Brubeck and Beyond:
An Interview with Victor Lin and Joe Gilman

Stanford Jazz Workshop is known for its unique blend of education and performance. On Thursday, July 22nd, SJW faculty members Victor Lin and Joe Gilman take the stage for Stanford Jazz Festival's The Music of Dave Brubeck presented by Victor Lin. in this interview, the educator-musicians share their thoughts about the boundaries (or lack thereof) between teaching and musicianship, and their take on the legendary Dave Brubeck.

Can you talk a bit about how you relate musically to Brubeck as a performer, and his work?

JG: I love playing with musical ideas regardless of the style, and Dave is the perfect example of a jazz musician/composer who is very playful. He is always trying different things: polytonality, polyrhythms, odd meters, different textures. He got much of this from Darius Milhaud, who was very supportive of Dave's artistic development as a jazz composer.

What is your favorite Brubeck piece ?

JG: I really like the tune with three names: "Dziekuje" from Impressions of Eurasia, "There Will Be No Tomorrow" from Take Five Live with Carmen McRae, and the theme from his ballet Points on Jazz. It's a folk tune with a beautifully wandering melody and haunting harmonies. It suits so many different musical settings and really inspires countless variations.

What is it about Brubeck’s music specifically that inspires you?

VL: There is a twofold aspect to Brubeck that inspires me a great deal. The first is Brubeck's sheer output and creativity - the man wrote a lot of music! The level of the output and the diversity of what he wrote - from standard jazz tunes to a jazz musical to sacred music for the Catholic church - that kind of disciplined effort sustained over half a century is a humbling and inspiring thing for any musician with aspirations to be a composer.

And the second part is a whimsical sense of humor that I find in a lot of the music, particularly in relation to all the funny time signature changes within tunes - and yet it still remains accessible to the audience, which is probably the most significant quality of Brubeck's music that inspires me. It's a great combination of intellectual interest and popular appeal, which is a difficult task to pull off in this day and age.

JG: Dave has always thrived on taking creative chances as a composer and performer. This has really inspired me to experiment, follow my musical instincts, and trust myself as an artist making a personal statement. We know from listening to Dave that he enjoys what he does, and that joy is reflected in his vast international audience and sixty-year career. Knowing that music can be such a source of personal happiness is truly inspiring.

What is the biggest challenge when doing a tribute like this to such a legendary jazz icon?

JG: Showing respect and reverence to the artist's music while simultaneously finding your own voice within their compositions.

VL: It's easy when you do a "tribute" concert to often do things from an imitative or replicative standpoint; that is, to just play the most well-known songs and to try and put those songs in that authentic style. I think it's important to acknowledge the music in its source form but also to take the music and put your own spin on it, or see the concept the composer was going for through a different lens. As one of my teachers once told me, "seek what the masters sought, not what they did."

What do you enjoy most about being on stage?

VL: As somebody whose primary role is as an educator, I find that being on stage is no different from being in front of a classroom - it's just that instead of a dozen students, there's a few hundred audience members, and there's usually a spotlight on you, too! What I do enjoy most is the opportunity to share the stage with fellow performers and to engage in music-making from a social perspective. Larger scale performance opportunities don't happen frequently for me, so it's always an immense joy for me to be able to take a few hours and focus myself on playing music for the public. The lovely backstage dinners are also a bonus.

Do you see your role as a performer and teacher extending beyond music to larger cultural issues?

VL: I often think that the line between being a performer and teacher is much more ambiguous than people think. Throughout the course of the Stanford Jazz Workshop, I find myself constantly asking the question "how can I best serve the students that I'm working with?" As an educator and performer I have a responsibility to not only give students the knowledge and opportunity to grow as musicians, but to also give them a broader perspective of the world that they live in, exposing them to different cultural viewpoints and other ways of thinking that might be in direct contrast with their own. Ultimately, teaching them to be better musicians is secondary to the goal of teaching them to become better people - and music making is a powerful weapon in that fight.

If there’s one thing about Brubeck the audience should consider, what should it be?

JG: Remember that Dave always has fun when playing and composing. Listen to his music with a sense of joy and innocence; you will be thoroughly entertained!

VL: The most powerful moment for me that involves Dave Brubeck isn't even a musical one. At the end of one of Ken Burns' Jazz DVDs is a stunning moment in which Dave Brubeck is being interviewed about his experiences coming back from World War II and still encountering racism and segregation in pre-Civil Rights America. Brubeck was one of the first bandleaders to have an integrated band during the jazz age, and during this narration, I watched transfixed as Brubeck broke down in tears as he recounted the horrors of encountering racism for the first time as a young man.

If there's one thing about Brubeck I would want the audience to consider, it would be to not just hear the music as an end product, but to see it as an starting point to discovering the amazing humanitarian experiences that Brubeck has been a part of over the course of nearly 60 years.

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Tickets are available for the July 22nd performance of The Music of Dave Brubeck presented by Victor Lin online, or by calling (650) 725-ARTS.

 

Additional Resources:

"Brubeck, the Band Box and Palo Alto, " Stanford Jazz Workshop e-news (July 2, 2010).

Victor Lin, official website

Joe Gilman, official website

Dave Brubeck, official website