Dave Brubeck,  is an American jazz pianist.  His music is known for employing unusual time signatures, and superimposing contrasting rhythms, meters, and tonalities.  His long-time musical partner, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, wrote the Dave Brubeck Quartet's best remembered piece, "Take Five", which is in 5/4 time and has endured as a jazz classic.  Brubeck experimented with time signatures throughout his career, recording "Pick Up Sticks" in 6/4, "Unsquare Dance" in 7/4, and "Blue Rondo à la Turk" in 9/8. He is also a respected composer of orchestral and sacred music, and wrote soundtracks for television such as Mr. Broadway and the animated miniseries This Is America, Charlie Brown. 

 In 1973 Brubeck formed another group with three of his sons, Darius on keyboards, Dan on drums, and Chris on electric bass or bass trombone. This group often included Perry Robinson, clarinet, and Jerry Bergonzi, saxophone. Brubeck would record and tour with this "Two Generations of Brubeck" group until 1978.

Darius Brubeck, is about a year younger than I.  He turned his father on to the sound of the electric piano.  In the summer of 1973 the Brubeck crew came to New Haven to perform a concert under the stars in the  

courtyard of the Yale Law School.   A rather intimate setting of grass criss-crossed with slate and flagstone walk ways surrounded on all four sides with the exterior architecture of the Yale Law School.  

I was discharged from active duty with the Air Force  in February of 1973.  I became the Director of the Afro-Am Center at Yale in March. That was the beginning of my career in higher education.  My part time career as a performing artist was still in tact but spotty. I played in local jam sessions and was able to put a group together for the odd appearance here and there in the greater New Haven area. So as it happened when the Law School's Annual Jazz Concert Under The Stars came around I was employed at Yale and not performing the night of the show which featured Dave Brubeck and his sons. 

In a previous post I told you about how I got drafted to play a concert on the mall of the elipse in Washington, DC.  It was deja vu all over again. Only this time it wasn't me it was my piano that was desparately needed. It turns out that while Darius Brubeck travelled with an electric piano, Dave, his father, did not.  It was part of the contract rider that the venue organizer/promoter was to provide the grand piano AND the electric piano for the senior Brubeck.  The Yale Law School geniuses missed it in the contract and were desperately looking for someone, anyone, who had an electric piano for Dave Brubeck to use during his performance that night. 

In mid-June, after all of the comencement ceremonies have been completed, the Yale campus is somewhat deserted.  The Law School puts on the concert just before the 2nd and 3rd year students have fully broken camp and begun to spread out to the four corners of the map for summer internships and the the newly graduated class begins preparation for bar exams all over the country. 

When they finally got around to calling the Afro-Am center in search of a music student who might be in possession of an electric piano......Well you know the rest of the story.  Except for this:  Just as the intermission  was to begin, Dave Brubeck took a microphone and acknowledged my heroic deed and insisted that I had saved the program and with that he asked me on to the stage and told the audience that I would provide them with the music for the interlude....

I can't remember what I played or even how I got through the 20 minutes but I do remember that I was warmly received and applauded again as I left the stage thinking that they couldn't have compensated me for the use of my piano with enough money to replace what Mr. Brubeck had done for me that night.  They had given me backstage credentials and access to refreshments reserved for performers and roadies but what I got from Dave Brubeck was absolutely priceless.  

I graduated from The University of Connecticut School of Law in 1971. Bill Clinton, is one day younger than I am. Both Bill And Hillary graduated from Yale Law School in 1973.  I can't be certain, but I believe they were in the audience that night.