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I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

Dave Brubeck

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Dave Brubeck
Age: 91 †
Born: 1920
Born: December 6
Died: 2012
Died: December 5
Bandleader
Composer
Jazz Musician
Jazz Pianist
Music Arranger
Musician
Pianist
Recording Artist
Songwriter
Concord
California
David Warren Dave Brubeck
David Warren Brubeck
David Brubeck
David W. Brubeck
Understand
Able
Great
Would
Beginning
Rather

More quotes by Dave Brubeck

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If I told you all the people that have secretly told me I've influenced them, you'd never believe it, and you'll never see it in print, either.
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Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and many other great jazz musicians objected to their music being called jazz. While the outside world may want to put a label on it, those who create it think of it just as music, and tend not to classify it.
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It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me. And also it's to me the greatest instrument. I shouldn't say that, but I believe that this is the only instrument I can really feel happy about playing.
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My dad was the manager at the 45,000-acre ranch, but he owned his own 1,200-acre ranch, and I owned four cattle that he gave to me when I graduated from grammar school, from the eighth grade. And those cows multiplied, and he kept track of them for years for me. And that was my herd.
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You could play probably a span of 50 years of me playing St. Louis Blues, and most of the time it will be different every time.
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You have to be taught to hate.
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I was always very aware of drummers. My oldest brother Henry was a drummer, and he drummed on everything in the house from the kitchen sink to stovepipes. He was the first drummer in the Gil Evans Orchestra, so you've got to know how great he was.
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There are a lot of people on the lowest rung of Jacob's Ladder, and we must somehow reach down, give them a hand, and make them want to climb. A little really good music never hurt anyone. And when people are given good music they can grow spiritually and even discover they like it.
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Jazz stands for freedom.
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I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired where you almost have an out of body experience
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The worst thing about the life of a jazz musician on the road is getting to the gig. Once you're there and playing, it's marvelous.
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I had the first integrated Army band in World War II.
Dave Brubeck
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The secret of a great melody is a secret.
Dave Brubeck
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Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.
Dave Brubeck
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Kinship doesn't come from skin color. It's in your soul and your mind.
Dave Brubeck
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I used to take my mother to Yosemite. When I turned 14, I got my driver's license, and that's where she'd want to go, so I'd go take her there for two weeks.
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And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into.
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When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.
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There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play which is dangerously where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before.
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I played a lot of sports and it's the plays in basketball that weren't worked out that are the ones that are just fantastic that you remember. We don't know the power that's within our own bodies.
Dave Brubeck