I Had The First Integrated Army Band

I Never Wanted This Kind Of Life That Im Still Living.

I Knew I Wanted To Write On Religious Themes When I Was A Gi In World War Ii. I Saw And Experienced So Much Violence That I Thought I Could Express My Outrage Best With Music.

I Got A Poster From Columbia Records, And There's Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Ellington, Count Basie - Everybody In That Poster Has Died, I'm The Only One Left. And Great Players Like Paul Desmond And Gerry Mulligan, It's Hard To Believe They're Gone Because We Were All So Close. But I Believe In The Future And The Tradition Will Go On.

I Started Growing Up In A Hurry And Taking A Lot Of The Philosophy I'd Heard From Church As A Kid A Lot More Seriously - Especially The Ten Commandments - And Wondering How 'thou Shalt Not Kill' Could Be So Absolutely Ignored. It Took Me Until I Was In My 40s To Write What I Was Thinking As A Young Soldier.

My Mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck Was A Pianist Who Studied With Dame Myra Hess And Tobias Matthey. As A Child In California I Used To Listen To Her Play Chopin.