famous father got in the way of our own music.”
Chris Brubeck’s collaborations with his father is illustrated by a story he told regarding the making of “Travels in Time for Three,” an album commissioned by eight orchestras based on Ansel Adams' collection of majestic images shot in black and white that would be projected above the orchestra.
“When I asked Dave if he was interested in working with me on the composition he declined, saying he was too old. My mother was part of the conspiracy that eventually got my father involved in the project. Because my father’s eyesight was so bad, my mother would read to him. She got a copy of Ansel Adams’ biography and began to read it to him.”
In many regards, Adams’ life reminded Dave Brubeck of his own childhood. Brubeck, similar to Adams, had difficulties in school. Brubeck’s father, a progressive thinker in the day, made an offer to his son to pull him out of school if that’s what he wanted. There was, however, one condition that required young Brubeck to listen to music recitals every day he was out of school. By the time Brubeck completed his tutelage, there was no turning back, and music would become his life.
“My father and Ansel Adams shared a great deal in common in the way they practiced their art," Chris Brubeck said. "They were both isolationists and perfectionists in their respective crafts. By the time my mother finished reading Adams’ biography, my father had agreed to the project. It was gift getting to work on the project with my father.”
Following the completion of “Travels in Time for Three,” Dave Brubeck passed away. “I always thought my father would pass away when he was on the road doing a concert. But in this case, I was the one traveling. A few hours after he died my father received a posthumous Grammy Award nomination in the best instrumental category for a symphonic piece. I could only imagine that Dave must have been smiling down on the moment.”
If you go:
What: Jazz SLC, Brubeck Brothers Tribute to Dave Brubeck
When: Monday, Sept. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 136 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City
Tickets: ($24.50 adults/$10 students with activity card) Call ArtTix at 801-355-ARTS
Jeff Metcalf is a professor of English at the University of Utah and an avid jazz fan.