This bonus episode features my interview with two of Dave Brubeck's sons, Dan and Chris Brubeck.  Excellent musicians in their own right, the two shared intimate memories of growing up with their father and his legendary contributions to modern jazz.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1369MM9B40
The Brubeck Brothers
Chris Brubeck:  We're sitting about 10 miles away from the house where we grew up.  My dad used to work in San Francisco and come home and he'd go to bed. And then my mom would say like, you gotta be quiet. Your poor dad didn't go to bed till three or four in the morning. So part of the technique of keeping us quiet was that we had these little cheap record players almost in every room, including the room that was adjacent to my dad's room.  We had these Disney records. Tunes like Someday My Prince Will Come, Alice in Wonderland. So my dad's asleep and yet probably subconsciously he's hearing [hums melody of Someday My Prince Will Come].  After a while he comes up with this idea, he says, you know, those actually are really good tunes, even though they're from cartoons.  Then he started playing Someday My Prince Will Come.  Miles Davis walks into a club in San Francisco and hears my dad play.  Then his next record, Miles' record is called Someday My Prince Will Come.  So you're staring at two of the brats that accidentally had something to do with those songs becoming jazz standards. Just trying to be quiet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcTeAWh8OusChris Brubeck:  I'm Chris Brubeck, and I play in the Brubeck Brothers quartet. I play electric fretless bass, and sometimes bass trombone. Dan Brubeck:  And I'm Dan Brubeck. And I'm a drummer with the Brubeck Brothers Quartet.  Up here in Oakland it was just an open room with piano in it and whatnot.Chris Brubeck:  A kitchen and a big dining room table. And this redwood pocket door that opened up to this studio was big enough for a grand piano and for drums to set up and, you know, just a beautiful space with big bay windows.  And from those windows, you could literally see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay bridge, and the Richmond bridge.  As little kids it was really fun to go to camp outside and look at the twinkling lights and you know, it was very magical as a little kid also, if I wasn't thinking about music, I was thinking about like Willie Mays is down there somewhere playing baseball, you know, he was my hero.I know for me, one of my favorite things to do in the world, I'd like to hear the group we rehearse I'd crawl under the piano, And there, I couldn't be in anyone's way, knowing what step on me. And I got to hear all the low overtones of the piano and it got to you the bass and the bass drum really well. That, to me, it was like heaven, just lying down and listening. Dan Brubeck:  Where I slept, there was probably 10 feet from a door where my dad would practice and he'd often practice at night or be writing composing at night.  So I don't think there were too many nights where I didn't fall asleep when he was home to him practicing and composing.  It there's always, I was always hearing music.  But I was lucky too, because he had at his rehearsals Morello, who is an incredible drummer, but of course we didn't know they were incredible drummers.  We just heard all these guys and there, you know, it's Uncle Paul, Uncle Joe, you know, So for us, it was just like these guys that were friends of my dad's that played. 

Chris Brubeck:  Paul was like a visiting member of the octet. Dan Brubeck:  He didn't study with Darius Milhaud, but he got called in to play in my dad's octet, which was the first group that he started.  Mostly people that were studying with Darius Milhaud. Chris Brubeck:  Milhaud was open-minded and loved American jazz so much that he said here's a counterpoint exercise and old school would be, it would be, you know, Bach Prelude #2,, analyze it. He would say the chord changes for that popular jazz tune How High ...