Dave Brubeck

With his unique piano style and songwriting abilities, Dave Brubeck earned the respect of such lofty peers as Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Cecil Taylor. During much of his career the jazz snobs have been less kind, but they're coming around to the fact that this snubbing was never really about Brubeck's music. As a matter of fact, most of the negative jazz press he received was due to the fact that Brubeck found fame and fortune by taking jazz from the nightclub to the college campus, and because he openly embraced avant-garde classical structure in his pieces. The fact that Brubeck made it onto the cover of Time before Armstrong or Ellington didn't help, but Brubeck's career is clearly long overdue for a re-evaluation. Whether playing lyrical standards, composing complex extended works or jamming with his peers, Brubeck has always taken the artistic high road and done it his way. He shared a special bond with his sublime sax player Paul Desmond, and their tune "Take Five" from his milestone album Time Out became a surprise hit single and remains a standard to this day.