Long interested in large-scale composition, Brubeck uncorked a torrent of masses, cantatas and jazz/classical crossovers.
The second-generation of Brubecks also join the patriarch on jazz sets.
Darius Brubeck, a jazz teacher, composer and performer, recalls a conversation he had with the musicologist Gunther Schuller, who championed the work of radicals like Ornette Coleman and George Russell, and coined the term "third stream" in the 1950s to describe crossovers of classical music and jazz.
"Schuller said you don't hear the term `third stream' used any more," Darius said. "Because now it's everywhere. It's not a style, but a skill-set -- it just means musicians who have the flexibility to play outside specific idioms. "Dave was controversial from the standpoint that people wanted to stick to a certain type of narrative about jazz, and what he was doing contradicted it."
London Symphony Orchestra musicians Gerald Newson and Maurice Murphy, both of whom have worked extensively with Brubeck senior, confirm that transition and Brubeck's part in it.
"He was one of those who put jazz on the concert platform, and encouraged musicians from different disciplines to work together," Newson said.
Murphy, the orchestra's principal trumpeter, said: "Freelance sessions these days are likely to have two jazzers and two straight players in the trumpet section, not all classical. We learn from each other, and there's a total mutual respect. I think Brubeck has had a lot to do with that over the years, he makes different styles blend wonderfully."
But why, at 85, does Brubeck stay on the roundabout of hotel rooms and departure lounges, when he could be taking in the view from his studio window in Connecticut?
"In jazz, if you don't have a working group, you can't improvise," Darius Brubeck said. "Then what you do just becomes your act. So that's a stark choice for him. Not going on the road means you don't play jazz, and he doesn't want to give that up."
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