Jazz great Dave Brubeck dies in Connecticut Jazz great Dave Brubeck dies in Connecticut Dave Brubeck died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn. Post to Facebook Jazz great Dave Brubeck dies in Connecticut Dave Brubeck died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: CancelSend A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. 52 To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs Jazz great Dave Brubeck dies in Connecticut Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY Published 12:00 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2012 | Updated 4:47 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2012 x Share azz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck, whose pioneering style in pieces such as "Take Five" caught listeners' ears with exotic, challenging rhythms, has died. (Dec. 5) The jazz musician was one day shy of his 92nd birthday. American composer, pianist and jazz musician Dave Brubeck.

(Photo: AP) Jazz musician Dave Brubeck died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn., his longtime manager-producer-conductor Russell Gloyd tells the Chicago Tribune . Brubeck, who would have turned 92 on Thursday, died of heart failure, en route to "a regular treatment with his cardiologist," said Gloyd. STORY: Brubeck defied convention A birthday party was planned in the town of Wilton, Conn., featuring his son, Darius Brubeck; Richie Cannata, sax player for Billy Joel; and Bernie Williams, former New York Yankees star. The pianist, regarded as one of the greatest of American jazz musicians, reached pop star status with recordings including Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk, both of which appeared on Brubeck's acclaimed 1959 album, Time Out. Both also showcased Brubeck's fondness for unusual time signatures. Take Five is in 5/4 time; Blue Rondo is in 9/8 time. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Dave Brubeck, a pioneering jazz composer and pianist, died Dec.

5 of heart failure, after being stricken while on his way to a cardiology appointment with his son. He would have turned 92 on Dec. 6. In this July 2007 file photo, Brubeck is seen rehearsing at Sirius Satellite Radio studios in New York. Richard Drew, AP According to Brubeck's website, he first began playing in nightclubs in California at the age of 14. Sony Music Entertainment Recorded with The Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1959, 'Time Out' was the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies. It includes Brubeck's signature piece, 'Take Five.' Sony Music Entertainment An undated photo of Brubeck, on piano, with the other members of the quartet, Paul Desmond on saxophone, Eugene Wright on bass and Joe Morello on drums. Sony Music Entertainment Brubeck, seated, at work in the studio with his son Chris Brubeck and James Moody. Brubeck toured with three of his sons, billing themselves as 'Two Generations of Brubeck.' Jack Renner, TelArc Host Ramsey Lewis, left, with Brubeck and Dr.

Billy Taylor on the 2006 television show 'Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis.' Taylor died on Dec. 28, 2010. LRS Media Still performing in his late 80s, Brubeck played at the Great Night In Harlem benefit concert at the Apollo Theater in May 2008 in New York. Jim Spellman, WireImage Brubeck, seated, shares a moment with his fellow Kennedy Center honorees, from left, Grace Bumbry, Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen and Mel Brooks at the State Department following the Kennedy Center Honors gala dinner in December 2009. Kevin Wolf, AP Like this topic? You may also like these photo galleries: Replay Sitar legend Ravi Shankar dies at 92 - CNN.com Sitar legend Ravi Shankar dies at 92 By Ben Brumfield, CNN Updated 9:03 AM ET, Thu December 13, 2012 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Pandit Ravi Shankar died Tuesday, December 11, at age 92. The legendary sitar player brought Indian music to the West and taught Beatle George Harrison how to play the instrument. Hide Caption Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Among Shankar's survivors is his daughter, musician Norah Jones. Hide Caption 2 of 10 Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Shankar performs with his daughter, Anoushka Shankar, right, in London in June 2008 during his final tour of Europe. Hide Caption 3 of 10 Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Shankar poses with Beatle George Harrison, left, and Harrison's wife, model Patti Boyd, in August 1972. Hide Caption Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Shankar plays his sitar in 1966.

Hide Caption 5 of 10 Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Shankar walks the streets of London with his sitar during a visit circa 1967. Hide Caption 6 of 10 Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Shankar's wife, Sukanya Shankar, poses with her husband and Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Hide Caption 7 of 10 Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Harrison and Shankar worked together on recordings and tours in the 1970s. Hide Caption Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Shankar practices with tabla player Alla Rakha in 1967. Hide Caption 9 of 10 Photos: Photos: Sitar legend Ravi Shankar Sitar legend Ravi Shankar – Shankar plays during the Premaanjali Festival 2012 on February 7 at the palace in Bangalore, India.

Hide Caption Ringo Starr: "Ravi was a great loss musically, spiritually and physically" Shankar taught Beatle George Harrison to play the sitar India's prime minister praises the man and his music His ethereal sound embodied Eastern transcendence for Westerners His music transcended trends and cultural barriers. Pandit Ravi Shankar's life, which traversed nearly a century, ended Tuesday. The legendary sitar player, who taught Beatle George Harrison how to play the stringed instrument and brought Indian music to the West, passed away at age 92 in the early evening in San Diego, near his home, according to his wife, Sukanya, and daughter Anoushka Shankar, who were by his side. Shankar was the father of jazz singer Norah Jones as well. He is also survived by three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, according to his record label, East Meets West Music. His health had suffered over the past year, according to a statement from his record label, and he underwent heart valve replacement surgery last Thursday. "Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the surgeons and doctors taking care of him, his body was not able to withstand the strain of the surgery," his wife and daughter said.

JUST WATCHED Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Harry Carey Jr ., an actor best known for his characters in Western movies, died December 27 at age 91. He had appeared in nearly 100 films during his career. Hide Caption 1 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf , who commanded coalition forces during the Gulf War, died Thursday, December 27, a U.S. official said. He was 78. Hide Caption 2 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Character actor Charles Durning died December 24 at 89, according to his family.

He won Tony and Golden Globe awards and received two Oscar nominations as best supporting actor, including for "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" (1982) and "To Be or Not to Be (1983). Hide Caption 3 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Actor Jack Klugman , best known for playing messy sportswriter Oscar Madison in TV's "The Odd Couple," died December 24 at age 90. Klugman won two Emmys for his role in the sitcom, plus won an Emmy in 1964 for a role in "The Defenders." Klugman also starred in "Quincy, M.E." as medical examiner Dr. R. Quincy from 1976 to 1983. Hide Caption 4 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Conservative jurist Robert H. Bork died on December 19 at age 85 at his home in Virginia, sources close to his family told CNN.

Bork was best known for being nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987, only to be rejected after a contentious confirmation battle. Hide Caption 5 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the U.S. Senate's second-longest serving member, has died at 88, his office announced December 17. Hide Caption 6 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar died December 11 at age 92. The legendary sitar player brought Indian music to the West and taught Beatle George Harrison how to play the stringed instrument. Among his survivors is daughter Norah Jones, the pop and jazz singer.

Hide Caption 7 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Singer Jenni Rivera , 43, died when the small plane she was traveling in crashed in the mountains of northern Mexico, her brother told CNN. The plane wreckage was found Sunday, December 9. Hide Caption 8 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck , 91, died December 5 from heart failure, said his manager, Russell Gloyd. Hide Caption 9 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Puerto Rican boxer Hector "Macho" Camacho died on November 24. A gunman shot him in the face in front of a bar in his hometown of Bayamon. Hide Caption 10 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Actor Larry Hagman , who played scheming oil tycoon J.R.

Ewing on "Dallas," died November 23 of complications from cancer. He was 81. Hide Caption 11 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Native American activist Russell Means died October 22 from throat cancer, an Oglala Lakota Sioux nation representative said. Hide Caption 12 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Former Sen. George McGovern , 90, died on October 21. McGovern was the Democratic nominee for president in 1972. He ran against incumbent Richard Nixon and won only 17 electoral votes to Nixon's 520. He served in the U.S. Senate and House representing South Dakota before his loss for the top office. Hide Caption 13 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Former U.S. Sen.

Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania died at age 82 of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on October 14 at his home in Philadelphia, his family said. Specter served five terms as a Republican senator and switched political affiliation in 2009. Hide Caption 14 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – TV and radio personality Gary Collins -- seen here in "Hour Magazine" and also known for his roles in television series including "The Sixth Sense" and "The Wackiest Ship in the Army" -- died on October 13, according to officials in Harrison County, Mississippi. He was 74. Hide Caption 15 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Former NFL player and actor Alex Karras died on October 10 in Los Angeles, a family spokesman said. He was 77.

Hide Caption 16 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Legendary singer Andy Williams , known for his smooth voice and classics such as "Moon River," died after a yearlong battle with bladder cancer at his Branson, Missouri, home on September 25. He was 84. Hide Caption 17 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Actor John Ingle , who played patriarch Edward Quartermaine on ABC's "General Hospital," died September 15 at age 84. Hide Caption 18 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Michael Clarke Duncan , nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the 1999 film "The Green Mile," "suffered a myocardial infarction on July 13 and never fully recovered," a written statement from Joy Fehily said. He died September 3 at age 54.

Hide Caption 19 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Hal David , the lyricist behind such standards as "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "What the World Needs Now is Love," died September 1 at age 91. Hide Caption 20 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Neil Armstrong , the American astronaut who made "one giant leap for mankind" when he became the first man to walk on the moon, died August 25. He was 82. Hide Caption 21 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Helen Gurley Brown – Helen Gurley Brown , former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine and author of "Sex and the Single Girl," died on August 13 at age 90.

Hide Caption 22 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Puppeteer Jerry Nelson , famous for lending his voice to Muppets on "Sesame Street," "The Muppet Show" and "Fraggle Rock," died August 23. He was 78. Hide Caption 23 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi , a strongman in the troubled Horn of Africa and a key United States ally, died on August 20 at the age of 57. Hide Caption 24 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Comedian Phyllis Diller , known for her self-deprecating humor, died "peacefully in her sleep" on August 20. She was 95.

Hide Caption 25 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Film director Tony Scott left notes in his car and office before plunging to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, California, a Los Angeles County coroner official said. Scott died August 19 at age 68. Hide Caption 26 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Actor Ron Palillo , who played class clown Arnold Horshack on the 1970s television comedy "Welcome Back, Kotter," died from a heart attack at age 63 on August 14. Hide Caption 27 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Marvin Hamlisch , a prolific American composer, died August 6 after a more than four-decade career that spanned film, music, television and theater. He was 68.

Hide Caption 28 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Writer Gore Vidal died July 31 of complications from pneumonia, a nephew said. He was 86. Hide Caption 29 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – At 69, actress Lupe Ontiveros , who co-starred in the hit films "Selena" and "As Good As It Gets," died of liver cancer on July 26. Hide Caption 30 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Sherman Hemsley , who played the brash George Jefferson on "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons," died July 24 at age 74.

Hide Caption 31 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 sally ride obit – Sally Ride , the first American woman to fly in space, died after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer on July 23. She was 61. Hide Caption 32 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Kitty Wells – Country legend Kitty Wells died on July 16, due to complications from a stroke. She was 92. Hide Caption 33 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Keyboard player Jon Lord , who fused classical and heavy metal to make Deep Purple one of the biggest rock bands in the world, died July 16 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71. Hide Caption 34 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Oscar-winning actress Celeste Holm died at her home in New York on July 15 at the age of 95.

Here Holm, center, appears in 1950's "All About Eve" with Garry Merrill, from left, Bette Davis and Hugh Marlow. Hide Caption 35 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – On July 8, film and television actor Ernest Borgnine, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a lovelorn butcher in 1955's "Marty," died at age 95. Hide Caption 36 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Actor Andy Griffith , who played folksy Sheriff Andy Taylor in the fictional town of Mayberry, died July 3 at the age of 86.

Hide Caption 37 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Nora Ephron , the screenwriter and director whose sharp, edgy romantic comedies featuring strong women took her to the top ranks of a film industry mostly dominated by men, died June 26 at age 71. Hide Caption 38 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Ray Bradbury – Science fiction author Ray Bradbury , whose imagination yielded classic books such as "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes," died at 91 on June 5. Hide Caption 39 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Former "Family Feud" host Richard Dawson died on June 2 at the age of 79.

Hide Caption 40 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Doc Watson – Bluegrass guitarist and singer Doc Watson died at 89 on May 29 after struggling to recover from colon surgery. Hide Caption 41 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Robin Gibb , one of three brothers who made up the Bee Gees, the group behind "Saturday Night Fever" and other iconic sounds from the 1970s, died on May 20. He was 62. Gibb died "following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery," a statement said. Hide Caption 42 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Donna Summer , the "Queen of Disco" whose hits included "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "Love to Love You Baby" and "She Works Hard for the Money," died May 17. She was 63.

Hide Caption 43 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Mexican author Carlos Fuentes died on May 15 at the age of 83. Hide Caption 44 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Donald "Duck" Dunn , left, the bass player who laid the musical floor beneath soul legends like Booker T. and the MGs, Sam and Dave and Otis Redding, died May 13. He was 70. Hide Caption 45 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Carroll Shelby , famous for creating high-performance road and racing cars bearing his name, died on May 10 in Dallas. He was 89. His name is probably most associated with the Cobra and the Shelby line of Ford Mustang-based performance cars.

Hide Caption 46 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – British-Israeli hairdresser Vidal Sassoon died on May 9 at the age of 84. Hide Caption 47 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Maurice Sendak – Maurice Sendak , author of "Where the Wild Things Are" and illustrator of nearly 100 books, died at age 83 on May 8. Hide Caption 48 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – George Lindsey , the actor who portrayed the country-bumpkin mechanic Goober Pyle on "The Andy Griffith Show," died May 6 after a brief illness, his family said. He was 83.

Hide Caption 49 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Adam "MCA" Yauch , a founding member of the pioneering rap band Beastie Boys, died on May 4 after a nearly three-year battle with cancer. He was 47. Hide Caption 50 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Levon Helm , the drummer, multi-instrumentalist and singer for The Band who kept the band's heart for more than three decades, died "peacefully" April 19, according to his record label, Vanguard Records. He was 71. Hide Caption 51 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Junior Seau – Junior Seau , linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 2.

Hide Caption 52 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Television host Dick Clark poses for a portrait circa 1968. The longtime host of the influential "American Bandstand" died April 18 after suffering a heart attack. He was 82. Hide Caption 53 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella died on April 11 at the age of 96. Hide Caption 54 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Mike Wallace – Mike Wallace , who spent four decades as a hard-hitting, provocative news correspondent on CBS' "60 Minutes," died at 93 on April 7. Hide Caption 55 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Thomas Kinkade – Artist Thomas Kinkade , the self-described "painter of light," died from accidental overdose of alcohol and Valium at age 54 on April 6.

Hide Caption 56 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Porsche 911 designer Ferdinand Alexander Porsche died on April 5 at the age of 76. Hide Caption 57 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Earl Scruggs , whose distinctive picking style and association with Lester Flatt cemented bluegrass music's place in popular culture, died March 28 of natural causes at a Nashville hospital. He was 88. Hide Caption 58 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Doobie Brothers drummer Michael Hossack died at his home in Dubois, Wyoming, on March 11 at the age of 65 after battling cancer for some time.

Hide Caption 59 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Jimmy Ellis , who belted out the dance anthem "Disco Inferno" in the 1970s for the Trammps, died on March 8 at 74 years old. Here, the Trammps in 1973: From left, Earl Young, seated, Harold Wade, Jimmy Ellis, Stanley Wade and Robert Upchurch. Hide Caption 60 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Andrew Breitbart – Andrew Breitbart , editor and founder of the conservative blog BigGovernment.com, died at age 43 of natural causes on March 1. His posting of an explicit photo U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner sent to Twitter followers led to Weiner's downfall.

Hide Caption 61 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Davy Jones , whose charming grin and British accent won the hearts of millions of fans on the 1960s television series "The Monkees," died on February 29 at age 66. Hide Caption 62 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Gary Carter – Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Mets Gary Carter lost a battle to brain cancer at age 57 on February 16. Hide Caption 63 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack in Syria on February 16.

Hide Caption 64 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – The news broke on the eve of the Grammy Awards, the music industry's biggest night: The woman with the pitch-perfect voice who once reigned as the queen of pop at the awards show had died. Whitney Houston was found dead by her bodyguard on February 11. She was 48. Hide Caption 65 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – The last known surviving veteran of World War I died on February 4. Florence Green , 110, was a waitress in Britain's Royal Air Force. Hide Caption 66 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Don Cornelius , the founder of the "Soul Train" television show, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head on February 1. It was later ruled a suicide. He was 75.

Hide Caption 67 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Robert Hegyes , known for his role as Juan Epstein on the '70s sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter," died on January 26. He was 60. Hide Caption 68 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Actor James Farentino , whose television acting career began in the early 1960s, died on January 24. He was 73. Hide Caption 69 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 Joe Paterno – Longtime Penn State Coach Joe Paterno -- whose tenure as the most successful coach in major college football history ended abruptly in November 2011 amid allegations that he failed to respond forcefully enough to a sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant -- died January 22, his family said. He was 85.

Hide Caption 70 of 71 Photos: Photos: People we've lost in 2012 People we've lost in 2012 – Etta James , whose assertive, earthy voice lit up such hits as "The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the wedding favorite "At Last," died on January 20. She was 73. Hide Caption Dave Brubeck, Jazz Musician, Dies at 91 - The New York Times The New York Times Music |Dave Brubeck, Whose Distinctive Sound Gave Jazz New Pop, Dies at 91 Search Photo Dave Brubeck performed at a jazz festival in 2010. Credit Joe Giblin/Associated Press Dave Brubeck , the pianist and composer who helped make jazz popular again in the 1950s and ’60s with recordings like “Time Out,” the first jazz album to sell a million copies, and “Take Five,” the still instantly recognizable hit single that was that album’s centerpiece, died on Wednesday in Norwalk, Conn. He would have turned 92 on Thursday.

He died while on his way to a cardiology appointment, Russell Gloyd, his producer, conductor and manager for 36 years, said. Mr. Brubeck lived in Wilton, Conn. In a long and successful career, Mr. Brubeck brought a distinctive mixture of experimentation and accessibility that won over listeners who had been trained to the sonic dimensions of the three-minute pop single. Mr. Brubeck experimented with time signatures and polytonality and explored musical theater and the oratorio, baroque compositional devices and foreign modes. He did not always please the critics, who often described his music as schematic, bombastic and — a word he particularly disliked — stolid. But his very stubbornness and strangeness — the blockiness of his playing, the oppositional push-and-pull between his piano and Paul Desmond’s alto saxophone — make the Brubeck quartet’s best work still sound original.

Continue reading the main story Outside of the group’s most famous originals, which had the charm and durability of pop songs ( “Blue Rondo à la Turk,” “It’s a Raggy Waltz” and “Take Five”), some of its best work was in its overhauls of standards like “You Go to My Head,” “All the Things You Are” and “Pennies From Heaven.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story David Warren Brubeck was born on Dec. 6, 1920, in Concord, Calif., near San Francisco. Surrounded by farms, his family lived a bucolic life: his father, Pete, was a cattle buyer for a meat company, and his mother, Elizabeth, was a choir director at the nearby Presbyterian church. When Mr. Brubeck was 11, the family moved to Ione, Calif., where his father managed a 45,000-acre cattle ranch and owned his own 1,200 acres. Forbidden to listen to the radio — his mother believed that if you wanted to hear music you should play it — Mr. Brubeck and his two brothers all played various instruments and knew classical études, spirituals and cowboy songs.

He learned most of this music by ear: because he was born cross-eyed, sight-reading was nearly impossible for him in his early years as a musician. Playing for Local Dances When Mr. Brubeck was 14, a laundryman who led a dance band encouraged him to perform in public, at Lions Club gatherings and Western swing dances; he was paid $8 for playing from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., with a one-hour break. But until he went to college he was an aspiring rancher, not an aspiring musician. At the College of the Pacific, in Stockton, he first studied to be a veterinarian but switched to music after a year. It was there that he learned about 20th-century culture and read about Freud, Marx and serial music; it was also there that he met Iola Whitlock, a fellow student, who became his wife in 1942. He graduated that year and immediately enlisted in the Army. For two years he played with the Army band at Camp Haan, in Southern California.

In 1944 Private Brubeck became a rifleman, entering basic training — first in Texas, then in Maryland — and was then sent to Metz, in northeast France, for further preparation for combat. When his new commanding officer heard him accompany a Red Cross traveling show one day, Mr. Brubeck recalled, he told his aide-de-camp, “I don’t want that boy to go to the front.” Thereafter, Mr. Brubeck led a band that was trucked into combat areas to play for the troops. He was near the front twice, during the Battle of the Bulge, but he never fought. Finished with the Army at 25, Mr. Brubeck moved with his wife into an apartment in Oakland, Calif., and, on a G.I. Bill scholarship, studied at Mills College there with the French composer Darius Milhaud. Milhaud asked the jazz musicians in his class to write fugues for jazz ensembles, and Mr. Brubeck played the results at a series of performances at the college. Mr. Brubeck had such admiration for his teacher that he named his first son, born in 1947, Darius. An Instant Partnership Mr.

Brubeck first met his most important musical colleague, Mr. Desmond, the alto saxophonist, in an Army band in 1943. Mr. Desmond was a perfect foil; his lovely, impassive tone was as ethereal as Mr. Brubeck’s style was densely chorded. In 1947 they met again and found instant musical rapport, fascinated by the challenge of using counterpoint in jazz. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Brubeck’s first group, an octet formed in 1946, contained several of Milhaud’s students, and played pieces influenced by his teachings, using canonlike elements. The group’s earliest recorded work predated a much more famous set of similarly temperate jazz recordings, the 1948-50 Miles Davis Nonet work later packaged as “Birth of the Cool.” In the late 1940s and early ’50s Mr. Brubeck also led a trio with Ron Crotty on bass and Cal Tjader on drums. It was around this time that he started to develop an audience.

He was given an initial boost by the San Francisco disc jockey Jimmy Lyons, later the founder of the Monterey Jazz Festival, who plugged the band on KNBC radio and helped secure it a record deal with Coronet. In 1951 the trio expanded to a quartet, with Mr. Desmond returning. (The permanent lineup change was perhaps inevitable, as Mr. Desmond was desperate to join his old friend’s increasingly popular band, but it may also have had to do with physical necessity: Mr. Brubeck had suffered a serious neck injury while swimming in Hawaii, limiting his dexterity, and he needed another soloist to help carry the music.) Quickly the constitutionally different men — Mr. Brubeck open, ambitious and imposing; Mr. Desmond private, high-living and self-effacing — developed their lines of musical communication. By the time of an engagement in Boston in the fall of 1952 they had become one of jazz’s greatest combinations. Photo Dave Brubeck in 1956. Credit Associated Press The next part of the equation was a record label, and for that Mr.

Brubeck had found another booster: Fantasy Records, just started by the brothers Max and Sol Weiss, who owned a record-pressing plant and had little interest in jazz apart from wanting to make a profit from it. They did, eventually, with Mr. Brubeck. But Iola Brubeck also played a role in the growth of his audience. Before Mr. Brubeck became a client of the prominent manager Joe Glaser, she handled her husband’s business affairs. In 1953 she wrote to more than a hundred universities, suggesting that the quartet would be willing to play for student associations. The college circuit became the group’s bread and butter, and by the end of the 1950s it had sold hundreds of thousands of copies of its albums “Jazz at Oberlin” and “Jazz Goes to College.” In 1954 Mr. Brubeck became only the second jazz musician (after Louis Armstrong) to be featured on the cover of Time magazine. That year he signed with Columbia Records, promising to deliver two albums a year, and built a house in Oakland. For all his conceptualizing, Mr. Brubeck often seemed more guileless and stubborn country boy than intellectual.

It is often noted that his piece “The Duke” — memorably recorded by Miles Davis and Gil Evans in 1957 on their collaborative album “Miles Ahead” — runs through all 12 keys in the first eight bars. But Mr. Brubeck contended that he never realized that until a music professor told him. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Brubeck’s very personal musical language situated him far from the Bud Powell school of bebop rhythm and harmony; he relied more on chords, lots and lots of them, than on sizzling, hornlike right-hand lines. (He may have come by this outsiderness naturally, as a function of his background: jazz by way of rural isolation and modernist academia. He was, Ted Gioia wrote in his book “West Coast Jazz,” inspired “by the process of improvisation rather than by its history.”) It took a little while for Mr. Brubeck to capitalize on the greater visibility his deal with Columbia gave him, and as he accommodated success a certain segment of the jazz audience began to turn against him.

(The 1957 album “Dave Digs Disney,” on which he played songs from Walt Disney movies, didn’t help his credibility among critics and connoisseurs.) Still, by the end of the decade he had broken through with mainstream audiences in a bigger way than almost any jazz musician since World War II . In 1958, as part of a State Department program that brought jazz as an offer of good will during the cold war, his quartet traveled in the Middle East and India, and Mr. Brubeck became intrigued by musical languages that didn’t stick to 4/4 time — what he called “march-style jazz,” the meter that had been the music’s bedrock. The result was the album “Time Out,” recorded in 1959. With the hits “Take Five” (composed by Mr. Desmond in 5/4 meter and prominently featuring the quartet’s gifted drummer, Joe Morello) and “Blue Rondo à la Turk” (composed by Mr. Brubeck in 9/8), the album propelled Mr. Brubeck onto the pop charts. Initially, Mr. Brubeck said, the album was released without high expectations from the record company.

But when disc jockeys in the Midwest started playing “Take Five,” the song became a national phenomenon. After the album had been out for 18 months, Columbia released “Take Five” as a 45 r.p.m. single, edited for radio, with “Blue Rondo” on the B side. Both album and single became hits; the album “Time Out” has since sold about two million copies. Standing Up to Racism In 1960, realizing that most of the quartet’s work centered on the East Coast, the Brubecks, with their children, Dan, Michael, Chris, Darius and Catherine, moved to Wilton, where they stayed. They later had one more child, Matthew. Genial as Mr. Brubeck could seem, he had strong convictions. In the 1950s he had to stand up to college deans who asked him not to perform with a racially mixed band (his bassist, Gene Wright, was black). He also refused to tour in South Africa in 1958 when asked to sign a contract stipulating that his band would be all white.

With his wife as lyricist, he wrote “The Real Ambassadors,” a jazz musical that dealt with race relations. With a cast that included Louis Armstrong, it was released on LP in 1962 but staged only once, at that year’s Monterey Jazz Festival. When Mr. Brubeck’s quartet broke up in 1967, after 17 years, he spent more time with his family and followed new paths. In 1969 he composed “Elementals” (subtitled “Concerto for Anyone Who Can Afford an Orchestra”), a concerto grosso for 45-piece ensemble. He later wrote an oratorio and four cantatas, a mass, two ballets and works for jazz combo with orchestra. Most of his commissioned pieces from the late ’60s on, many of them collaborations with his wife, whose contributions included lyrics and librettos, were classical works. As a composer, Mr. Brubeck used jazz to address religious themes and to bridge social and political divides.

His cantata “The Gates of Justice,” from 1969, dealt with blacks and Jews in America; another cantata, “Truth Is Fallen” (1972), lamented the killing of student protesters at Kent State University in 1970, with a score including orchestra, electric guitars and police sirens. He played during the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in 1988 and he composed entrance music for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1987. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Another Quartet In 1968 he formed a quartet with the baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, and later he began working with his musician sons Darius (a pianist), Chris (a bassist), Dan (a drummer) and Matthew (a cellist). He performed and recorded with them often, most definitively on “In Their Own Sweet Way” (Telarc, 1997). The classic Brubeck quartet regrouped only once, in 1976, for a 25th-anniversary tour. Mr. Brubeck’s son Michael died in 2009.

In addition to his other sons and his daughter, Mr. Brubeck is survived by his wife; 10 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Mr. Brubeck resumed working with a quartet in the late 1970s — finally settling into a long-term touring group featuring the saxophonist Bobby Militello — and thereafter never stopped writing, touring and performing his hits. To the end he was a major draw at festivals. In 1999 Mr. Brubeck was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Ten years later he received a Kennedy Center Honor for his contribution to American culture. He gave his archives to his alma mater. Despite health problems, Mr. Brubeck was still working as recently as 2011. In November 2010, just a month after undergoing heart surgery and receiving a pacemaker, he performed at the Blue Note in Manhattan. Nate Chinen of The Times, noting that Mr.

Brubeck had already “softened his pianism, replacing the old hammer-and-anvil attack with something almost airy,” wrote that his playing at the Blue Note “was the picture of judicious clarity, its well-placed chordal accents suggesting a riffing horn section.” Mr. Brubeck once explained succinctly what jazz meant to him. “One of the reasons I believe in jazz,” he said, “is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same anyplace in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born — or before you’re born — and it’s the last thing you hear.” Correction: December 5, 2012 An earlier version of this obituary erroneously attributed a distinction to Mr. Brubeck. He was the second jazz musician to be featured on the cover of Time magazine, not the first. That version also misstated the name of a song at one point.

It is “Take Five,” not “Time Out.” (“Time Out” is the name of the album on which “Take Five” first appeared.) It also said that “Take Five” was the first jazz single to sell a million copies, instead it was the album “Time Out” that sold over a million copies. Correction: December 11, 2012 An obituary on Thursday about the jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck referred incorrectly to his military service during World War II. He enlisted in the Army; he was not drafted. Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on December 6, 2012, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: His Music Gave Jazz New Pop. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe composer | Tag | PBS NewsHour PBS NEWSHOUR How Gershwin captured the not-so-simple essence of summer in a lullaby September 22, 2015 On the last day of summer, we share an ode to “Summertime,” the George Gershwin lullaby. Jeffrey Brown talks with composer and musician Rob Kapilow.

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Continue reading → SUBSCRIBE Dave Brubeck dead at 91 - Chicago Tribune Dave Brubeck: A jazz icon who reached a massive audience Ramsey Lewis on Brubeck: "I'm sad" Jazz legend Ramsey Lewis remembers Dave Brubeck. Jazz legend Ramsey Lewis remembers Dave Brubeck. Dave Brubeck changed the sound of jazz in profound ways, unexpectedly becoming something of a pop star in the process. Starting in the mid-1950s, in fact, he emerged as a symbol of jazz in America, and well beyond, gracing the cover of Time magazine in 1954 and selling more than a million copies of “Take Five” in 1960. To this day, the puckishly syncopated tune remains one of the most recognizable in jazz, though Brubeck didn’t write it – his alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond, did. Beneath the popular acclaim stood a brilliant, uncompromising composer-pianist who challenged conventional jazz techniques, brought the music to American college campuses and helped break down racial barriers through a music uniquely suited to that task.

Brubeck was en route to an appointment with his cardiologist when he was stricken Wednesday morning, said his longtime manager-producer-conductor, Russell Gloyd. The pianist died of heart failure at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn., near his home in Wilton, Conn. Brubeck was anticipating a birthday concert Thursday, when he would have turned 92. The performance will go on, but in the form of a tribute, in Waterbury, Conn. "Dave Brubeck was one of the giants in the music – he changed the way people listened to the music,” said David Baker, distinguished professor of music at Indiana University and a friend of the Brubeck family. "He could swing in any time signature – it seemed like forward motion was born in his blood,” said pianist Ramsey Lewis , who played four-hand piano with Brubeck at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park in 2010. Though the Ravinia Festival does not release attendance figures, a huge audience turned out for that concert, a celebration of Lewis’ 75th birthday. "Playing with Dave at Ravinia was one of the most exciting moments in my life,” added Lewis.

Brubeck’s last performance in the Chicago area was a 2011 Father’s Day show at Ravinia, where the 90-year-old pianist shared the stage with four sons: pianist Darius, trombonist Chris, cellist Matt and drummer Dan. The elder Brubeck also consistently drew large audiences to Symphony Center, where he last played in 2009. "Dave Brubeck was one of few jazz headliners who was guaranteed to bring in a large crowd,” said Nick Pullia, Ravinia Festival communications director. Though widely beloved as an elder statesman in jazz during recent decades, Brubeck’s initial burst of immense popularity, more than half a century ago, caused a backlash. When “Take Five” made him a household name, some critics and deejays accused him of selling out, he said in a 1990 Tribune interview. "But I had a lot of fun with them,” recalled Brubeck. “One of the most internationally known disc jockeys accused me, right on the air, of going commercial.

"So I said to him, on the air: ‘OK, let’s play the (‘Take Five’) record, and you follow along and count it,’” said Brubeck, referring to its underlying rhythmic pattern, which defied the two-, three- and four-beats-to-the-bar techniques of the day. "And there was this huge blank – he didn’t say anything. "So I said, ‘Well, why don’t you do it?’ "And he just didn’t answer. "At that time, hardly any musicians could play ‘Take Five.’ Now a grammar school kid can play it. "But those were breakthroughs.” Brubeck ventured even further afield in another piece that, to his surprise, became a popular hit, his “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” Its lush harmonies sounded exotic in the late ’50s, while its switches between offbeat rhythms and bona fide swing were like nothing yet encountered in American music.

For “Blue Rondo,” Brubeck drew inspiration from a characteristically unlikely source: “I heard street musicians playing in Istanbul,” he said in the 2010 documentary film “In His Own Sweet Way.” By transforming Eastern harmonies and regional rhythms through jazz, Brubeck hit upon an alluring sound and a signature hit. But Brubeck’s inventions in jazz represent just part of his achievement. He also penned full-fledged ballets and epic choral/symphonic works. The latter took on religious themes and ranked alongside works such as Duke Ellington ’s Sacred Concerts for their ingenious synthesis of classical, jazz and other idioms. Brubeck’s sprawling oratorio “The Gates of Justice,” performed at Anshe Emet SynagogueÖ in Chicago in 1993, fearlessly merged blues melody, Hebraic cantorial singing and chord progressions right out of the African-American spiritual. To Brubeck, this cross-cultural score – which was commissioned by Rabbi Charles Mintz in the boroughs of New York – had specific political and sociological purposes.

"He came over to the house with two other rabbis, and he suggested I write a piece of music to show the similarities between black people and Jewish people,” recalled said Brubeck, in a 1993 Tribune interview. "The idea would be to show how both groups have been enslaved and dispersed, slandered and harmed, to show that they had more in common than not. … "For me,” Brubeck continued, “the center of the piece is a particular line that was written by Martin Luther King, Jr. : ‘If we don’t live together as brothers, we will die together as fools.’ That’s what this piece is about, when you boil it down.” That sentiment drove a great deal of Brubeck’s efforts in music and in life. He challenged racial barriers by hiring the African-American bassist Eugene Wright as part of his quartet in 1958 and proceeding to tour the South, a region of the country that did not welcome mixed-race bands.

Brubeck and his wife, Iola, in the 1960s created “The Real Ambassadors,” a musical that addressed racism head-on and featured Louis Armstrong at a time when the trumpeter was wrongly considered out-of-step with the civil rights era. "Dave was very aware of race and politics,” said trumpeter Jon Faddis. “Back then, you had to go through a lot of stuff, and he stood up and fought for what he believed.” Because of his fame, Brubeck brought that much more attention to the debate. "He was very important, in that he was hot and brand new and very much in demand,” said nonagenarian record producer George Avakian, who recorded Brubeck on Columbia. “He was very much in the forefront, in the eyes of the public.” Moreover, Brubeck used his increasing clout in the ’50s to storm the academy, which had been ferociously resistant to jazz. What started out as a few concerts that he and his wife booked themselves quickly morphed into tours and recordings. "He created the college circuit,” said Avakian.

The fact that virtually every university of note has a jazz department or some kind of jazz curriculum owes to the Brubecks’ efforts. In effect, they helped create not only a scholarly infrastructure for jazz but built a vast new audience for it. Brubeck’s impact also rippled far beyond our shores. When Brubeck and his quartet played the Soviet Union for the first time, in 1988, he was received by Mikhail Gorbachev and the masses as a conquering hero. "What amazed me was that even people like Gorbachev’s interpreter told my wife that when he comes home from a hard day at the Kremlin, he puts on my music,” said Brubeck in the 1990 Tribune interview. “But the most amazing thing was when this guy from the secret police brought about 14 of my albums to one of my concerts and asked me to sign them! "Actually, I didn’t even know I was talking to a secret police guy until somebody from our embassy said to me: ‘You know that guy who brought all of your albums? He’s one of our toughest customers.’ "And they couldn’t believe he had all my records.

Of course, they were all illegal in the Soviet Union,” which had banished jazz as ‘decadent’ music. "But, obviously, someone in the secret police would have been in a position to get my records.” Moreover, music by Brubeck and others had penetrated the Iron Curtain through Voice of America radio broadcasts. Brubeck always was astonished by the popularity and accolades that came his way, including a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys in 1996; a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship in 1999; and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009. "All this for a guy who has earned his living working dying dances, strip joints, every kind of bar, sometimes for no doubt all,” he said in the 1990 Tribune interview. He certainly began life with an unlikely profile for a future jazz icon. Born Dec. 6, 1920, in Concord, Calif., David Warren Brubeck grew up under the wide-open skies on a cattle ranch that was the antithesis of urban jazz centers like Chicago and New York. But it was outdoors that he first heard the unlikely rhythms that eventually would help define his music.

"I spent most of my time alone as a kid lying under a tank listening to an engine pumping water and being mesmerized by its fascinating, arrhythmic sounds,” he said in the 1990 Tribune interview. “Or if I wasn’t doing that, I was riding horseback and singing songs against the gait of the horse. "And that’s the way I spent endless hours – just letting these crazy cross-rhythms play in my head over and over.” When he started his first band in high school, he had mastered rhythms that would have confounded many college music professors. Unfortunately, upon arriving at the College of the Pacific, in Stockton, Calif., he learned that jazz was a four-letter word. "The people running the school wouldn’t even let you call it jazz,” Brubeck said in the 1990 Tribune interview.

“So to get around the administrators, the younger teachers who were in to the new music simply called it ‘radio writing.’ "But you still weren’t allowed to play or practice jazz in the practice rooms.” So Brubeck led his band in dives around town, and after a “terrifying” stint working as a musician near the front during World War II , he returned to California to study music at Mills CollegeÖ with the man who altered the course of his life, French classical master Darius Milhaud.Ö Brubeck’s ability to “hear” a score at sight was limited, but Milhaud encouraged him. "He always said: ‘You will succeed, but you will do it in your own way,’” recalled Brubeck. Instead, Brubeck worked in a self-styled, classically tinged jazz idiom with the Dave Brubeck Octet in the late 1940s (recording for Fantasy in 1951), then joined with drummer-vibist Cal Tjader and bassist Ron Crotty in a trio that recorded in the late 1940s and early ’50s.

The arrival of alto saxophonist Desmond made the ensemble a quartet in 1951, with the nimble Joe Morello becoming drummer in 1956 and Wright the bassist in 1958. This was the classic quartet, Desmond’s liquid tone on alto enhancing the ensemble’s “cool,” West Coast style. The band’s landmark “Time Out” album helped make 1959 a galvanic year in jazz history ( Ornette Coleman also was redefining the music at this time). The aptly named recording cast a spotlight on Brubeck’s strange-but-attractive experiments in odd time signatures, while the pianist’s ongoing interest in Stravinsky-like polytonality (playing in more than one key at once) made him a jazz outlier as well as a pop phenomenon. Though the Brubeck Quartet disbanded up in 1967, Desmond played periodically with the pianist until the saxophonist’s death, in 1977. By then, Brubeck was a legend in his own right – a global champion of a deeply personal brand of jazz. Brubeck dealt with cardiac problems for decades but refused to stop touring.

After being hospitalized with a virus and pulmonary infection in 2009, his doctors wouldn’t allow him to fly, so “now we’re driving 350 miles every day in an RV I’ve rented,” he said in a 2009 Tribune interview. Yet he was characteristically undaunted. "I can’t say my philosophy of life has changed very much over the years,” Brubeck said in the 1990 interview. "When you’ve gone through something like World War II as a young man, you face the idea that life is very precious. "So I feel about life as I always have: Under any circumstances, go for it.” He is survived by his wife, Iola; four sons; a daughter, Catherine Yaghsizian; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Question: Which Jazz great passed away in December 2012 at the grand age of 92
Answer: Dave Brubeck