[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 171 (Monday, December 31, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S8586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING DAVE BRUBECK

  Mrs BOXER. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring 
Dave Brubeck, the iconic jazz musician and composer who defined and 
popularized modern jazz during a pioneering career that spanned seven 
decades. Mr. Brubeck passed away on December 5, a day before his 92nd 
birthday, in Wilton, CT.
  Dave Brubeck was born in Concord, California, on December 6, 1920. 
When he was 11, Dave's family moved to the town of Ione in the rolling 
Sierra foothills of Amador County, where his father, Pete, managed a 
cattle ranch, and his mother, Elizabeth, a classically-trained pianist, 
taught Dave and his two brothers how to play various musical 
instruments. Although his poor eyesight kept him from reading music, 
this determined young musician learned mostly by listening, and his 
abundant musical talents made him a popular feature at local events by 
the time he was a teenager.
  At the College of the Pacific, Dave initially studied veterinary 
medicine before switching to music after one year. It was there that he 
met Iola Whitlock, a schoolmate who became his wife in 1942. Almost 
immediately upon graduation, he was drafted into the Army, where his 
standout performance as part of a travelling Red Cross show prompted a 
commanding officer to assign him to form a band to play for the troops 
in combat areas. He recruited black and white musicians to play 
together in his 18-piece band, the Wolfpack Band.
  After the war, Dave returned home to study music on a GI bill 
scholarship at Mills College under the tutelage of French composer 
Darius Milhaud. During this period, he met the musicians who would 
later form the Dave Brubeck Quartet. With Mr. Brubeck at the helm, the 
quartet's unique and groundbreaking style earned wide acclaim and a 
legion of fans from across the country, and eventually from around the 
world. In 1954, in recognition of his fame and prodigious talents, he 
was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. In 1959, the quartet's 
recording of ``Take Five'' became the first jazz single to sell a 
million copies. Over the years, he would produce other iconic jazz hits 
such as ``Time Out'' and ``It's a Raggy Waltz,'' record more than a 
hundred albums, and even write two ballets.
  A man of strong convictions, Mr. Brubeck used his musical gifts and 
celebrity to stand up for principles and causes in which he believed. 
In 1958, at the invitation of the U.S. State Department, he led the 
quartet on a good will tour that introduced jazz music to countries and 
audiences behind the Iron Curtain and in the Middle East. That same 
year, he refused to tour in South Africa when promoters insisted that 
his band be all white.
  Mr. Brubeck performed for eight presidents and composed the entrance 
music for Pope John Paul II's 1987 visit to Candlestick Park in San 
Francisco. He was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the 
Arts and received a Kennedy Center Honor for his contribution to 
American culture. His alma mater, now known as the University of the 
Pacific, established the Brubeck Institute to further his lifelong work 
and goal to use the power of music to ``transform lives as well as to 
enlighten and entertain.''
  On behalf of the people of his home state of California, I extend my 
deepest sympathies to Dave Brubeck's wife of 70 years, Iola; sons 
Darius, Chris, Dan and Matthew; daughter Catherine Yaghsizian; 10 
grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Dave Brubeck was an 
American treasure, and he will be dearly missed.

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