Dave Brubeck

David Warren Dave Brubeck was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered to be one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz. He wrote a number of jazz standards, including In Your Own Sweet Way and The Duke. Brubecks style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mothers attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills. His music is known for employing unusual time signatures, and superimposing contrasting rhythms, meters, and tonalities.

Brubeck was born in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Concord, California, and grew up in Ione. His father, Peter Howard Pete Brubeck, was a cattle rancher, and his mother, Elizabeth , who had studied piano in England under Myra Hess and intended to become a concert pianist, taught piano for extra money. His father had Swiss ancestry and possibly Native American Modoc lineage, while his maternal grandparents were English and German. Brubeck originally did not intend to become a musician , but took lessons from his mother. He could not read music during these early lessons, attributing this difficulty to poor eyesight, but faked his way through, well enough that this deficiency went mostly unnoticed.

Source: Wikipedia