This will be the first event kicking off a festival celebrating the various contributions Brubeck made to the jazz idiom and jazz's overall culture.
When Brubeck's sons were younger--they're now professional musicians, themselves--their father approached teaching them jazz through various, perhaps even unusual means.
Known for his unconventional style (i.e. his use of odd time signatures and agogics), one of these tactics included an alter ego coined by Brubeck, wherein he played a mustachioed and absent-minded professor named Prof. Nooseknocker.
A character, indeed, be it Brubeck or Nooseknocker, suffice it to say that both personas contributed to what we now know as jazz today.
His tribute performance, then, is scheduled for Saturday, February 8 at 1 p.m. Tickets start at $12; the performance will be held at the Rose Theater.
In the meantime, settle into that cool groove with the Dave Brubeck Quartet's "In Your Own Sweet Way."
