This year, music world marks the centenary of Dave Brubeck. An outstanding jazz musician, one of the most popular pianists of the 20th century, he was the first of white jazzmen to appear on the cover of “Time” magazine. Dave Brubeck performed in Russia twice, in 1987 and in 1997. In 1987, Soviet major label “Melodiya” released LP with the recording of one of two Brubeck’s concerts in Moscow, and the same year a young Russian saxophone player Igor Butman first met the great pianist. 

“We met at the artists meeting organized at Union of Soviet Composers”, Igor Butman recalls. “We played some blues, then Brubeck shook my hand, hugged me… Later in 1987, when I came to the USA, I called him by the phone. He said he had a concert in Boston, and told me to make sure to take my saxophone with me. But I didn’t have one with me! So, I just showed up in a music magazine, and shocked its stuff with ‘Dave Brubeck asks me to play a concert with him, so would you kindly lend me a saxophone?’ Eventually, they did give me a saxophone, actually one of the best they were selling at the time, and I played at the concert with Dave Brubeck. Then he gave me a reference for famous Berkeley college in Boston”.