Jimmie & Lutonya Highsmith

INSEPARABLE

This husband and wife team have a devotion for the arts that definitely shines through. They not only share a deep love for one another, but their passion is evident musically and poetically. This marriage of hearts and artistry is truly a gift.

Jimmie Tjari Highsmith, Jr., was born September 18,1967 in the “Flower City” Rochester NY, the birthplace of Jazz luminaries Cab Calloway, PeeWee Ellis, Chuck Mangione and many others. James, or as his friends call him “Jimmie” is a seasoned Jazz musician who began his musical incipiency at the mere age of 7. Jimmie began studying piano, which created the foundations for his song writing in his later years. A music teacher introduced him to the harmonious sound of the saxophone, and the rest shall we say is history. Recognizing Jimmies potential, he was guided to study music at the Hochstein School of Music where he honed his ability to musically shine and stand out from his peers. Jimmie brought that same focus and thirst for music to the High School for Performing Arts where he walked the halls with and befriended other standouts like Motion Picture Actor/TV Star Scott “Taye” Diggs, R&B Singer Charlene “Tweet” Keys and Opera Diva Regina Zona. At School of the Arts, Jimmie was exposed to a musically competitive environment of band competitions, jazz combo performances, composition classes and other competitive solo scenarios. In Jimmies senior year, he auditioned for and was accepted into the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where he played Baritone sax in the Eastman School of Music Jazz Ensemble. 

  After graduating from High School, Jimmie enlisted in the US Air Force. While stationed in New Jersey, Jimmie found himself in the ideal location to access the New York and Philadelphia jazz scenes. During this time, he formed a jazz band consisting of musicians from both the US Air Force and Army. The band played at many military events and performed in various countries as part of the entertainment for the International USO Tour and Tops in Blue. In 1992 Jimmie returned to Rochester where he launched his professional music career.  Jimmie has formed many bands, which have been recognized as top regional jazz bands playing in big music festivals and clubs. He has shared the stage with multiple Grammy Award winners, including Alicia Keys and Wynton Marsalis. His sax work represents some of the best in the Smooth Jazz and Contemporary Jazz Genre. Jimmie has also performed with many notables such as: Joseph Wooten, Chris Beard, Paul Boutte, Joe Beard, Carl Thomas, Grey Mayfield, Wycliffe Gordon, Eric Reed, Johnny O’Neal and Yolanda Adams. He and his band have also opened for many big named artist, such as: Natalie Cole, Little Richard, Najee, "Papa John" DeFrancesco, Robert Cray Blues Band, Joyce Cooling, Montell Jordan, Shameika Copeland, Neville Brothers, Me'chelle Ndegeocello, Jodie Watley, Chris Bodie, Temptations and The Isley Brothers.

To visit Jimmie Highsmith's website CLICK HERE!

  

Lutonya Rachel Highsmith, a Rochester, New York, was born on August 20, 1969. Lu, as she is affectionately known, has published essays, news articles and poems over the past twenty years. No matter which form she has chosen to exhibit her talents, each has been reflective of her passion for spirituality, sensuality, and social consciousness.

She has performed at festivals, coffee houses, nursing homes, schools, churches, art galleries, clubs and community events throughout Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, Atlanta and Toronto.

 Highsmith has been featured in the Rochester-based newspaper, Minority Reporter; the Buffalo-based newspaper, Challenger and as a “Woman to Watch” in The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

           In September 2008, Lu published her much-anticipated debut book of poetry “Vicissitudes” through her company, Lucreations Publishing. Her second book of poetry “Ascension into Love” was released in August, 2010. She is also an active member of the artist-advocacy group CSWA (Culture Starts With Art!) and currently co-hosts a bi-weekly poetry night called “Flowetic Rhythms” at Gallery One Fine Arts in Rochester, NY.

          In October, 2012, she joined forces with her Grammy-nominated musician/composer husband, Jimmie Highsmith Jr. on her first CD entitled, “Ascension”, produced by Variance Records.

   Lu has recently embarked on becoming the designated Slam Master in Rochester, NY by forming Rochester’s first Adult Slam Team called "Roc Bottom Poets", traveling to Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany; as well as hosting Poetry Slams in Rochester. 

To Purchase Lu Highsmith's books please CLICK HERE!

To Purchase Lu Highsmith's CD please CLICK HERE!

Wildflower

Jonvee 

click name above to listen to the show

Singer, Poetess, Actress and Photographer Demetra Jonvere Artis, better known in the poetry world as Jonvee, was born May 17, 1958 in Washington DC to Margaret E Artis and Richard Blandon a well known Doo Wop singer and recording artist.  Jonvee, raised by her Mom and Grandparents was always a gifted child especially with drawing. She grew up singing in her gospel choir and would spend hours sitting in her window sill writing short stories.   She was only thirteen when she entered an art contest and people showed up at her door wanting her to attend their school of arts, which at the time her family just could not afford. She attended Johnson Jr. High School in S.E. Washington, DC where she excelled in singing and running track. She even acted in a couple of plays for drama class.  Where she excelled in extracurriculars she failed in classwork.  Some of her teachers considered her to be to slow.    

For as long as she could remember she had heard this and it cut deep inside her mentally.  No matter how hard she tried she just could not keep up so she gave up.  She dropped out of school, got married and had her first child all at the age of seventeen.  Life was hard with her husband money was tight and the family grew. She tried to pursue other careers such as modeling for magazines such as Sears and JC Penny’s but there were many road blocks and it wasn’t easy, so she decided to stay put and be a stay at home mom only taking jobs when things got tight.  She taught her children to read and write and realized that if she could teach her children to read, write and recite poetry all before they started school how slow could she be.  So when her youngest child was in high school she told him that she would graduate before he did.  That she did with very high grade point averages in history and science.     On an academic roll she attended Strartford Career Institute for Interior Decorating and later went on to Sheffield School of interior Design where she received her Certificate of Graduation from both schools.

  

In 2007 Jonvee went back to school classes attending P.G. College in Maryland.  She is an amateur photographer and is now thinking of taking those photography classes.  Jonvee turned fifty in 2008 and does not have any plans of slowing down.  She says Life is just beginning and it’s never too late to try.  She is still singing and recording her poetry and has done poetry readings for UNESSCO Center for Peace Arts Festival and other poetry readings for women’s church groups etc.

She has many offers on the table right now but decided to get her recording out first.  She’s Looking forward to performing her works in the future. Not bad for a girl that they say was to slow.  Now Jonvee is taking private photos for couples and working with other artist promoting their work. Recording her poetry has been a long time coming with the upcoming release “Moma’s Wildflower” and another due out in the summer of 2013.

When they say better late then never this sure does apply to Jonvee

To visit Jonvee on CD Baby CLICK HERE 

or

To Visit Jonvee on Facebook CLICK HERE

ART BLAKEY

The Message Lives

Born in 1919, Art Blakey began his musical career, as did many jazz musicians, in the church. The foster son of a devout Seventh Day Adventist Family, Art learned the piano as he learned the Bible, mastering both at an early age. But as Art himself told it so many times, his career on the piano ended at the wrong end of a pistol when the owner of the Democratic Club — the Pittsburgh nightclub where he was gigging — ordered him off the piano and onto the drums. Art, then in his early teens and a budding pianist, was usurped by an equally young, Erroll Garner who, as it turned out, was as skilled at the piano as Blakey later was at the drums
The upset turned into a blessing for Art, launching a career that spanned six decades and nurtured the careers of countless other jazz musicians. As a young drummer, Art came under the tutelage of legendary drummer and bandleader Chick Webb, serving as his valet. In 1937, Art returned to Pittsburgh, forming his own band, teaming up with Pianist Mary Lou Williams, under whose name the band performed. From his Pittsburgh gig, Art made his way through the Jazz world. In 1939, he began a three-year gig touring with Fletcher Henderson. After a year in Boston with a steady gig at the Tic Toc club, he joined the great Billy Eckstine, gigging with the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughn. In 1948, Art told reporters he had visited Africa, where he learned polyrhythmic drumming and was introduced to Islam, taking the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. It was in the late ’40s that Art formed his first Jazz Messengers band, a 17-piece big band. After a brief gig with Buddy DeFranco, in 1954 Art met up with pianist Horace Silver, altoist Lou Donaldson, trumpeter Clifford Brown, and bassist Curly Russell and recorded "live" at Birdland for Blue Note Records. The following year, Art and Horace Silver co-founded the quintet that became the Jazz Messengers. In 1956, Horace Silver left the band to form his own group leaving the name, the Jazz Messengers, to Art Blakey. Art’s driving rhythms and his incessant two and four beat on the high hat cymbals were readily identifiable from the outset and remained a constant throughout 35 years of Jazz Messengers bands. What changed constantly was a seeming unending supply of talented sidemen, many of whom went on to become band leaders in their own right. In the early years luminaries like Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley and Jackie McLean rounded out the band. In 1959, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson joined the quintet and — at Art’s behest — began working on the songbook and recruiting what became one of the timeless Messenger bands — tenor saxman Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymmie Merritt. The songs produced from ’59 through the early ’60s became trademarks for the Messengers — including Timmon’s Moanin’, Golson’s Along Came Betty and Blues March and Shorter’s Ping Pong. By this time, the Messengers had become a mainstay on the jazz club circuit and began recording on Blue Note Records. They began touring Europe, with forays into North Africa. In 1960, the Messengers became the first American Jazz band to play in Japan for Japanese audiences. That first Japanese tour was a high point for the band. At the Tokyo airport, the band was greeted by hundreds of fans as Blues March played over their airport intercom and their visit was televised nationally. In 1961, trombonist Curtis Fuller transformed the Messengers into a proper sextet, giving the band the opportunity to incorporate a big band sound into their hard bop repertoire. Throughout the ’60s, the Messengers remained a mainstay on the jazz scene with jazz greats including Cedar Walton, Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Reggie Workman, Lucky Thompson and John Hicks. In the jazz drought of the ’70s, the Messengers remained a strong force, with fewer recordings, but no less energy. At a time when many jazz musicians were experimenting with electronics and fusing their music with pop, the Messengers were a mainstay of straight-ahead jazz. Art’s steadfast belief in jazz music left him well positioned to take advantage of the music’s resurgence in the early ’80s. Art had been working with musicians including trumpeter Valery Ponomarev, tenor Billy Pierce, alto saxman Bobby Watson and pianist James Williams. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ 1980 entrance into the band coincided — and played no small part in — the resurgence of the music in the ’80s. Throughout the ’80 and until his death in 1990, Art maintained the integrity of the message, incubating the careers of musicians including trumpeters Wallace Rooney and Terence Blanchard, pianists Mulgrew Miller and Donald Brown, bassists Peter Washington and Lonnie Plaxico and many others. Art Blakey crossed over at the age of 71 after a career that spanned six of the best decades of jazz music. The messenger has moved on, but his message lives on in the music of the scores of sidemen whose careers he nurtured, the many other drummers he mentored and countless fans who have been blessed to hear the Messengers’ music. To visit Art Blakey's website CLICK HERE To Listen to the ART BLAKEY program on SOJPRadio CLICK HERE

Tribute to Donald Byrd

DONALD BYRD

Trumpeter Donald Byrd's music traversed several musical styles during the course of his prolific career, beginning with hard bop (Byrd In Flight) and eventually embracing soul-jazz (Blackbyrd) and fusion (Electric Byrd). His eclectic Blue Note discography includes everything from the soulful jazz arrangement of "On The Trail" from Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite performed with Hank Mobley, Sonny Red and McCoy Tyner on Mustang (1966) to the funky Top-10 hit "(Fallin' Like) Dominoes" from Places And Spaces (1975). A masterful technician known for his lush tone, Byrd became the most important hard-bop trumpeter in jazz following the tragic car accident that ended the career of his main rival, Clifford Brown, in 1956. He eventually distinguished himself as a senior member of an elite group of stellar horn players that included Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard.


Born in Detroit, Byrd collaborated with Yusef Lateef, Pepper Adams and other local jazz artists before serving in the Air Force and received a B.A. in music from Wayne State University as well as an M.A. in music education from the Manhattan School of Music. Honing his craft playing with Art Blakey, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, among others, he recorded for Prestige from 1956 until signing with Blue Note in 1958. Byrd's first full-time band was a quintet he co-led from 1958-61 with Pepper Adams, an ensemble whose hard driving performances are captured "live" on At The Half Note Café, Vols. 1 & 2.


Byrd made several memorable albums as a leader for Blue Note through 1967 and then began to distance himself from the acoustic funk of the East Coast's hard bop movement and move towards the West Coast funk being popularized at that time by the Jazz Crusaders. In 1969 he recorded Fancy Free, which featured electric keyboards and guitar, and his music took a decidedly commercial turn during the 1970s. Before leaving Blue Note in 1978, Byrd was releasing albums whose rhythms and vocals mirrored the dance oriented music of that era typified by Earth Wind & Fire, The Ohio Players, the Brothers Johnson and other pop bands.





In the early '70s, Byrd perfected a bright, breezy, commercially potent take on fusion that was distinct from Miles Davis, incorporating tighter arrangements and more of a smooth soul influence. Opinions on this phase of Byrd's career diverge wildly jazz purists utterly despised it, branding Byrd a sellout and the records a betrayal of talent, but enraptured jazz-funk fans regard it as some of the most innovative, enduring work of its kind. In fact, proportionately speaking, Byrd is held in even higher esteem by that audience than by straight-ahead jazz fans who enjoy his hard bop output. Byrd truly came into his own as a fusion artist when he hooked up with brothers Larry and Fonce Mizell, who began to handle production, writing, and some musical support duties. Their first collaboration was 1972's Black Byrd, an upbeat, funky blend of jazz and R&B. Jazz critics detested the album and called Byrd all sorts of names, but the record was a smash hit; it became the biggest seller in Blue Note history, and just missed hitting number one on the R&B albums chart.

In the wake of its success, Byrd formed a supporting group, the Blackbyrds, who were culled from the cream of his music students at Howard University and recorded through the rest of the '70s. Byrd went on to release a string of successful LPs in partnership with the Mizell Brothers, including the imaginary blaxploitation soundtrack Street Lady (1974), Stepping into Tomorrow (1975), the much-lauded Places and Spaces (1976), and Caricatures (1977). All made the Top Ten on the R&B album charts, and the Places and Spaces single "Change (Makes You Wanna Hustle)" even got substantial play in discotheques. Jazz-funk fans revere this period in general, but usually reserve their highest praise for Street Lady and, especially, Places and Spaces. As a side note to his musical career, Byrd finished law school in 1976, and went on to teach at North Carolina Central University.

Following Caricatures, Byrd parted ways with Blue Note and the Mizell Brothers and moved to Elektra. He recorded several albums over 1978-1983, but even the most commercially successful, 1978's Thank You...for F.U.M.L. (Funking up My Life), didn't match the infectiousness of his Blue Note jazz-funk outings. In 1982, Byrd received his Ph.D. from Columbia Teachers College. He spent a few years in the mid-'80s away from recording, due in part to ill health, but continued to teach, moving on to North Texas State and Delaware State. In the late '80s and early '90s, Byrd returned to the hard bop of his early days on several sessions for the Landmark label. He participated in rapper Guru's Jazzmatazz project in 1993, and with the advent of the jazz-rap movement and England's acid jazz revival, his '70s albums became hugely popular sources for samples.

Donald Byrd's legacy is his contribution to music education in a culture that spawned jazz but then neglected it - a role he pursued from the unique vantage point of having been a leading player in the idiom. His work has been sampled by pop and hip-hop artists including Public Enemy and Ice Cube, and many young musicians at work today owe their education and widespread acceptance of their art, to his tireless pursuit of stature and respect for jazz.

Donald Byrd crossed over on February 4, 2013. 
Tribute to Donald Byrd
TO LISTEN TO THE TRIBUTE TO DONALD BYRD SHOW ON SOJPRADIO PLEASE CLICK HIS NAME AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS ARTICLE!

NINA SIMONE

NINA SIMONE

Nina Simone singer, musician, composer, arranger, civil rights activist. was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina. She took to music at an early age, learning to play piano at the age of 4, and singing in her church's choir. The sixth of seven children, Simone grew up poor. Her music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for Simone's education and, after finishing high school, Simone won a scholarship to New York City's famed Julliard School of Music to train as a classical pianist.

Simone taught piano and worked as a accompanist for other performers while at Julliard, but she eventually had to leave school after she ran out of funds. Moving to Philadelphia, Simone lived with her family there in order to save money and go to a more affordable music program. Her career took an unexpected turn, however, when she was rejected from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; she later claimed the school denied her admittance because she was African-American. Turning away from classical music, she started playing American standards, jazz and blues in clubs in the 1950s. Before long, she also started singing along with her music at the behest of one bar owner. She took the stage name Nina Simone—"Nina" came from a nickname meaning "little one" and "Simone" after the actress Simone Signoret. She won over such fans as Harlem Renaissance writers Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, and James Baldwin.

Simone began recording her music in the late 1950s under the Bethlehem label, releasing her first full album in 1958, which featured "Plain Gold Ring" and "Little Girl Blue." It also included her one and only top 40 pop hit with her version of "I Loves You Porgy" from the George Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess.

In many ways, Simone's music defied standard definitions. Her classical training showed through, no matter what genre of song she played, and she drew from many sources including gospel, pop and folk. She was often called the "High Priestess of Soul," but she hated that nickname. She didn't like the label of "jazz singer", either. "If I had to be called something, it should have been a folk singer because there was more folk and blues than jazz in my playing," she later wrote.

By the mid-1960s, Simone became known as the voice of the civil rights movement. She wrote "Mississippi Goddam" in response to the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young African-American girls.

After the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Simone penned "Why (The King of Love Is Dead)." She also wrote "Young, Gifted and Black," borrowing the title of a play by Hansberry, which became a popular anthem at the time.

As the 1960s drew to a close, Simone tired of the American music scene and the country's deeply divided racial politics. She lived in several different countries, including Liberia, Switzerland, England and Barbados before eventually settling down in the South of France. For years, Simone also struggled with her finances, and clashed with managers, record labels, and the Internal Revenue Service.

Around this time, Simone recorded cover songs of popular music, putting her own spin on such songs as Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun." She also showed her sensual side with the song "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl." She then took a break from recording, returning in 1978 with the album Baltimore. The title track was a cover version of a Randy Newman song. Critics gave the album a warm reception, but it did not do well commercially.

Simone went through a career renaissance in the late 1980s when her song "My Baby Just Cares For Me" was used in a perfume commercial in the United Kingdom. The song became a Top 10 hit in Britain. She also penned her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, which was published in 1992. Her next recording, A Single Woman, came out in 1993. To support these works, Simone gave some performances in the United States.

Touring periodically, Simone maintained a strong fan base that filled concert halls whenever she performed. She appeared in New York City in 1998, her first trip there in five years. The New York Times critic Jon Paneles reviewed the concert, saying that "there is still power in her voice" and the show featured "a beloved sound, a celebrated personality, and a repertory that magnifies them both." That same year, Simone attended South African leader Nelson Mandela's 80th birthday celebration.

In 1999, Simone performed at the Guinness Blues Festival in Dublin, Ireland. She was joined on stage by her daughter Lisa for a few songs. Lisa, from Simone's second marriage to manager Andrew Stroud, followed in her mother's footsteps. She has appeared on Broadway in Aida, using the stage name "Simone."

In her final years, Simone battled with health problems. Nina Simone crossed over on April 21, 2003, at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France.

While she may be gone, Simone left a lasting impression on the world of music. She sang to share her truth, and her music still resonates with great emotion and power. Simone has inspired an array of performers, from Aretha Franklin to Joni Mitchell. Her deep, distinctive voice continues to be a popular choice for television and film soundtracks, from documentaries to comedies to dramas.

To visit Nina Simone's website CLICK HERE

To listen to the SOJP 5th Anniversary program featuring Nina Simone, CLICK HERE

NINA SIMONE

A TRIBUTE TO DAVE BRUBECK

Impressions In Time

In the 1950s and '60s, few American jazz artists were as influential, and fewer still were as popular, as Dave Brubeck. At a time when the cooler sounds of West Coast jazz began to dominate the public face of the music, Brubeck proved there was an audience for the style far beyond the confines of the in-crowd, and with his emphasis on unusual time signatures and adventurous tonalities, Brubeck showed that ambitious and challenging music could still be accessible. And as rock & roll began to dominate the landscape of popular music at the dawn of the '60s, Brubeck enjoyed some of his greatest commercial and critical success, expanding the audience for jazz and making it hip with young adults and college students.

David Warren Brubeck was born in Concord, California on December 6, 1920. Brubeck grew up surrounded by music -- his mother was a classically trained pianist and his two older brothers would become professional musicians -- and he began receiving piano lessons when he was four years old. Brubeck showed an initial reluctance to learn to read music, but his natural facility for the keyboard and his ability to pick up melodies by ear allowed him to keep this a secret for several years. His father worked as a cattle rancher, and in 1932, his family moved from Concord to a 45,000-acre spread near the foothills of the Sierras. As a teenager, Brubeck was passionate about music and performed with a local dance band in his spare time, but he planned to follow a more practical career path and study veterinary medicine. However, after enrolling in the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, Brubeck played piano in local night spots to help pay his way, and his enthusiasm for performing was such that one of his professors suggested he would be better off studying music. Brubeck followed this advice and graduated in 1942, though several of his instructors were shocked to learn that he still couldn't read music.

Brubeck left college as World War II was in full swing, and he was soon drafted into the Army; he served under Gen. George S. Patton, and would have fought in the Battle of the Bulge had he not been asked to play piano in a Red Cross show for the troops. Brubeck was requested to put together a jazz band with his fellow soldiers, and he formed a combo called "the Wolfpack," a multi-racial ensemble at a time when the military was still largely segregated. Brubeck was honorably discharged in 1946, and enrolled at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied under the French composer Darius Milhaud. Unlike many composers in art music, Milhaud had a keen appreciation for jazz, and Brubeck began incorporating many of Milhaud's ideas about unusual time signatures and polytonality into his jazz pieces. In 1947, Brubeck formed a band with several other Mills College students, the Dave Brubeck Octet. However, the Octet's music was a bit too adventurous for the average jazz fan at the time, andBrubeck moved on to a more streamlined trio with Cal Tjader on vibes and percussion and Ron Crotty on bass. Brubeck made his first commercial recordings with this trio for California's Fantasy Records, and while he developed a following in the San Francisco Bay Area, a back injury Brubeck received during a swimming accident prevented him from performing for several months and led him to restructure his group.

In 1951, the Dave Brubeck Quartet made their debut, with the pianist joined by Paul Desmond on alto sax; Desmond's easygoing but adventurous approach was an ideal match for Brubeck. While the Quartet's rhythm section would shift repeatedly over the next several years, in 1956 Joe Morello became their permanent drummer, and in 1958, Eugene Wright took over as bassist. By this time, Brubeck's fame had spread far beyond Northern California; Brubeck's recordings for Fantasy had racked up strong reviews and impressive sales, and along with regular performances at jazz clubs, the Quartet began playing frequent concerts at college campuses across the country, exposing their music to a new and enthusiastic audience that embraced their innovative approach. Brubeck andthe Quartet had become popular enough to be the subject of a November 8, 1954 cover story in Time Magazine, only the second time that accolade had been bestowed on a jazz musician (Louis Armstrongmade the cover in 1949). In 1955, Brubeck signed with Columbia Records, then America's most prestigious record company, and his first album for the label, Brubeck Time, appeared several months later.

A steady stream of live and studio recordings followed as the Dave Brubeck Quartet became the most successful jazz act in the United States, and in 1959, they released one of their most ambitious albums yet, Time Out, a collection of numbers written in unconventional time signatures, such as 5/4 and 9/8. While Columbia were initially reluctant to release an album they felt was too arty for the mainstream, their fears proved groundless -- Time Out became the first jazz album to sell a million copies, and in 1961, it bounded back into the charts when "Take Five" unexpectedly took off as a single, rising to 25 on the pop charts and five on the adult contemporary survey.

As Brubeck enjoyed increasing commercial success, he began exploring new musical avenues; in 1959, the Brubeck Quartet performed with the New York Philharmonic, performing "Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra," a piece written by Howard Brubeck, Dave's brother. Dave's own composition "Elementals," written for orchestra and jazz ensemble, debuted in 1962; "Elementals" was later adapted into a dance piece by choreographer Lar Lubovitch. And Brubeck and his wife, Iola, wrote a song cycle called "The Real Ambassadors" that celebrated the history of jazz while decrying racism; it was performed at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival, with contributions from Louis Armstrong, Carmen McRae, and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. the Brubeck Quartet also became international stars, with the State Department arranging for them to perform in locales rarely visited by jazz artists, including Poland, Turkey, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sri Lanka.

In 1967, Brubeck dissolved the Dave Brubeck Quartet and began devoting more time to composing longer works that often focused on his spiritual beliefs, including an oratorio for jazz ensemble and orchestra, "The Light in the Wilderness," which debuted in 1968; "The Gates of Justice," first performed in 1969, which melded passages from the Bible with the writings of Martin Luther King, and "Upon This Rock," which was written for Pope John Paul II's visit to San Francisco in 1987. Brubeck continued to perform in a more traditional jazz format as well, forming a new combo in 1968 featuring Jack Six on bass, Alan Dawson on drums, and Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax. In the '70s, Brubeck also toured with a group featuring his sons Darius (keyboards), Chris (bass and trombone), and Dan (drums); dubbed Two Generations of Brubeck, the ensemble performed a bracing fusion of jazz, rock, and blues. In 1976, Brubeck reassembled the classic lineup of the Dave Brubeck Quartet for a 25th anniversary tour; the reunion was cut short by the death of Paul Desmond in 1977.

From the mid-'80s onward, Brubeck maintained a schedule that would befit a rising star eager to make a name for himself rather than a respected elder statesman. He continued to compose orchestral works as well as fresh jazz pieces, and recorded and performed on a regular basis with a variety of accompanists. Perhaps the most honored jazz artist of his generation, Brubeck received awards from two sitting United States Presidents -- Bill Clinton presented him with the National Medal of the Arts in 1994, and Barack Obama presented him with the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009. Brubeck also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a lifetime achievement Grammy from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Medal, and honorary degrees from universities in five different countries, among many other awards for his life in music. When he died of heart failure late in 2012, just one day before his 92nd birthday, his life and his work were celebrated around the world.

To visit DAVE BRUBECK'S website CLICK HERE