Tales From the Newsroom: He's my brother
When Dave Brubeck wanted to talk about Howard
Some 18 years ago, jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck was coming to San Diego for a show, and I was fortunate enough to get a telephone interview with him ahead of the show.
At the time, I was writing not only for my own online arts ’zine, Turbula, but was on staff at the North County Times, a 90,000 circulation daily newspaper distributed from Oceanside to Escondido (as well as down into Encinitas, and up into Temecula).
When the appointed time came, I called the number given to me, and Brubeck himself answered. (Often with big stars, you’re only ever give a disposable number or the number of an assistant or publicist.)
Before I could get into any of my prepared questions, Mr. Brubeck said he had a question for me: Was the performing arts theater at Palomar Community College in San Marcos still named for his late older brother, Howard? The family had made quite a generous donation to the college to have the theater named for the longtime musical director at the school, and Dave wanted to know if Howard’s name still adorned the theater?
Yes, I assured him, the Howard Brubeck Theatre was still going strong. (Several years later, I’d get to see the wonderful young jazz pianist Helen Sung perform there.)
With that out of the way, I was ready to jump into my carefully thought-out questions regarding his recent recordings, his busy touring schedule in his mid-80s, his observations on the state of the music.
Mr. Brubeck was not so easily deterred from a subject clearly close to his heart.
Was I familiar with his brother? Did I know about Howard’s own contributions as a composer? The many students he’d mentored over the years?
I did not.
“Hmph” was the response. Clearly, Mr. Brubeck’s opinion of me was not very high at this point.
After I promised to learn more about Howard’s life and career (a promise I kept), Dave agreed to continue with the interview.
In researching Howard Brubeck, I learned that he wrote two significant works: “California Suite,” and “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra.” That he had taught music at Mills College under composer Darius Milhaud, then took a position at San Diego State College (now university) before being hired as chair of the Music Department at what was then Palomar Junior College in 1953. He held that job until retiring in 1978.
The Howard Brubeck Theatre received a major renovation a decade ago as the entire campus was modernized. At the heart of the updated theater is a Steinway grand, and hearing Sung play it a few years ago was a treat.
Each Memorial Day, local Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops come out the Saturday before and place small American flags next to the gravestones of veterans who are buried at the small San Marcos Cemetery.
When I was working for the Boy Scouts as a field rep after the North County Times was bought by the competition and then shut down, I joined the Scouts that Saturday morning — my youngest in tow in her Daisy uniform, one of her brothers there with his troop.
The maps the Scouts were given to help them identify veterans’ grave sites were less than intuitive — and so we adults resorted to simply walking row by row and raising our arms if we saw a marker that indicated military service, at which point a Scout would come place a flag in the ground there, and then salute the veteran’s memory.
While I was walking along one row with my son’s scoutmaster, who is on the Palomar faculty, we stopped when we came across a familiar name carved in marble:
“Howard R. Brubeck
1916-1993"
It seemed a good time to stop and visit for a bit.
-30-