Dan and Chris Brubeck have been inside their father’s music since long before they started their own band. Chris spent sixteen years as a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet; Dan trained at Berklee College of Music under polyrhythmic masters Joe Morello and Alan Dawson. What the Brubeck Brothers Quartet has built from that inheritance — a program that pairs “straight-ahead” jazz with odd time signatures, blues, funk, and world music — comes to Caffe Lena on Sunday, August 23.
About the Show
Dan Brubeck plays drums; Chris Brubeck, bass and trombone; Mike DeMicco, guitar; Chuck Lamb, piano. Their approach centers on improvisation and what they describe as “the spontaneous spirit of jazz,” while drawing on a wider range than the straight-ahead label might suggest. Their 2018 album TimeLine, released on Blue Forest Records, commemorates the 60th anniversary of Dave Brubeck’s 1958 State Department Tour (80 concerts across 14 countries in 90 days) and spent five months on the Jazz Week radio charts. An earlier album, LifeTimes, reached the top ten on the Jazz Week chart as one of the year’s most-played jazz recordings.
DeMicco, who grew up in Woodstock and has been a touring guitarist since 1980, was called by JazzTimes “the perfect blend of soul, polish and technique.” Lamb, in the Quartet since 2002, earned this from Dave Brubeck himself: “Chuck Lamb is an extremely creative, harmonically interesting, rhythmically exciting pianist and one of the best improvisers.” The group has appeared at the Newport, Detroit, Montreal, Monterey, and Hollywood Bowl jazz festivals, and has collaborated with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, and musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Chris Brubeck holds a Grammy nomination for Ansel Adams: America (co-written with his father); Dan Brubeck received a Juno Award nomination in 2016 for a recording celebrating the music of Dave and Iola Brubeck. All About Jazz has called the group’s work “uniformly excellent in its composition, execution, and recording quality.”
Venue & Logistics
Caffe Lena, at 47 Phila Street in Saratoga Springs, holds 110 seats — a scale that puts the Brubeck Brothers Quartet’s festival-circuit credentials in unusually direct contact with the audience. For a band that plays Newport and Hollywood Bowl, an afternoon in this listening room is a different kind of proposition. The show runs 4–6 p.m.; doors open at 3:30 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are $70.49 general admission, $65.07 for Caffe Lena members, and $35.25 for children and students — all prices inclusive of fees. A live stream via Caffe Lena TV is available for $5, with 100% of streaming revenue going to the artists. Buy tickets.