Dave Brubeck Performance Style Essay

The performance style of Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck’s unique performance style is characterized primarily by his use of polytonality, polyrhythm, and immense amounts of improvisation. His style grew from his upbringing and as he put it, “different approach to all of the normal things”. By no means did Dave take the normal approach; he made it all the way threw the conservatory with out being able to read the piano music he was playing. His ability to think on the spot and his amazing ear took jazz to the next level. He took jazz to a world of difficult technicality and created sounds with depth that amazed all who had the opportunity to listen to him. Brubeck once stated, “And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be
During his time at College Of The Pacific he managed to get all the way to his last year before any one knew that he couldn’t read music. This was all because of his remarkable improvisation skill and excellent ear. He tells a story of a recital he played at Mills College under Darius Milhaud, where he draws a blank in the middle of the first of two pieces but instead of stopping he simply begins to improvise freely and does the same for the second piece. At the end of the concert the audience applauded being none the wiser, this is because of his ability to so improvise with such complexity so freely. The only person who knew what happened Darius Milhaud who told him "Boo-Boo [nick name for Brubeck] , very good, but not what you wrote!” Brubeck credits much of his inspiration for such improvisation to the great Johan Sebastian Bach, because of the similarity between the figured base that Bach would play over with the choir and the chord changes that he and other jazz musician play over today. With the inspiration of Bach and his own remarkable natural abilities, Brubeck challenged conventional improvisation and built a complex foundation for a new form of improvisational