TAKE FIVE

With Dave Brubeck and His Rengstorff Family

Dave Brubeck with Ginny Kaninski and Mary Boudrias

At a private backstage meeting he impressed three of our members with his knowledge of the Rengstorff family and his relationship to it and was eager to receive more information about the family.

A great grand nephew of Henry Rengstorff, Dave Brubeck was born in Concord, California, in 1920 into a musical family. Regarded as a musical genius, the jazz composer and pianist still performs today at age 85. And after his recent performance at the historic Fox Theater in Redwood City the jazz legend privately met backstage with three Friends of R House members. See his photo nearby with Mary Boudrias, former Friends president, and Ginny Kaminski, present Board member. Dave is seen holding a photo, which Ginny had just given him, of his cousin Perry Askam, Henry's grandson, a recognized light opera baritone from the 1920s to 1950s and the final family owner of the Rengstorff House.

Dave's mother Elizabeth "Bessie" Ivey Brubeck, a good friend of the Perry Askam branch of the family, granddaughter of Henry Rengstorff's brother Johann, studied classical piano in England and intended to become a concert pianist. At home she taught piano for extra money, with Dave and his two brothers among the students - brother Howard bears the middle name Rengstorff. But Dave didn't take well to formal training and preferred to create his own melodies and avoided learning to read sheet music. In college he was nearly expelled when this "deficiency" was discovered. He was eventually allowed to graduate in 1942 after promising never to teach piano.

He was then drafted and served four years in the Army. He spent two years in a camp band in Southern California but in 1944 he was sent to Europe as manpower shortages became acute and was slated for front line duty, but the intervention of a jazzophilic officer kept him traveling about Europe entertaining troops. He got near the front lines under General George Patton in the Battle of the Bulge but the piano was his only weapon.

After the war he enrolled at Mills College in Oakland and studied under the famed French composer and teacher Darius Milhaud. In 1947 his career got off to a slow start but by the early 1950s recognition came and in 1954 he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, the first jazz musician to be so honored. In 1959 his Time Out album was almost not released because of its unusual styling but it quickly went platinum. Take Five, from that album, composed by his sax man, later became the best-selling jazz single of the century.

World tours by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, including several for the U.S. State Department, have made jazzman Brubeck one of America's foremost goodwill ambassadors. He has performed before eight U.S. presidents, princes, kings, heads of state, and Pope John-Paul II.

His still exhausting schedule called for his performance in Monterey the evening following our meeting with him. Shortly afterwards he sent a gracious letter, saying how much he enjoyed visiting with us and receiving Rengstorff family memorabilia, including the CD of Perry Askam, saying that Perry "had a wonderful voice." (The CD, reproduced from recordings made as far back as 1930, is an item which we sell.) The immortal musical maestro closed his letter thus: "I hope that the next time we are in the area I will have time to visit the Rengstorff House."

Our piano, almost as old as the house, will be in good tune.

Past Historical Notes

• Stevens Creek
• Historical Landmark now marked for all to see!
• Inherit the Wind