Can(n)ons of Freedom: An Exclusive GFS Interview with Composer, Chris Brubeck
Grammy-nominated composer Chris Brubeck continues to distinguish himself as an innovative performer and composer who is clearly tuned into the pulse of contemporary music. Respected music critic for The Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein called Chris: “a composer with a real flair for lyrical melody--a 21st Century Lenny Bernstein. “In addition to creating an impressive body of work, including several band pieces, chamber pieces, 3 concertos for trombone, a trombone quartet, and several concertos for stringed instruments, Chris maintains a demanding touring and recording schedule playing bass and trombone with his two groups: the Brubeck Brothers Quartet, with brother Dan on drums, Chuck Lamb on piano and Mike DeMicco on guitar (www.brubeckbrothers.com); and Triple Play, an acoustic jazz-funkblues-Americana trio with Joel Brown on guitar and Peter Madcat Ruth on harmonica and Chris on bass, trombone and piano (www.chrisbrubeckstripleplay.com.) Additionally, Chris performs as a soloist playing his trombone concertos with orchestras and has served as Artist in Residence with orchestras and colleges in America, coaching, lecturing, and performing with students and faculty. Once a year, he tours England with the group Brubecks Play Brubeck, along with brothers Darius (on piano) and Dan, as well as British saxophonist Dave O'Higgins. Chris had been a long-standing member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, writing arrangements and touring and recording with his father's group for over 20 years. Dave and Chris co-wrote the orchestral piece "Ansel Adams: America," which has received dozens of performances and in 2013, was a Grammy finalist for Best Instrumental Composition.
This Sunday, Chris will be in residence as the Glens Falls Symphony proudly commissions his latest work: Can(n)ons of Freedom. The GFS had the chance to sit down with Chris for an exclusive interview. Enjoy!
GFS: As a Grammy-nominated composer, you continue to distinguish yourself as a creative force and multi-faceted performer on fretless bass, bass trombone, and piano. What do you enjoy most about these instruments and what do they bring to Knox: Can(n)ons of Freedom work?
CB: Even though I play all these instruments when I tour with my groups, Triple Play or The Brubeck Brothers Quartet, it is really the piano that figures most heavily into my creative process as a composer. My father started me on piano lessons when I was 5 years old. (Most people figure he taught me, but practically speaking, that was impossible because he was concertizing all over the world with his acclaimed jazz quartet. So instead, I studied with a great local teacher he found for me. My father had dyslexia as a kid, so he had a terrible time reading music and translating that in his brain down to his fingers. He had bad eyes, but he had great ears. Even when I was a little kid, he told me, “I want you to learn how to play piano because if you ever want to be a composer, you will need to know how to write music and be fluid in the fundamentals of notation.“ To be more specific, that means learning how to read Treble Clef, Bass Clef, understand rhythmic notation, and build chords on the piano. To this day, when I compose, I start by creating a piano part as a creative guide to get the ideas churning. It is kind of like doing a pencil sketch as an artist on your initial canvas. Then the orchestration is the musical “coloring” of the essential musical ideas and structure. I also use a musical computer program called Finale, which, on a visual level, produces beautiful, publishable music, but more amazingly, will play back the score I am creating with real digital recordings of instruments. So, I can hear a mock -up demo of what I am composing. This is extremely helpful to me as I write because I want things to sound exciting, beautiful, and compelling.
On the opposite side of the cerebral part of composing, of course, it helps to also be a working jazz bassist, as I know what an authentic jazz bass line sounds like and how to write it. My experience as a bass trombone player has also served me well. I went to a special performing arts high school named The Interlochen Arts Academy, and we probably had the best youth orchestra in the country. Every week, I played symphonies by Shostakovich, De Falla, Debussy, Hindemith, you name it, I heard it all as we rehearsed 2 hours a day. I wasn’t the kind of musical nerd that sat there with the score in his lap, but I did absorb a lot of music and, despite myself, was developing my own orchestration tastes.
To come full circle on this, I went on to co-write pieces with my father. Oddly enough, through the process of slowly composing for orchestra (which is not in any swift-moving real-time pressure) Dad improved his music reading greatly. When we worked on scores together in some of our big pieces like “Ansel Adams: America,” we would often play through scores with 4 hands on the same piano. I am very proud of a new orchestral recording that was just released on Navona Records, “The Voice of Brubeck Volume II,” which features an amazing piece we wrote together in 1997…"Theme and Explorations for Orchestra,” commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony. This is a “tour de force" 5 movement work that had never been recorded and is indicative of how I spend my current complicated creative life: going backwards to unearth and record a fantastic older piece, while also looking to the future and creating a brand-new piece like “Can(n)ons of Freedom” for the Glens Falls Symphony. All on top of being a touring musician. It is not a simple life, but it is fulfilling.
GFS: As an award-winning writer, you are clearly tuned into the pulse of contemporary music; you have been referred to as a 21st-century Lenny Bernstein. Who are your composing influences, and what influenced you most while composing Can(n)ons of Freedom?
CB: As the bass player in my father’s group for decades, I played in many of the premiere performances of oratorios and cantatas that my father composed over the years (around 18 major 45-minute works for chorus, orchestra, and soloists). Some of my father’s music is incredibly moving, always deeply sincere, and communicates well with the audience. I was always hearing what was working the best when we played with the orchestra, and I kept track of that as part of my orchestrational vocabulary.
My broad observation is that American Classical Music would have almost died if it weren't for the more contemporary American masters, Copland and Bernstein. They bucked the “academic trend” of composing with theoretical innovation in mind and stuck to a "wild idea" ….write melodic music that people actually like to hear. At concerts, my music, for example, my Trombone Concertos, is often programmed alongside Bernstein. That is a scary proposition, but I am grateful that my music seems to hold up even when juxtaposed with Lenny’s brilliant works. People may not remember that my father collaborated with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic in concerts and on recordings back in the late 1950’s. Bernstein was NOT a snob and saw the genius of improvising Jazz musicians collaborating with excellent Classical musicians. These experiments were part of a movement that motivated Gunther Schuller to establish the first Jazz studies program in a major music school at the New England Conservatory of Music. This is where your music director, Charles Peltz, was a top conductor for many years…so in an interesting way, all of our stories intertwine. I also have to add that I was profoundly motivated as a child by hearing Stravinsky. Like millions of children my age, when I saw and heard what Disney did in Fantasia with "The Rite of Spring" and those awesome dinosaurs, I wanted to be part of that rhythmically and harmonically exciting soundscape. That was thrilling to witness as an impressionistic kid and still is amazing now that I am in my 70’s. What a genius Stravinsky was with his music leaping forward over everything that had come before him, like the difference between Chuck Berry’s rock ‘ n ‘ roll guitar playing and Jimi Hendrix. A profound and inexplicable giant leap in creativity!
GFS: You have created an impressive body of symphonic work while maintaining a demanding touring and recording schedule with the Brubeck Brothers Quartet (with brother Dan on drums) and Triple Play Trio. How do you achieve balance between creating and performing?
CB: It is very difficult. Thankfully, my wife, Tish, is an enormous help in trying to protect and manage my creative time, but also keeping me on track for other obligations that inevitably come along with the composing and touring life I lead. Also, I must confess that one of the ways I do this is that I don’t sleep too much. So far, my decades of playing always bounce back to me when I’m on stage playing my instruments, even when I have been functioning like a composer and not practicing all the time like a performer normally would. I am not sure how this works in my case, but I am certainly very grateful for the results. It all comes back on stage like magic, and I always thank my lucky stars it works out.
GFS: Present-day Jazz continues to borrow from itself and morph and adapt to its surroundings. How can we as appreciators and supporters of Jazz music keep this historic and creative art form alive and well for generations to come?
CB: The best thing for audiences to do in these crazy times is go out and see jazz artists perform live. Somehow and tragically, a company like Spotify DESTROYED the ability of small, independent artists to get any significant income from their music on the radio. It boggles the mind that maybe we get a “whopping” .003 cents (yes, fractions of one penny) per streamed playing of our music. In other words, if your song is played and streamed 100,000 times, you might make $300. How can you survive that? I am sure most people are not aware of this terrible reaming of recording artists and songwriters. So, we survive by playing LIVE music in concerts that excite audiences, and then we sell our CDs ( we produce and manufacture) straight to the public. It is harder than ever to survive as a jazz artist. But this incredible original American art form still attracts young people to jump into the non-lucrative waters for the sake of the music that speaks to their hearts and minds. God bless these young talents. It boils down to a love of something in your soul, for example, you don’t become a priest because you want to get rich, you do it because something in your heart and soul tells you this is what God wants you to do in this lifetime. It is a big, beautiful mystery.
GFS: As a much sought-after composer, you have been commissioned to write many innovative orchestral concertos for a variety of artists, including celebrated guitarist Sharon Isbin, Canadian Brass, Time for Three, Nick Kendall, Muir String Quartet, and other commissions from The Boston Pops, and many others. Why the Glens Falls Symphony for the World Premiere of Knox: Can(n)ons of Freedom? How did this opportunity come about, and what can the audience look forward to?
CB: A few years ago, I was very grateful to be asked to write a new composition for the New England Conservatory of Music Wind Ensemble. Charles Peltz was the esteemed conductor of that premiere organization for many stellar years. The occasion was to honor the 50th anniversary of the Wind Ensemble. Again, this ties back into our mutual history because Charles Peltz was a friend and colleague of Gunther Schuller, who had transformed the New England Conservatory of Music in the late 1960s. He was the first major musical academic figure to elevate Jazz music as being as important as Classical music in American culture. He put the two genres side by side in an esteemed educational environment. As mentioned above, I grew up admiring the collaboration between Lenny Bernstein and my father. My piece, which Charles asked me to write, ended up being called “50,” and it combined a more traditional Classical approach to the Wind Ensemble PLUS an integration of Jazz as well. It literally involved student improvisers from the Jazz Department of the NCM. Charles did a fantastic job bringing that piece into the world, and we developed a mutual faith in each other’s talents.
GFS: You were with the GFS in November of 2015, for the U.S. Premiere of your acclaimed work “Brothers in Arts.” Brothers in Arts was the creation of an unbreakable bond of brotherhood between you and Guillaume Saint-James. A symphony for four hands, in homage to all those who lived and died during the landings of June 1944, and to those who participated in the Liberation. What do you enjoy most about turning moments in history into movements of music?
CB: It can be a compelling adventure, sort of like Raiders of the Lost Ark, from my point of view. I have to do research. For example, I wrote a huge piece called “Mark Twain’s World” for orchestra and actors. I was awarded an NEA grant to write a very original approach to an orchestra piece with an American theme. The idea was that every city that had a good orchestra also had a good local theater company, too; let’s bring those audiences together.
It worked fantastically well because Twain was such a genius. Audiences loved it, but surprise! It has never been done since the premiere in California because it was so original in concept that other orchestras couldn't imagine doing it. My vision and the conductor Peter Jaffe produced an evening so out of the box that it became beyond the vision grasp of other Executive Directors. If you do this piece, there is no room in the program for Beethoven Symphonies. When I wrote "Ansel Adams: America" with my dad, what a research ride that was. Again, my wife, Tish, was a huge help, along with my mother, Iola. It became a real family affair, and what gold was revealed. Did you know Ansel Adams was very serious about becoming a concert pianist and accidentally became a photographer while trying to protect his lungs in the clean air of Yosemite?
My relationship with Guillaume St James, the French composer who was in Glens Falls, is an amazing story, too long to tell here. But our incredible collaboration was just repeated with an orchestra in France near the Swiss border. People were so moved by it, in tears, actually, and in joy as well. We were celebrating the 10th anniversary of the premiere of Brothers in Arts when Obama came to Normandy to honor our brave and idealistic soldiers who fought for the liberation of Europe. The French are still incredibly grateful for our sacrifice. When we did the performances just a few months ago, the conductor was English but had based her career in Berlin for a long time. She was so thrilled by the music and the ideals of that piece that she is trying to figure out how to perform it with German orchestras… imagine that! The piece closes with each soloist saying in their home language, “We shall never forget!” The conductor told us that no country in Europe tries harder than Germany to make sure that its citizens never forget what a monster Adolph Hitler was and how he took civilization to the brink with his unchecked narcissism and megalomania. My father was in Patton’s Army opposing this madness, and Guillaume’s father was a young Frenchman saved by American Doctors in an Army Field hospital that was set up in a village near the Normandy beaches. That’s where Guillaume’s father first heard Jazz, and it represented the music of liberation and the men who saved his life. He later grew up to be a Dixieland Tuba player and a Doctor. He used to make house calls all the time and would take his boy, Guillaume, around the region for these doctor trips. What music did they listen to in the car on 8-track tapes? Of course, the Dave Brubeck Quartet. So, when we started playing together, Guillaume had had all the Brubeck Music already ingrained in his mind and ears. The wild adventure of intertwining music and history is always unfolding before us.
GFS: Another “Brother in Art” is no question, GFS Music Director Charles Peltz. What is your history with Charles, and what do you value most about collaborating with him and this great orchestra?
CB: My history with Charles goes back to before the collaboration with Guilluame and the fabulous French musicians. I believe we first met when he was conducting a bunch of gifted young musicians at the Luzerne Music Center in upstate New York. I think it was with my group Triple Play, which features my friend and collaborator Joel Brown on classical and folk/jazz guitar. Joel teaches at Skidmore College. He just retired after approximately 40 years as Distinguished Artist in Residence.
GFS: Glens Falls is not the only city in the Adirondack region you have performed in. Saratoga Springs has hosted the Brubeck Brothers with Saratoga residents Chuck Lamb on piano and Mike DeMicco on guitar, while your acoustic jazz-funk-blues trio Triple Play features Skidmore College Distinguished Artist-in-Residence, Guitarist Joel Brown. When traveling in our region, what do you enjoy most, and what are your favorite spots to visit?
CB: Of course, you live in a beautiful part of America. Because of my connection to Joel Brown, when the Jazz teacher at Skidmore College went on sabbatical, he asked me if I would fill in for a year. I enjoyed working with the students, and eventually I stayed as an adjunct professor for 4 years, teaching bass, trombone, and piano. I became friends with a lot of the faculty, some of whom play in the Glens Falls Symphony. I have also played at SPAC for some of the big Jazz Festival celebrations over the years. Triple Play made a sensational live CD recorded at a concert we did at the Arthur Zankle Music Center. Joel’s father and my father were guests with us, along with Peter Madcat Ruth, our brilliant harmonica player. The audience in the hall that night was as good and as inspirational as any audience could ever be! We were lucky to have captured that event on tape, so everyone can still hear the amazing synergy between the performers and the crowd. What a night that will live forever. This was my father's last recorded performance, and our CD of that night is proof that he sure went out in style!
To learn more about Chris Brubeck, Click Here
To purchase tickets to this Sunday’s performance, Click Here
Adults $29-$45 / Students $12
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