by Morgan Enos
The pianist-composer, who died in 2012 at 91, was one of the most famous jazz musicians who ever walked the planet — and for that fact alone, he was controversial. His 1959 classic Time Out was the first platinum — and then double-platinum — jazz album. The chances are that “Take Five” pops into your head when you hear the word “jazz.” Later in life, he was an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center honoree. But while his peers, like Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, and Charles Mingus, lived on the edge, Brubeck was a drug-free, monogamous Christian. Mix that with the fact that he was a white man in a primarily Black art form who commercially sailed past most of his peers, and you’ve got a recipe for resentment..These days, Brubeck’s legacy is ironclad…
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