Playing the Changes - Tracking Darius Brubeck

The first time I met Darius was in London in 2016. I was there to film a promo for a documentary that I wanted to make about the Jazz Ambassadors program. I was an admirer of Darius’ father's music and when I shook his hand, I even thought: this is the son of the man who made Take Five, Rondo a la Turk and Unsquare Dance, among others. I also discovered that Darius was an impressive pianist when I listened to Years Ago on Spotify, but Darius' life story in South Africa was completely unknown to me. I was mesmerised by our conversations about his and Cathy's dedication to establish Jazz Studies at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (then University of Natal) during the apartheid- era, and realised how this resonates with the life of his father Dave.

To me it feels as if Darius wanted to make his mark by doing something different in the jazz world. When I interviewed jazz lovers in Poland, I realised that everyone spoke about Dave, but nobody spoke about Darius. Many films have been made about Dave, but the story of Darius has not yet been told. I want to change that with this documentary.

In a small way this is similar to my own experience. My older brother had the same education in media and entertainment as I did, and there was a time when colleagues confused me with him. It still happens sometimes today, even though I have a career and life of my own. This used to become quite frustrating at times. Now Darius may not have made the same impact on music as his father did, but he certainly changed people’s lives. He meant so much to his students and his achievements are of historic importance.

I see a strong connection between the two generations of Brubeck. They both swam against the tide in a socially and politically unstable world. For Dave it was the Cold War period and for Darius it was apartheid.

The link between is that when in 1958 the Dave Brubeck Quartet was asked by the US State Department to go on a government sponsored jazz tour through Eastern Europe and the Middle-East. They were sent in order to capture the hearts of neighbouring countries of the Soviet Union. Cultural warfare simply was cheaper than military warfare. Not only does 10-year-old Darius perform in Poland in front of an audience for the first time in his life, he becomes aware of the major role that jazz can play in the world. Darius was only allowed to miss school as long as he kept a diary and recorded his experiences. In this illustrated diary he described how Poland looked in 1958. It was a satellite state of the Soviet Union and until Stalin’s death in March 1953, playing jazz was prohibited. For musicians to play what they wanted freely, they had to play jazz in ‘illegal’ jazz clubs, called “catacombs”.

Now in South Africa, jazz wasn't really forbidden, however in certain places mixed jazz bands were. Black musicians sometimes had to play behind the curtain and were often not allowed to eat in the places they played at. Clubs such as The Moon in Durban and The Rainbow Restaurant in Pinetown ignored those rules and were venues for everyone. You can see a parallel and, in a way, view them as the “catacombs” of South Africa.

I want to link Dave Brubeck's 1958 Jazz Ambassadors tour in Poland with the time Darius and Cathy spent in South Africa because it clearly had a strong impact on Darius. Dave, his greatest teacher, undoubtedly played a major role and has had a major effect on how Darius sees the world. Darius' life in South Africa was a lifetime in the making.

Darius did something that seemed essential at the time. He formed multi-racial student ensembles and encouraged students to focus on what really mattered for them, music. Ensembles such as The Jazzanians, The NU Jazz Connection and other bands like the Afro Cool Concept eventually toured internationally. Following the international, televised success of the Jazzanians, Darius and Cathy were able to found the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music on the university campus. A home for musicians to practice their craft and which served as a venue where funds were raised for students who couldn’t afford to pay the fees. Darius taught numerous South Africans across the country and many of them now have their own successful careers in the music industry and in education.

2020 was supposed to be a celebratory year for the Brubecks, which would’ve been Dave Brubeck’s centennial. The COVID-19 pandemic has cancelled most of the performances and even worse, Darius was hospitalised with the coronavirus. I was afraid that we would lose him before he could see the finished product. Thankfully he survived and has recovered from this.

In 2020 the world also witnessed the inhumane death of George Floyd and a global march against racism by the Black Lives Matter movement, which has exposed once more the racial inequality in many parts of the world, making a unifying documentary like Playing the Changes ever so urgent.