Sony MusicLegendary jazz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck has **** at age 91. The Chicago Tribune quotes Brubeck's manager as saying the musician **** of heart failure Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut. He would have been 92 on Thursday.
Brubeck rose to prominence in the 1950s, breaking new ground with innovative rhythms seldom heard in jazz performance, in the process exposing the form to a broader audience and in many ways, helping earn it respectability as a "serious" music form.
Brubeck's best-known popular work is the 1959 album Time Out, with The Dave Brubeck Quartet. The album featured unusual time signatures and combined various jazz styles into a signature sound, exemplified by the album's best-known track, "Take Five" -- the name itself taken from the track's 5/4 time signature.
Donald Fagen of Steely Dan name-checked Brubeck in his 1982 solo album The Nightfly. On the song "New Frontier," he sings, "I hear you're crazy about Brubeck/Like your eyes, I like him, too."
Brubeck was also an early proponent of racial immigation in America, and took pride in playing black jazz clubs in the South in the 1950s, reports the Tribune.
Brubeck is survived by his wife, five children and various grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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