By Menachem Wecker
Storied jazz musician Dave Brubeck has been earning a lot of presidential praise lately.
“You can’t understand America without understanding jazz. And you can’t understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck,” said President Barack Obama at a White House reception for the Kennedy Center’s 2009 honorees on Dec. 6.
In a toast at the reception, former President Bill Clinton said Mr. Brubeck quizzed him on a 1994 White House visit about his favorite Brubeck Quartet songs and even asked him to hum one: Blue Rondo a la Turk. Apparently convinced, Mr. Brubeck autographed a piece of sheet music and sent it to the White House the next week. “It hangs in the music room of my home today,” Mr. Clinton said.
A day after Mr. Brubeck — along with Bruce Springsteen, Robert De Niro, Mel Brooks and Grace Bumbry — was named a Kennedy Center honoree, GW President Steven Knapp announced that Mr. Brubeck will receive an honorary degree at GW’s 2010 commencement ceremony.
Countless musicians have imitated Mr. Brubeck’s and his quartet’s style, and Dr. Knapp remembers Brubeck Quartet member Joe Morello as the first jazz drummer he tried to copy.
“Dave Brubeck and his quartet have inspired generations of young musicians; in fact, I was one of them,” said Dr. Knapp. “We at George Washington are proud of our association with a genuine national treasure!”
American jazz master Dave Brubeck, who modestly describes himself as “a composer who plays the piano,” has recorded several large-scale compositions since the 1960s, including two ballets, a musical, an oratorio, four cantatas, a mass, works for jazz group and orchestra and many solo piano pieces.
Mr. Brubeck was on GW’s campus last year when he attended a seminar at the Elliott School of International Affairs in April 2008, celebrating the 50th anniversary of his legendary Cultural Ambassador Tour to Asia and the Middle East in 1958. At the event, GW faculty members discussed the historical, cultural and diplomatic implications of the 1958 tour, which was funded by the U.S. State Department, and Mr. Brubeck performed at a reception.
Even if the 1958 musical tour served a diplomatic function, Mr. Brubeck is careful about how he describes it. “I learned from an associate of Dave’s at the Brubeck Institute that he has a certain aversion to the term ‘cultural diplomacy,’” said Dick Golden, special assistant for broadcast operations and University events. “He prefers ‘cultural exchange.’”
The single Blue Rondo a la Turk, the same one that Mr. Clinton hummed, was inspired by Turkish street musicians, which Mr. Brubeck assimilated and incorporated into American songs, says Mr. Golden, who hosts the radio show GW Presents American Jazz. “It reveals his humility and his intelligence.”
In a press release, Dr. Knapp called Mr. Brubeck “an inspiration to our graduating students.” In October 2001, former GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg awarded Mr. Brubeck the GW President’s Medal.
Mr. Golden suggests applying another president’s words to Mr. Brubeck’s work. Etched on the Kennedy Center is a famous 1962 quote from former President John F. Kennedy. “I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.”
“Dave Brubeck is among the wonderful things we’ve contributed to the human spirit,” Mr. Golden said.