Date Posted: Aug 21, 2008

Fifty years ago Dave Brubeck took an amazing diplomatic journey. He toured Europe and the Middle East with his quartet and went behind the iron curtain.

Category: Festival Landing Page

Posted by: asirastudio

This story is one of many Dave Brubeck told me onstage at this year's Litchfield Jazz Festival. I was asked to interview Brubeck and Paquito D'Rivera onstage at the Litchfield Jazz Festival, as part of an NEA Jazz Masters' program. I'd be asking questions collected from festival-goers, and young jazz artists who were attending the festival's Jazz Camp.

The afternoon had been interrupted by a nasty thunderstorm. But the crowds were still huge and they started to gather around the second-stage tent when Dave Brubeck rolled up in a golf cart.

For about a half hour, I got to sit onstage with these two musical giants. One, America's great jazz ambassador, and the other an ambassador from Cuba, who brought his music with him to the US when he fled Castro's island, but left everything else, including his family behind.

Today, where we live, we'll listen to that conversation, interspersed with some of the music the two artists performed at the festival.

--John Dankosky, WNPR News Director and host of the award winning morning news show, "Where We Live."

Listen to the interview on WNPR.org NOW!

Date Posted: Aug 21, 2008