INTERVIEW WITH CHET BAKER
Conducted in 1978 by Gudrun Endress Editor and Co-publisher of       JAZZ PODIUM MAGAZINE 

Gudrun Endress: I always wondered that you had so much trouble in your life, while you still had the possibilities to keep up so much beauty in your music.  How did you manage that?

CB:  Well, I think partly because I recognized early in life that there is a lot of what we say in America is bullshit to go through and I saw many people greatly affected by things that happened to them and I just kind of had it in my head to try to put that part of me in a sort of unreachable place, you know.  So as to try to maintain it as best I could.  And it worked out.

GE:  Unreachable place, does it come out maybe, if not in music, in daily life?

CB:  I imagine in certain ways.  For example, when I was in prison in Italy in 1960, there wasn’t one person who spoke one word of English in the place, no books in English, and I was locked up by myself – the first six months by myself.  I wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone.

GE:  You had no lawyer, nobody?

CB:  I had a lawyer, but I only saw him once before the trial.

GE:  There were no jazz friends who could help you?

CB:  They couldn’t see me; no one was allowed to see me.  I was seen as a very dangerous criminal and had to be put in a cage and protected away from society. 

GE:  But you never thought of committing suicide?

CB:  It had nothing to do with that.  It’s just hard for people to accept that there might be some other people who just like to get high, you know, and who are able to do it and handle it without flipping out or doing something crazy, you know.  Anyway, I learned to speak Italian and I speak pretty good Italian, because I had people from all over Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, Rome, Naples, and the Lombard, you see, Torino, people from everywhere.  So I was able to hear all the dialects and I played a lot of chess and I had my horn with me and I had books in the end from the outside, so I was cool.  I was there for about 15 months.  That’s not long.  I mean, I know several people who’ve done a lot of time.

GE:  Was that the only time or the longest time?

CB:  It was the longest time, but certainly not the only time.  And then I had trouble in Berlin because I went to two doctors within a 24-hour period, so they put me in the nuthouse for 40 days and then they deported me to New York.  I had trouble in England.  I got deported from England to France and of course I got into trouble all over the United States, but, like I say, when those kind of things happen, you try not to be affected.  And just be patient, very patient.  Until whatever is happening, it’s finished.  If it’s one year, you learn to be patient.

GE:  when did all of these troubles start, in the ‘60’s or in the ‘50’s?

GB: No, in 1957.  I was 27 years old.  And all the musicians that I thought were the greatest musicians were into that, you know.  And I never messed with it for a long time.  All the time I was with Gerry Mulligan, I was clean, but people thought I was doing something.

GE:  I always thought it happened after the death of Dick Twardzik.

CB:  It did.  That’s when it happened, in 1957, when I went back to New York after he died.  That’s when I started it and I kept that pretty strong for about 13 years and then a judge in California was very kind to me.  He could have given me five years like poor Art Pepper, who got sent twice to San Quentin or some crazy place like that, but the judge sent me to a sort of guidance-center where they test you, psychological and every way possible, t decide what to do with you.  And when I went back to court with the results of the testing, he let me go.  He put me back on the street again.

GE:  Is that the only way that you can cure yourself?

CB: That’s the only way.  And I did.  I got on the methadone program.  I was on it 7 years.  I started out at 8 milligrams, and little by little I had to take the dosage down and down until I came to Europe with just enough for two months and I made it last for four and a half months.  And I just tapered out to nothing and stopped.

GE:  That means you are thinking a lot about why you use this.  Is it because you can’t bear the environment around you, all the bullshit?

CB:  Yes, the people I had to do with were a drag, the stuff that I got was never any good.  You know, you put all of that energy into the wrong direction.  So I decided almost too late to cut it loose.  Just to see if I could make it again after everything.  Kind of a challenge in a way, because after so much bad publicity it’s hard to get people to believe you.

GE:  But the bad publicity is publicity, don’t forget that.

CB:  Yes, I know, but everybody reads that and you’d be surprised how many people believe it – what they read. Not people like you, people with some sophistication.

GE:  But all these people who are judges or judge these persons, they are maybe drinking a lot of schnapps or beer everyday and they don’t think about that.

CB: Oh, but that’s all right. Drugs are something out of the norm, that is really to be feared, I guess. And there are a lot of people, friends of mine, that didn’t make it, who couldn’t handle it and it killed them.  So it comes to a point where you really have to say, do you want to live or do you want to die and then you make that choice and that’s it.

GE:  And what’s the reason why you want to live, to play music?

CB:  That’s about the only thing I’m good for I guess.

GE:  Everybody has another task in his life.

CB:  Well, I don’t know.  I have three fine children, so I’m cool in that area and I love music and I put all my energy into it, you know.  It’s really the only thing, aside from realizing that life is really beautiful, it’s wonderful to be alive, even for just one more day.

GE:  When did you have these feelings?

CB:  I guess it was when I got out of prison last time in California and the judge put me back on the street. You see, he was a trumpet player, this judge, in college, so I guess he had some knowledge of me and my problems and didn’t want to hurt me too badly.  And I just started thinking about it.  Then, when I moved to San Jose where my mother lives and it’s kind of rolling, green hills, I just walked around every day for a couple of months.

GE:  You felt in harmony with Nature.

CB:  Yes, I finally realized a little bit, took the time to think about a few things.

GE:  When was this?

CB:  This was in 1969, at the end of 1969.

GE:  And then you already had a family?

CB:  Yes I did.  I had the three children.

GE:  Did you always support your family or not?

CB: Well yes, but I was on welfare in California for a couple of years and a year in New York when I was unable to play.

GE:  And out of the sale of your records there wasn’t enough money?

CB:  I never have gotten any royalties for any of my records.  Never a penny.  Hard to believe?

GE:  How is your contract today?

CB:  Today is a completely different thing, because I’m involved with someone who worked for Creed Taylor, his name is John Snyder.  You know it’s a different thing.  I own the tapes with him. It’s my property; whatever I record, I own it, and I lease it to him to distribute. John is a wonderful man and he’s been trying to start his own company, working very hard for years. And he’s just getting it going.

GE:  Are you now recording for Artists’ House?

CB:  Yes, but not exclusively.  I’m dong an album this month in Paris with Sonopress and I’m also going to record right after that here in Germany, in Stuttgart. And then, when I get back to New York, I have a couple of albums to make, so I’m going to be really busy.

GE:  Do you know about the sales of maybe the first thing you did again with Mulligan, the Carnegie Hall album?

CB:  I have no idea.  You see, Gerry Mulligan made that deal with Creed Taylor.  Although I was the one with the contract with Creed Taylor, Gerry somehow managed to exclude me from any royalties for those albums.  And Creed agreed to it.  That’s one of the reasons I’m not with Gerry Mulligan any more.

GE:  But sometimes there was a complete understanding in music.

CB:  In music, yes.

GE:  Not in the area of humanity?

CB: No, he’s too nervous for me. He’s so nervous he makes me nervous.  At the club, when we first started, there used to be terrific arguments off the stage between Garry and Chico Hamilton or Bob Whitlock and Gerry and myself and all four of us. But when we got up on the stage to play, it was finished.  But when we got off, it might start again, but it was a very unique group in as much as there was no piano and it left a lot more open space.  The piano covers up a lot.  The piano is an orchestra itself and when you’re playing behind an orchestra, sometimes you get lost in it.  But without it, everything was very clear and the space was there and the feeling was there.  Gerry wrote wonderful tunes. He’s a marvelous composer and arranger, an incredible arranger.

GE:  But he arranged only three songs for his big band.

CB:  Yeah, maybe he’s getting lazy in his old age. That’s a hard job.

GE:  If you have to keep together a big band, then you don’t have time to arrange.

CB:  Right, and I’m sure he put a lot of hours into those three arrangements he did.

GE:  Is he slow in doing that?

CB:  I think he takes a lot more time than the average arranger.  Some guys can write an arrangement for a big band in three or four yours, you know.

GE: You never did arrangements?

CB:  No.  I don’t know, by the time I make up my mind about something, I’ve already thought of ten other ways it could be and then after that I can never make up my mind how to put it down and say, “Yes, that’s it, that way.” It could be just as good another way, you know. I get all hung up with that.

GE:  the things you did with the big band or Paul Desmond and Jim Hall, was this your idea to play with these musicians or with the big band?

CB:  No, it was suggested by John Snyder. I don’t know if Creed Taylor…Creed Taylor probably made the suggestion and John talked to me about it.  The arrangements were all done by Don Sebesky, but I mean they were wonderful musicians:  Bob James, the Concierto de Aranjuez album; and then came the two Carnegie Hall albums and then I worked for A&M and I made another one with Sebesky.

GE:  The new one, YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN?

CB:  Right, with Mike Brecker, John Scofield, Richie Beirach.

GE:  Who chose which song to record?

CB:  I didn’t choose anything.

GE: It doesn’t matter to you which songs you have to play?

CB:  Well, I know if it’s going to be Don Sebesky it’s not going to be something too free.  I mean, it’s going to be pretty.  I’m sure of that, because he has wonderful taste in music.  And he’s a good arranger.  They might have been just a shade over-arranged, but it depends on where your audience is.

GE:  What’s the group or the instrumentation you most love to play with – just with the rhythm section, or without piano?

CB:  I can play with just a bass player, you know.  In fact, sometimes it’s nice to do that.

GE:  Do you have a favorite song – MY FUNNY VALENTINE?

CB:  I don’t know.  I don’t really have a favorite song.  There are so many beautiful songs that it seems ridiculous to say that one is prettier than another.  I wouldn’t know what to say about a favorite song.

GE:  It doesn’t matter if you play the same song every night, like MY FUNNY VALENTINE?

CB:  Oh, I don’t play it very often.

GE:  And if you get a request?

CB:  If I get a request, sure I play it.

GE:  You can’t escape when you say you don’t love to play it?

CB:  No, that’s beautiful too, MY FUNNY VALENTINE.  That’s one of those songs that’ll be here . . . become, a what do they call it, a classic?

GE:  When you do a concert, are the songs for the evening already fixed or is it just what kind of mood you are in?  Do you decide on the stage?

CB:  Usually, I mean we have about 30 or 40 tunes we do, so I know it’s gonna be one of those.  Start out with a medium, then do a ballad, then a bossa nova, and then something faster.  Then we have a couple of rock things we do.  We’re planning some tunes from Bud Powell, Richie Beirach, Phil (Markowitz), our piano player.  We just haven’t had time to plan or rehearse, we were moving so fast.

GE:  It’s just a group you collected for the European tour, this wasn’t your American group?

CB:  Yes, it’s my American group, but without the bass player that’s supposed to be here.  And my whole library, the drummer left it sitting on the street in Boston a few months ago and it’s lost, so we have no music, so it kind of limited us on this tour.  But when we come back in May we’ll have everything new.

GE:  When you come back in May we’ll arrange a concert.  Two years ago we waited and you didn’t show up.

CB:  I tried but at that time I was still messing around.

GE:  And you didn’t have the chance to do something . . . .?

CB:  That’s it.  But that’s a nice concert hall.  I remember it very well.  The acoustics were good – that’s nice.

GE:  When you travel around, are you interested in seeing some buildings or castles?

CB: Yes.  Sometimes we rent a car, but not very often and sometimes, like in Koblenz, a man who was the head of the jazz association, or whatever it is, picked us up the next day in his Mercedes Benz and took us around to see a castle here and a castle there and we ended up at his home drinking wine from his cellar.  We had a good time. That was fun.

GE:  Once you said when you don’t play you are very melancholy or sometimes depressed.  Is that still true?

CB: Oh yes, I think so because I guess I must have been allowed by whatever it is to survive this whole deal, because I was intended to play, to entertain people.  So that’s what I’m gonna try to do.

GE:  When you entertain, you mean you get in communication?

CB:  Yes.  And so far we’ve had a lot of communication in Germany – in Frankfurt, in Cologne – we had so many people, I mean you couldn’t move.  But they always have us play in these tiny little clubs.

GE:  Maybe you have the wrong manager.

CB:  No, he didn’t have anything to do with it.

GE:  You’re not interested in playing music that is not melodic, are you?

CB:  No, not really.  I can play free.  For me it’s easier to play free than the way we play, because you have to play within certain boundaries.  And the trick is to be fresh and melodic within those boundaries, so you can play any damned thing you want to.

GE:  If you want to make noise, you can make noise.

CB:  Yes, you can do anything.

GE:  But those boundaries, it’s just a technical aspect of the music.

CB:  Well, a harmonic aspect, harmonic boundaries.  When we play we turn the rhythm around pretty good.  We have a nice drummer, Jeff Brillinger, who was with ‘Woody Herman for a long time, but he’s working with me for a couple of years now.  So is Phil Markowitz.  And we have a bass player named John Burr, who was with Stan Getz.  I haven’t been in touch with him; he got a call from Stan so he wanted to try that but he should be here with us.  I’m mad at him.

GE:  When did you start to sing – before you started playing trumpet or afterwards?

CB: Before, but not many people know that.

GE:  That’s what I thought about when I talked to you on the ’phone because the way you blow is the way you sing.

CB:  My dad was a musician but my mother wanted me to be a singer.  When I was about 12 or 13 she would drag me around to these things – at that time in America we had talent contests and things like that, you know.

GE:  Popular music?

CB:  Not just music – tap dancers, harmonica players, accordion – and I got up there and I was very small for my age and sang these ballads with a high little voice.  I never did win.  I came in second once to a girl tap dancer.

GE:  You never expected you could make a career as a singer?

CB:  No, I never thought about it too much.  I was too busy being a kid.

GE:  Maybe after the thing happened where they beat out your teeth and you weren’t able to play the trumpet – didn’t you have the thought: “Maybe I could do it?”

CB:  No, it never occurred to me that I could get by only by singing, because most people still don’t think of me as a singer.

GE:  But you think of yourself as a singer?

CB:  I can perhaps sing better than I play, I think.  It comes easier.  It’s much more easy for me to do, because I’m not too big.  I weigh about 135 pounds and it’s not very much to play trumpet, because I have a very big trumpet – it’s almost as hard to play as a flugelhorn.

GE:  And why did you choose the big one – because of the sound?

CB:  Because of the voice that it has.  It takes a lot of energy to get it, but it’s worth it.

GE:  So you save energy when you sing?

CB:  Yes, it’s much easier to sing.  I don’t have to put out as much energy, except when I scat.  I’ve been doing quite a bit of scatting and that takes more energy because I never scat the same way twice.  It’s just like playing.  You try to always find a different way of saying it, a different way of phrasing it that’s melodic and, oh – I don’t know exactly how to say it.  And sometimes it moves so quickly that it’s hard to be able to hold it.  You’ll see tomorrow night.  You can actually see that it’s more difficult when I’m scatting.  You can see it’s a lot harder work, but it’s fine.

GE:  When you say you think about it doesn’t it come a lot of time out of your unconsciousness in the moment you do it?

CB:  Well, you have an instant to find that idea, just an instant, you know.  And then it’s time to get the idea out in time and at the end of that phrase, of that idea, you have an instant to find where you’re going to go next and you try to hit that note right on the head.  You’ll see.

GE:  Does Europe have a special meaning for your career?

CB:  Absolutely.  It’s very strange, but I could work in Europe, I think, year ’round.

But in the states, it’s quite different because I don’t play Las Vegas, although I don’t know why because I’ve been told that the group’s appeal is such that it could be utilized in a lot nicer atmosphere, nicer rooms.  But then you wouldn’t be playing for the people what know what you are doing.  You’d be playing for people that just have a lot of money.  So we stay in the jazz clubs and we work in New York every three or four months for a week and the rest of the time. . . . .

GE:  You have no college concerts?

CB:  Well, there are a lot of college concerts, but so far I haven’t been able to find anybody to connect me with them, you know.  I guess I’m not big enough.

GE:  I thought you still had a big name?

CB:  I don’t know.  I’d like to play at colleges, just to play for the younger people because those are the people I need to get to.  Maybe I’ll have an opportunity in the next year.  James is going to work on it.  I just met James a few months ago and he’s got all the right qualities and the aggressiveness, the energy, I think, to help me a lot, because I don’t have that.  I don’t want to get involved in that aspect of it.

GE:  Back to Europe.  Would you say you have had the saddest moments of your life here?

CB:  No, I wouldn’t say that at all.  Actually, I haven’t had – except in Italy and I made a vacation out of that.  In England and in Germany, they didn’t want to hurt me too badly.  I think they were just trying to protect me.

GE:  That’s a very nice way of saying it. 

CB:  Well, I believe that, because they only held me for a short time and then they sent me out of the country.  I don’t think it’s right that they should make me stay out for 15 years, though.  I mean, I didn’t exactly rob the First Berlin National Bank.  All I did was go to two doctors.  It’s ridiculous. But anyway, that’s over.

GE:  What are your hopes for the future.

CB:  When you say future, future can mean different things to different people, depending on how old you are.  I’m almost 50 – I’ll be 49 this month.  I’ve never had a home.  I’d like to be able to perform, to entertain people and to earn, to be able to find some place to sit down when I’m too old to play anymore.  I figure I probably have maybe another ten years of playing.

GE:  But don‘t you think the music of the last ten years is so loud and aggressive that people have a longing for pretty and quiet and melodic music?

CB:  Well, I would imagine so.  I would think they’d be getting tired of the disco beat, but the kids like to dance and that’s cool.

GE:  There’s not only music for dancing.

CB:  That’s right.  There is so much bad music and I think that the people that play it over the air and keep cramming it down everyone’s throat are really the ones that are hanging up things the most.  But then I guess they only reflect the taste of the majority of the people.  But when people are young, let’s face it, they just don’t know what’s happening.

GE:  If they don’t get exposed to something. . . . .

CB:  They’ll never know if they don’t get exposed to it.  They’ll never be able to make a decision to say, “Hey, that’s nice too.”  You have the same things here on the air, I noticed, as the majority of the stations in the States have.

GE:  That doesn’t mean they always are doing this.  They always try to produce jazz programs, beautiful music 

CB:  Well, that may be in a city like Stuttgart, but, for example, where we played in Schongau the promoter of the concert told me the mayor of the town helped them out on the first jazz concert in a financial way or in some way because it was jazz.  We were the second one.  After the first one, the city withdrew it’s support because it was jazz.  They said anything classical but if it’s jazz music we won’t help you.  Now that is strange, you know.  What can you say about it, that jazz music is not serious?

GE:  They don’t know.

CB:  I know they don’t know.  God bless them.

CONVERSATION WITH DAVE BRUBECK
November 8 & 9, 1994
By Betty Little

Imagine our surprise when we called the Brubeck offices to arrange a time for the interview as instructed and a male voice answered,  “I’m sorry, (Iola’s) not in, but this is Dave, may I help you?”  That was only the beginning.  When we congratulated him on his induction into the Down Beat Hall of Fame, he said, “What?”  We repeated the news and he asked, “Why didn’t they tell me?”

It was deja-vu all over again.  In 1990 when we first talked to Chet’s widow, Carol Baker, she was unaware that Chet had been inducted in 1989.
RUBECK YESTERDAY 

Brubeck made the cover of TIME Magazine on November 8, 1954, and was the proverbial overnight sensation; although his first commercial recording was released in 1949.  The TIME article heralded “the New Jazz Age,” noted Brubeck’s success on college campuses, and spotlighted – complete with photographs – other leaders in West Coast Jazz, who TIME referred to as “Modernists:”  Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Shorty Rogers.  Despite the article's accolades, many critics did not agree.  Whether his commercial success or his innovations with counter-rhythm were the reasons, many critics discounted Brubeck’s music, we can only guess.  Today, the critics are recognizing his unique contributions both as a composer and performer.

Gene Lees, respected author and jazz critic, writes about his first response to Brubeck’s music in the ‘50’s, “. . . I was intimidated by those I thought must know more than I, keeping an uncourageous silence about Dave’s playing, though I always recognized his gifts as a composer.”  He continues, “Listening to the Sony reissue (TIME SIGNATURES, a 4 CD retrospective of Dave’s recordings) I made the rediscovery of one of the most interesting and individual piano players jazz has produced.  The public was right; the critics were wrong.  Dave Brubeck, part Modoc Indian, is one of the great jazz musicians.”  (According to Dave, “Gene insists that the Indian on the buffalo nickel is proof enough.  Actually, I’m not positive of this heritage.  If it’s true, I’m proud of it.”)

Gene Lee’s book, JAZZ, BLACK AND WHITE, CATS OF ANY COLOR, New York, Oxford Press, 1994, is the third collections of essays from his Newsletter, JAZZLETTER, to be published.  The book is a treasure trove of information for jazz fans, with pieces on musicians:  Dave Brubeck, Horace Silver, Red Rodney, Benny Golson, et al.  The chapter, “Jazz Black and White,” is a sensitive and much needed discussion on the anti-white bias in jazz.

Brueck has always hated racism and Lees reports that in World War II Dave organized the first integrated military jazz band.  This was no USO show packaged in the states;  Dave was a regular enlisted man stationed in Germany.  The night before he was to go on a very dangerous mission to knock out German guns that were shelling the American troops, he and three others were ordered to organize a band.  Most of the musicians had been in battle and won Purple Hearts which they wore while playing gigs near the front lines.  Dave stayed with the band for the rest of the war.

He carried a Bible and a copy of Spengler’s DECLINE OF THE WEST in his backpack during the war.  Lees found Dave’s heavily underlined copy of the Spengler in Bart’s used bookstore on Ojai, California.  The next day was the Brubeck’s wedding anniversary.  Lees and the bookstore owner gave the book to Dave and Iola as an anniversary gift.  Dave was delighted to receive the treasured book which had mysteriously disappeared then miraculously reappeared.  (Hope these teasers will inspire you to get Lees book; it’s a wonderful read.)

Dave’s collaboration with Paul Desmond produced some of jazz’s most beautiful music, and one of the most paradoxical relationships in the history of the genre.  Fire and Ice, Oil and Water – most any metaphor of opposites could apply.

Doug Ramsey wrote the 40 page liner notes for TIME SIGNATURES, the CD collection which Lees credits for his critical revision of Dave’s work as a jazz pianist.  Ramsey tells about how the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond almost didn’t happen.  Paul was leading a group with Dave on piano at the Band Box in Palo Alto when he accepted a short gig in Feather River, promising to re-join the group.  Paul didn’t return as promised and Dave, who had Iola and two small kids to support, ended up taking a gig for scale which also provided housing – a corrugated tin enclosure.  The heat was so intense they had to get out during the day.  How’s that for unforgettable “ Following the “short gig” Desmond took a job with Jack Fina’s band, then he went on the road with Alvino Rey.

After the “tin shack” engagement, things began to happen for Dave’s group.  Paul heard one of the recordings and wanted to join Dave’s group.  According to Ramsey’s recounting by Iola, Paul shows up at the Brubeck’s house asking to talk with Dave.  “’…Iola urged Dave to see Paul who said, “’If you’ll just let me play with you, I’ll babysit, I’ll wash your car.’”  The partnership, which lasted until Paul’s death, was established with a handshake.                                  BRUBECK TODAY

When we spoke with Brubeck, he had just returned from playing in two jazz festivals – one in San Francisco and a second in Redondo Beach.  He was delighted that his music has gained positive critical recognition after all these years.  The festivals were reunions and reaffirmations. 

Betty Little: What about the festivals? 

Dave Brubeck: In San Francisco, Gerry Mulligan’s Quartet and my Quartet played, then Gerry and I

played a duet.  At the end, we did a piece where my bass player and drummer came out.  At the Redondo Beach Jazz Festival, Gerry played one night, and we played two nights later.  The Redondo Beach Festival was kind of a tribute to the West Coast jazz people who were still around.  It was very successful. 

BL: It’s ironic that in the’50’s the critics more or less put down West Coast jazz, but the public liked  it.  Now the critics are beginning to understand West Coast jazz and are giving you, Paul, Gerry, Chet and a lot of others their due. 

DB: Yeah, it’s just starting to happen.  Did you see the new Gene Lee’s book? 

BL: Yes, I have it.  I’m impressed that you seem to be an atypical jazz man.   You’ve been very successful.  You go on the road, but you have very close family ties.  How did you manage that? 

DB: Well, a lot of credit goes to my wife, and I also planned a lot of things where I took my two oldest sons with me.  In 1958, we played all over Europe and then we went behind the Iron Curtin, and played in Poland and Turkey.  Then I had to send the kids home because the State Department didn’t want them to go into some areas that were not so secure like Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, and some other places. 

BL: You seem so laid back … such a comfortable person but in World War II Gene Lees’ book describes how you were really in the thick of things.  I enjoyed reading the wonderful story about how he got your book back.

DB: Yeah (laughs). 

BL: Would you mind commenting on some of the recordings listed in the  Down Beat article discography? 

DB: Okay. 

BL: JUST YOU, JUST ME. 

DB: I’m surprised that everybody’s loving it, even the critics. 

BL: LATE NIGHT. 

DB: LATE NIGHT I like, and the next album out is a sequal to LATE NIGHT.  It’s gonna be called JAMMIN’ AT THE BLUE NOTE, and will be coming out in March of next year.  (This CD was released as NIGHTSHIFT) 

BL: TRIO BRUBECK 

DB: Yeah, with Danny and Cris (Brubeck’s sons).  Boy I like that album. 

BL: TIME SIGNATURES. 

DB: That’s really a great four CD box.  Doug Ramsey did the notes and he’s doing the notes on JAMMIN’ AT THE BLUE NOTE (NIGHTSHIFT). 

BL: NEW WINE DB: That’s with the symphony orchestra up in Canada at Montreal.  Yeah, that’s a nice album. 

BL: MOSCOW NIGHT. 

DB: Yeah, that’s really a dynamite album.  I think I’m playing really at my peak in “Tritonis.” 

BL: BLUE RONDO. 

DB: Yep, good. 

BL: FOR IOLA. 

DB: Yeah, good 

BL: ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE. 

DB: That’s really a far out album. 

BL: TIME OUT.  Do you ever get tired of playing “Take Five?” 

DB: No.  Any tune you play differently every night.  If you get tired of playing it it’s because you’re not improvising. 

BL: Well, I thought maybe you had played it a hundred million times. 

DB: Well, that doesn’t make any difference. 

BL: GONE WITH THE WIND 

DB:Yeah, that’s a nice album. 

BL: JAZZ GOES TO COLLEGE 

DB: Yeah 

BL: DAVE DIGS DISNEY. 

DB: They just re-released it on CD and there are two new tracks that I forgot I ever recorded. 

BL:  JAZZ AT OBERLIN. 

DB: OBERLIN is really fantastic. 

BL: JAZZ AT THE COLLEGE OF THE PACIFIC. 

DB: PACIFIC is really good, too. 

BL: Did they leave out any of your favorites? 

DB: Well, there would be a lot of other things.  I think I made 108 albums. 

BL: We wondered why they left out the 1975 DUETS album with Paul.  We have always been fascinated because you and Paul seemed to have such different personalities, yet the musical marriage was just great. 

DB: Yeah, it worked very well right through his last concert with me and my sons. 

BL: We certainly miss him. 

DB: Yeah. 

BL: We were amazed at your tolerance in the early ‘50’s when you agreed to work with Paul. 

DB: (Laughs) 

BL: Were you amazed? 

DB: Yeah, I was.  You had to have a lot of patience with Paul. 

BL: It sounded as though Mrs. Brubeck was very good with people and relationships and helped you two over the rough spots. 

DB: Yeah, right. 

BL:  In terms of your musical influences, who comes to mind immediately? 

DB: Oh, I think my mother, brothers and everybody I heard. 

BL: Are there any artists you listen to a lot? 

DB: Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Stan Kenton, Bix Biderbeck, of course Louie Armstroong and Duke Ellington – all the pioneers I listen to. 

BL: We were fascinated to learn that you didn’t read music that well and you were a senior music major in college when some faculty discovered it.  Could you say a bit about that? 

DB: Well, I’ve known quite a few guys, and Chet was one of them, that didn’t read that well.  I met Chet when he was about 18 years old.  When he was in the Army in San Francisco he used to come and sit in.  That was before he’d met Charlie Parker or Gerry or anybody, so I’d known him probably earlier than most people you associate Chet with.  I’d say, “Chet , what do you want to play?”  He’d say, “Oh, anything.”  I’d suggest a tune and I’d ask, “What key?” and he’d say , “Oh, you just start.”  I started realizing he didn’t think in terms of key or think in terms of the way most other musicians thought.  He was just totally natural.  So you’d start a tune and he’d come in right after the introduction or the first few bars.  I would say he was the most natural musician I have ever been around. 

BL: How was Chet to work with? 

DB: Great. 

BL: In Doug Ramsey’s notes for TIME SIGNATURES, he writes that when you studied with Milhaud he encouraged you to do it your own way. 

DB: Right. 

BL: What do you remember most about him? 

DB: Well, he was absolutely for me being a jazz musician.  He thought any American composer should use the jazz idiom, or he wouldn’t express his culture.  He was the first one to use jazz in classical music, called “Creation of the World.”  There is a good Bernstein recording on Columbia. 

BL:  Have you been influenced by jazz gospel blues? 

DB: Oh, yeah.  I think one of the most wonderful things in Americ