The Voice of Brubeck, Vol. 1
Brubeck Brothers Quartet
Chris Brubeck bass/trombone
Dan Brubeck drums
Chuck Lamb piano
Mike DeMicco guitar
The Paul English Quartet
Paul English piano
David Caceres saxophones
Rankin Peters bass
Tim Solook drums
Horace Alexander Young
Houston Chamber Choir | Robert Simpson conductor
From the iconic groove of his Take Five to the infectious melody he composed in Blue Rondo à la Turk and beyond, Dave Brubeck was an innovative musical figure who left an indelible footprint on the history of jazz. His groundbreaking approach to composition stretched far beyond the barriers of genre, however.
THE VOICE OF BRUBECK, VOL. 1 from Navona Records showcases the legendary artist’s contributions to symphonic, chamber, and sacred vocal music, and explorations of new musical forms. Spearheaded by producer Arthur Gottschalk and the Lago Vista Community Concerts Foundation, this album offers a diverse palette of celebrated and previously-unrecorded choral and orchestral works that Brubeck regarded as some of his finest.
Featuring the GRAMMY® Award-winning Houston Chamber Choir alongside a 19-piece orchestra and the Brubeck Brothers and Paul English Quartets, THE VOICE OF BRUBECK, VOL. 1 carries on the legacy of the widely influential pianist and composer’s body of work so that future generations may enjoy his music for years to come.
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Track Listing & Credits
# | Title | Composer | Performer | |
---|---|---|---|---|
01 | Boogie 1 A.M. | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Horace Alexander Young | Langston Hughes, lyricist; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Paul English Quartet | 3:30 |
02 | Forty Days | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Chris Brubeck | Dave Brubeck, Iola Brubeck - lyricists; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Orchestra | 11:11 |
03 | It’s a Raggy Waltz | Dave Brubeck | Iola Brubeck, lyricist; Chris Brubeck, additional lyrics and new choral arrangement; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Orchestra | 5:56 |
04 | The Desert and the Parched Land | Dave Brubeck | Dave Brubeck, Iola Brubeck - lyricists; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Paul English Quartet, Orchestra | 6:23 |
05 | Festival Hall | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Horace Alexander Young | Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Paul English Quartet, Orchestra | 5:11 |
06 | Two Part Contention | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Chris Brubeck | Chris Brubeck, lyricist; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Paul English Quartet, Orchestra | 7:14 |
07 | Take Five | Paul Desmond, inst. arr. Paul English | Iola Brubeck, lyricist; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Paul English Quartet, Orchestra | 8:42 |
08 | Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Democrat or a Republican? | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Paul English | Dave Brubeck, Iola Brubeck - lyricists; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Orchestra | 6:41 |
09 | Blue Rondo à la Turk | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Chris Brubeck | Chris Brubeck, lyricist; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Orchestra | 7:46 |
10 | Once When I Was Very Young | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Paul English | Michael Brubeck, lyricist; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Paul English Quartet, Orchestra | 7:25 |
11 | Autumn In Our Town | Dave Brubeck | Iola Brubeck, lyricist; Robert Simpson, conductor; Houston Chamber Choir; Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Orchestra | 8:22 |
12 | Weep No More | Dave Brubeck, inst. arr. Chris Brubeck | Brubeck Brothers Quartet | 5:02 |
Recorded June 2-5, 2024 at Stude Concert Hall, Rice University in Houston TX
Recording Producer Arthur Gottschalk
Associate Producer Bob Lord
Executive Producer Aleks Savitski
Technical Director Brian James
Recording Engineer Andrew Bradley
Editing & Mixing Andrew Bradley at Wire Road Studios
Mastering Melanie Montgomery
Photography by Jeff Grass Photography
Staff
Tish Brubeck, Brian Miller, Kristina Brzezinski, Kaitlin DeSpain, Ashley Stouffer, Carol Brejot, Alex Moreno
Sponsors
The Shepherd School of Music, Rice University
The National Endowment for the Arts
Lago Vista Community Concerts
Alta Arts
Eggersmann Home Living
The David Toy Law Firm
Fiora’s Bottle Shop
Supporters
Robert Fusillo, Karen George, Daniel Hyde, Adele and Tony Gorody, Alan and Nancy Shelby, Brian James, Arthur and Shelley Gottschalk
![nv6668-logos Sponsor logos](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/nv6668-logos.jpg)
Executive Producer Bob Lord
VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Chris Robinson
VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Aidan Curran, Kacie Brown, Chelsea Kornago
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci
Artist Information
![](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Chris-Brubeck-300x300.jpg)
Chris Brubeck
Chris Brubeck is a GRAMMY®-nominated composer who continues to distinguish himself as a multi-faceted performer. A talented bassist and trombonist as well as an award-winning writer, Brubeck is tuned into the pulse of contemporary music. The respected music critic for The Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein, calls Brubeck: “a composer with a real flair for lyrical melody — a 21st Century Lenny Bernstein.” Brubeck has created an impressive body of symphonic work while maintaining a demanding touring and recording schedule with his various groups. He was a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet for 16 years, and a frequent guest artist with the Quartet before and after that time period.
![](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Paul-English-1-300x300.jpg)
Paul English
A small Gulf Coast Texas town was not a likely place for a future jazz musician and composer to grow up, but Paul English’s father was an accomplished jazz trombonist and a respected music educator and band director. Early on he introduced his son to Dave Brubeck, J. J. Johnson, and Count Basie (in that order) as well as Bach, Beethoven, and Stravinsky. This magical world fascinated Paul, and almost before he could speak, he was banging out sounds on the piano that must have been painful to others but glorious in his own mind.
![Brubeck-Brothers-Quartet Brubeck Brothers Quartet](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Brubeck-Brothers-Quartet.jpg)
Brubeck Brothers Quartet
Chris and Dan Brubeck have been making music together all their lives. Drummer Dan and bassist, trombonist, and composer Chris cut their first record together in 1966 — nearly a half century ago. They’ve subsequently played a variety of styles in a number of different groups, as well as with their father, jazz giant Dave Brubeck, and with their own Brubeck Brothers Quartet. With Dan and Chris as the foundation, guitarist Mike DeMicco and pianist Chuck Lamb complete this dynamic quartet.
![paul-english-quartet-2024 Paul English Quartet](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/paul-english-quartet-2024.jpg)
Paul English Quartet
The Paul English Quartet features long-time Houston jazz leader and pianist, Paul English, along with David Caceres on saxophone and vocals, Rankin Peters on bass and vocals, Tim Solook on drums.
![Horace-Alexander-Young](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Horace-Alexander-Young.jpg)
Horace Alexander Young
Horace Alexander Young is a 21st Century musician whose combined saxophone, flute, and vocal styles revisit the sensitivity and grit of Lester Young and Cannonball Adderley, and the smoothness and grace of Nat King Cole. For more than four decades, he has maintained a career as an accomplished musician (multi-woodwinds, keyboards, percussion, and vocals), educator, composer/arranger, and recording and touring artist. While he has spent most of his 40+ years in the music business playing, arranging, composing, and recording music for other artists (Abdullah Ibrahim, McCoy Tyner, B.B.King, Bill Withers, Regina Belle, et al), he also spent a significant number of years serving on the music faculty at such colleges and universities as Texas Southern, Washington State, Sonoma State, Rutgers, Houston Community College, and Santa Fe University of Art and Design, where he served as Chair of The Contemporary Music Program. In recent years, his “voice” has become a more prominent character in his personal musical journey, which was one of the resonating elements that drew his interest as a member of the arranging team for this project.
![Robert-Simpson](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Robert-Simpson.jpg)
Robert Simpson
Robert Simpson is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Houston Chamber Choir. He also serves as Canon for Music at Houston’s historic Christ Church Cathedral, and Lecturer of Church Music at Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He is the recipient of both Chorus America’s Michael Korn Founders Award for the Development of the Professional Choral Art and the American Prize in Choral Conducting. Choirs under his direction have toured the United States, Europe, and Mexico, and performed before national conventions of Chorus America, the American Choral Directors Association, The American Guild of Organists, The Association of Anglican Musicians, and The Hymn Society of America. They have appeared nationally on CBS-TV, ABC-TV, and American Public Radio. Simpson is married to Marianna Parnas-Simpson, the noted children’s choir conductor.
![Houston-Chamber-Choir](https://www.navonarecords.com/nv/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Houston-Chamber-Choir.jpg)
Houston Chamber Choir
Houston Chamber Choir, founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Robert Simpson, received the 2020 GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance for its recording of the complete choral works of Maurice Duruflé. Other honors include Chorus America’s Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, and the American Prize. Dubbed by Jamie Bernstein as “the choral equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters,” the Houston Chamber Choir delights in singing a wide range of styles from early music to jazz. Eager to promote the music of our day, the Houston Chamber Choir regularly commissions, performs, and records works by today’s leading composers. Its latest CD, released on the Cappella label, is Two Streams, a major new work by Daniel Knaggs inspired by the message of hope seen through the eyes of the extraordinary Polish nun Maria Faustina Kowalska. It features soprano Caitlin Aloia, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, tenor Christopher Bozeka, baritone Mark Diamond, and the string ensemble Kinetic.
Choir Members
Robert Simpson, choir director
SOPRANOS
Elizabeth Tait, soloist
Rebecca Castillo
Mariam Haider
Amy Kerswell
Melanie Piché Miller
Jade Pañares
ALTOS
Natalie Broussard
Clipper Hamrick
Marianna Parnas-Simpson
Emily Premont
Ryan Stickney
Lauren Suchy
TENORS
Wayne Ashley, soloist
Jeffrey Ragsdale
Alphonso Seals
Justin Shen
Paul Steffan
Phillip Velarde
BASSES
Rameen Chaharbaghi
Greg Goedecke
Ben Kerswell
Randy Murrow
Corey Swann
Joshua Wilson
Orchestra Members
Patrick Moore, contractor
Tim Peters, concertmaster
VIOLINS
Tim Peters
Matt Lammers
Nick Lindell
Emily Richardson
Jonathan Godfrey
Marisa Ishikawa
Jaya Varma
VIOLAS
Katie Carrington
Matthew Carrington
CELLOS
Patrick Moore
Ben Stoehr
DOUBLE BASS
Austin Lewellen
HORN
Emily Nagel
TRUMPETS
Robby Yarber
Gary Weldon
TROMBONE
Thomas Hulten
PERCUSSION
Jeremy Davis
WOODWINDS
David Caceres, clarinets and saxophones
Horace Alexander Young, flutes and saxophones
Notes
It may come as a surprise to those familiar with Brubeck’s jazz stylings that he also composed sacred music. Did he ever! Brubeck’s sacred compositions are text-driven and include orchestral and choral works, oratorios, and cantatas in which he managed to unite jazz and classical styles. His Christmas cantata La Fiesta de la Posada and Mass To Hope! A Celebration have been performed across the world. Each work offers Brubeck’s authentic musical voice, which houses messages of hope and “exuberance that masks the rigors of counterpoint and all the other technical stuff that went into his writing.” The flexibility, charm, seeming simplicity, and the sheer joy of Brubeck’s La Fiesta de la Posada and To Hope! have allowed the pieces to be performed by opera companies, symphony orchestras, music festivals, professional choruses, church choirs, community choirs and orchestras, as well as theater troupes.
— Arthur Gottschalk