Dave Brubeck: Endless curiosity combined with stubbornness The only time I talked to Dave Brubeck was five years ago, just as he was about to entertain friends at a July 4 barbecue at his farmhouse in Connecticut. He'd been out for his first walk since injuring his knee while recording the solo album Indian Summer. Everyone had advised him to put off the session, but he was determined to keep going. "It hurt like hell by the end of the day," said this ruminative, gentle voice down the telephone. But I just wanted to do it. It was a telling story. Another one was his memory of working on his father's ranch as a teenager and listening to the odd rhythms of animals and machinery in movement. He recalled a little water pump with a fascinating lopsided rhythm that he would listen to for hours. The other thing that fascinated him was the music of the Mexican and Native American workers, which years later worked their way into his own music. Brubeck didn't have the réclame of some jazz musicians who lead tragic lives. He didn't do drugs or drink. What he had was endless curiosity combined with stubbornness. The pianist loved to take odd rhythms and play with them. Take Five and Blue Rondo à la Turk are the famous examples of this playfulness. They're among those pieces that everyone knows without knowing their names, and they've overshadowed others that are just as strong, such as Unsquare Dance and In Your Own Sweet Way, which became a standard in the Fifties. Though he was a prophet of the current trend for bringing world music into jazz, Brubeck wasn't a complete outsider. Listen to his performance on YouTube of St Louis Blues with Gerry Mulligan and you'll realise he could swing as much as anybody. He was a phenomenally hard-working band leader, playing the college circuit every year with his quartet until the late Sixties, when he focused more on composition. His work list is astonishing, including oratorios, musicals and concertos, as well as hundreds of jazz compositions. This quiet man of jazz was truly a marvel.