Benjamin Ivry looks at the ways the US jazz composer Dave Brubeck explored Catholicism through his music in his 60-year career.
The American jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck (1920-2012) musically refined the traditional notion of conversion to Catholicism. In her informative if sometimes overdetailed new book, Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness, musicologist Kelsey Klotz explains that before being received into the Church in 1980, Brubeck repeatedly claimed to journalists that although not observant or educated in any faith, he was raised as a Presbyterian by a Christian Scientist mother who attended a Methodist church.
This ecumenical approach to spirituality succeeded in elevating a performer of weighty, sometimes ponderous chords, as if conveying the spirit of Romantic organ music on the piano keyboard, to a Bach-inspired composer of celebratory Catholic choral works. These would include The Light in the Wilderness (1968), Beloved Son (1978), Voice of the Holy Spirit: Tongues of Fire (1985), In Praise of Mary “Concordia Lititia” (1989) and Joy in the Morning (1991).
As Brubeck insisted, Catholicism was really an essential part of his artistry from his early years. A radiant faith and inspiration are surely not absent from his jazz renditions, even from those with no overt or explicit religious content, such as “The Wright Groove” – featuring his bassist Eugene Wright – on the BBC’s Jazz 625 programme in 1964, available online, or “Stompin’ for Mili” from 1954, in which atypical trenchant vivacity was motivated by taunts by the Albanian documentarian Gjon Mili about the quality of Brubeck’s ensemble.
As in his jazz playing, Brubeck’s spiritual achievement as a composer of sacred works was due to instinctive wisdom open to further enlightenment. He sought counsel from expert Church guides and sensibly followed their advice. As Klotz notes, Brubeck had been exploring Catholicism “as early as the mid-1950s”. He corresponded with Norman James O’Connor CSP, an American Paulist known as The Jazz Priest. As chaplain at Boston University, Fr O’Connor served on the board of the first Newport Jazz Festival and as compere for concerts by John Coltrane, Brubeck and Duke Ellington.
Fr O’Connor notably asserted that there is “nothing irreligious about rhythm”. Further to that, by the late 1970s, Brubeck was commissioned to set the new English text of the Mass by Ed Murray, editor of the US Catholic newsweekly Our Sunday Visitor. Brubeck modestly demurred, claiming ignorance, but Murray persisted until the former tentatively agreed on the condition that informed Catholic liturgists might oversee his work.
When the Mass, To Hope! A Celebration (1979) was completed, it contained allusions to Latin, Greek, Middle Eastern and middle European musical styles. Brubeck described it as a “collection of traditions and experiences, made one by faith in the Lord Jesus”. Alternating almost leisurely tempos for piano solos with more astringent atonal passages, To Hope! was unabashedly eclectic. It reflected Brubeck’s composition studies in California with modernist classical mentors Darius Milhaud and (very briefly) Arnold Schoenberg.
Yet in this work, the Our Father was conspicuous by its absence. Ronald E Brassard, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Cranston, Rhode Island, pointed out the omission and urged Brubeck to resolve it. A nationally known liturgist, Fr Brassard managed to convince Brubeck, who was especially impressed when inspiration arrived immediately one night, as if “someone was trying to tell him something”. This was a turning point for Brubeck’s entry in the Church. He was duly baptised at Our Lady of Fatima parish in Wilton, Connecticut.
Brubeck would remain a questing spirit, seeking illumination from diverse traditions. In liner notes for the oratorio The Light in the Wilderness (1968), he had observed that “this piece was written with the theological counsel of a Vedanta leader, a Unitarian minister, an Episcopal bishop and several Jesuit priests”. Brubeck added the caveat: “I am not affiliated with any church”, but revealed that he was particularly influenced by “three Jewish teachers”: the American educator Irving Goleman, Milhaud and Jesus.
Even before Fr Brassard’s intervention, another expert in Catholic liturgical music, Theophane Hytrek SSSF, had vetted Brubeck’s creativity in To Hope! At the composer’s request, Ed Murray had appointed Sister Theophane, a liturgical composer from Milwaukee, who believed that pastoral musicianship required “implementing worship” through “musical leadership… in collaboration with others”.
Her reaction to an early fragment of Brubeck’s Mass was wholehearted approval and encouragement. Even so, Sister Theophane did not rely on her own judgment, but gathered a group of trusted church musicians to play through the score before conveying a final opinion.
This receptivity was a byword of Brubeck’s experience with further Church commissions. Upon this Rock – Chorale & Fugue (1987) was written in preparation for the visit of Saint John Paul II to San Francisco. Brubeck was asked to compose a nine-minute reflection on Matthew 16:18: “Upon this rock I will build my church”. Once more, in a dream, Brubeck imagined the musical structure, as with the nocturnal inspiration surrounding To Hope!
These and other appealing anecdotes, repeated candidly in interviews, made up part of Brubeck’s personal charm. In addition, his modesty, kindly demeanour and family-man persona were far from the bad habits that afflicted many of his jazz colleagues. In many ways, albeit atypical, Brubeck was an ideally acceptable representative for a musical genre that was still considered in his era to be slightly scandalous.
As Klotz observes, Brubeck doubtless benefited from what is now called white privilege, and he was well aware of the fact. In 1954, he became the second jazz musician to be featured on the cover of Time magazine, following Louis Armstrong five years earlier; Duke Ellington would be so honoured some years after Brubeck. Brubeck openly admitted to Ellington and others that the latter pioneer was more deserving than he of such plaudits.
Nor, despite their innate musical value and interest, do Brubeck’s sacred works necessarily overshadow in quality works by Mary Lou Williams, the African American Catholic composer. After converting to Catholicism in 1954, Williams paid tribute to St Martín de Porres, in Black Christ of the Andes (1962). Her other sacred music included The Pittsburgh Mass (1966), Mass for Lenten Season (1968), and Mass for Peace (1969). But she was an African American woman, and perhaps not coincidentally, her Church commissions attracted less media attention in her day than Brubeck’s.
While Brubeck had an international career that included a trip to Russia to rehearse and perform To Hope! in 1997, Williams toiled in relative obscurity as a school instructor. Having righteously battled segregation in America when concert venues wished to exclude or downplay the presence of his African American bassist Eugene Wright, Brubeck would have been the last to gainsay the devastating effect of race prejudice in his homeland.
While Mary Lou Williams doubtless deserved more acclaim for her achievements than she received, Dave Brubeck, as an acceptably white male symbol of a jazz musician who wrote compositions of faith, behaved as gracefully and humanely as possible in the troubled times he lived through.
In 2006, the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious honour given to American Catholics, accorded to honourees such as Dorothy Day and Sister Helen Prejean, was justifiably conferred upon Brubeck.
Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness is published by OUP, priced £19.99.
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