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Page 13 text:
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an interview DAVE BRUBECK by Tony Carusone When Dave Brubeck came to Seton Hall University he brought with him a legendary fame uncon- tested throughout the history of jazz music. This unbelievably gifted in- dividual has set more precedents through the jazz idiom, and has been involved in more variations of this modality than just about anyone else in his field. With him came a new breed of Brubeck style and composition, en- titled Two Generations of Brubeck and composed mostly of Dave Bru- beck ' s sons. Also included in the night ' s entertainment was the Darius Brubeck Ensemble, which strays away from the traditional jazz pat- terns and yet retains its impact, var- iations and fundamental structure. The following is an interview con- ducted by the Galleon Yearbook in anticipation of the night ' s perform- ance. GALLEON: I ' d like to find out why you chose jazz over other types of music, and how you became inter- ested in it. BRUBECK: I was born into a fam- ily of musicians and my oldest brother, twelve years older than myself, had a dance band, jazz band. He played with Gil Evans, a famous arranger-composer, and he had a job with a band called Del Courtney, which most people on this coast don ' t remember, which is a very big band around San Francisco and they used to rehearse at my house, in my mother and father ' s house, so I heard jazz from the time I was a little kid. And I heard class- ical music too. GALLEON: So you were in the midst of it all, both classical and jazz music. BRUBACK: I was born right into all kinds of music. GALLEON: What is it like, com- paring studio sessions to live per- formances? Not in terms of the au- dience, but do you perform on the spot innovation in lieu of a written score during studio sessions, or is that simply restricted to live per- formances? BRUBECK: We do it both places. GALLEON: You don ' t follow any kind of musical score, strictly en- forced. BRUBECK: Never. And it ' s easier to do something really great in front of an audience if it ' s a good night. If it ' s a bad night, it ' s on tape and it ' s that way forever. Whereas in the studio if you didn ' t like it you could do it again. You do something completely different, but it can be done again whereas you are stuck with the live concert forever and most of the albums I like the best were live. GALLEON: What happens if dur- ing a live performance one of the band members makes a mistake which is easily recognizable, do you keep playing and hope that no one notices it or do you adapt your theme to the error? BRUBECK: You hear it for the next 20 years, first of all. Most of the time there ' s nothing that goes too wrong that ' s noticeable, you know there ' s bound to be a mistake or two in a live concert, but I prefer that to trying to get everything real- ly perfect because even if there ' s a classical concert there will be mis- takes where everything is written, but you try to go for the feeling, the feeling of the audience and it ' s us- ually more of an emotional per- formance in front of an audience. GALLEON: How do you feel when you perform; are you very aware of the audience or are you so much involved in the music that the audi- ence becomes separate, and almost second nature, to the task at hand in your mind? BRUBECK: No, you are aware of everything. Like I ' m aware that the sound tonight isn ' t going to be good. GALLEON: You mean acousti- cally? BRUBECK: Yes, in the hall. I al- ready know that. The piano isn ' t going to sound ideal to me and yet if the audience is good they will compensate for that. You see what I mean? For instance, if I were to record in this room, with this piano, and with no one here I can tell you I ' d hate it. Later on the audience might compensate for the bad qual- ity of the room. GALLEON: So the audience plays a very big part in your outlook on performance. BRUBECK: Oh, yes, the most im- portant part is that audience. That piano can be horrible, it ' s a great piano incidentally, it could be hor- rible, though, everything wrong; the acoustics wrong, the lighting wrong, every physical thing you can name. But if the audience was right, and with you, you would very easily overcome all that. Now in a studio you would never overcome all that. GALLEON: How do you feel about the contemporary rock scene. 9
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Page 14 text:
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continued BRUBECK Do you like it, dislike it, and do you have any favorite groups? BRUBECK: Well, I like the groups that use the jazz idiom. GALLEON: Like John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra? And Larry Corryel? BRUBECK: Yes, Corryel is great, and Chick Corea is a fantastic pian- ist. And Weather Report is an ex- cellent group. Then there are some good players in a lot of groups that are just wasting themselves. I wouldn ' t say who they are but I know that they can play a lot better than they ' re doing. They ' re playing too loud, for instance, and the pub- lic likes to have their ears blown out, and they are not playing their instruments right. But they are great. Someday they ' re going to wise up, and some day the public is going to allow them to be great and play something that shows off their great technique instead of a lot of over amplified music. But they are still great and there are a lot of great players that aren ' t playing great. But the public won ' t allow them to. They want to make their bread. GALLEON: And they ' re attempt- ing to find the easiest way? BRUBECK: Well, sure, and they ' re doing what doesn ' t come naturally. GALLEON: Then you believe that there is a lot of wasted talent around. BRUBECK: In my opinion, but they ' re getting wiser and wiser. They ' re listening to Segovia; rock guitar players are listening to class- ical and jazz guitar players that approach the instrument as an in- strument. And they want to do this, but they ' re waiting for the public to recognize it and they ' re leading the public to this recognition, they are honest and sincere. They will lead the public back where you can play your instrument. GALLEON: How do you feel about amplification in music. Is it appropriate? BRUBECK: Just look at the prob- lems we ' re going through now. I ' ve played for 20 years where I just walked into a hall and sat down and played. Now you ' ve got to take all this time with balance because the whole thing is just unnatural. Electronic instruments make every- thing unnatural. I know some great rock pianists that have switched to electric piano to be heard. So as a pianist I ' m drugged with the idea that everything is overamplified, be- cause my fingers are sore when the night is over because everybody also is amplified. And I hate amplifi- cation and to try to be heard on the piano over amplified instruments is almost impossible. GALLEON: How were the acous- tics at the Newport Jazz Festival? BRUBECK: Well, they were ade- quate. They had great equipment. But this whole idea of great equip- ment, so what, you know? It should be that a guy can be heard playing his instrument in a natural way. And when it goes back to that we ' ll have better music. GALLEON: Are you opposed to such instruments as the electric piano? BRUBECK: No, I ' m not, but there is a way to use this so that the audi- ence isn ' t deafened. GALLEON: How do you feel about groups such as the Mothers of Invention, with Frank Zappa, whose concern is social comment. And do you feel that social comment has a place in music. BRUBECK: Absolutely. I approve of trying to improve things. If social comment is what you have to do then you do it. I don ' t feel that at a jazz concert you should have some- body give speeches or go around singing songs, but I ' ve written a lot of religious music. I wrote a little 10
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