Darius Brubeck Official Website - Darius Brubeck Jazz musician

Darius Brubeck is an American jazz pianist, composer, author, and retired university professor residing in England. Darius and his wife, Catherine, are in the final stages of completing their co-written book, Playing the Changes, a memoir of their 23 years in South Africa where Darius introduced the first university jazz course and where they ran the internationally famous Centre for Jazz & Popular Music on the Durban campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. A documentary film also titled Playing the Changes will be released next year.

Currently, he leads The Darius Brubeck Quartet based in London. He occasionally joins his USA-based brothers, Chris and Dan, in Brubecks Play Brubeck.

Downbeat Magazine listed The Darius Brubeck Quartet Live in Poland as among the ‘best of 2020’. The group only resumed touring the following year.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Our upcoming events are listed below. For our past events, click here.

Book Tour, May-June 2023

Playing the Changes, by Darius Brubeck and Catherine Brubeck

Darius & Catherine Brubeck will be in South Africa for the whole of May 2023 promoting their book Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and on the Road, a memoir of the years from the ‘80’s through the early 2000’s they spent in South Africa. Darius initiated the first Jazz Studies course at an African university. He will also play with former members of two university bands he brought to the US in the 80s and 90s.

See below for dates and details.

May 20:

Centre for Jazz and Popular Music, University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban)

Book Launch featuring discussion with the authors and a live set from

The NU Jazz Connection –Chris Merz (sax), S’thembiso Ntuli (sax), Feya Faku(tpt), Sazi Dlamini (gtr), Darius (p), Lex Futshane (bass). George Ellis replaces the late Lulu Gontsana on drums. The NU (Natal University) Jazz Connection went to the US and released a CD, African Tributes, in 1992.

May 26:

Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, (University of Johannesburg) Music Encounters series: Book launch with panel discussion and film clips.

May 31:

Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS)

Book Launch featuring discussion with the authors and a live set from four members of the original Jazzanians: Nic Paton (sax), Darius (p), Victor Masondo (e.bass), Kevin Gibson (drums). The Jazzanians were the first South African student jazz group to tour overseas in 1988.

The Jazzanians original vinyl album cover

June 20:

USA book launch at the Wilton Library Brubeck Room in Wilton, Connecticut

Saturday, July 22 – Battle

The Darius Brubeck Quartet Battle Festival Jazz Weekend (England). More details from the Battle Jazz Festival box office. 8pm.

July 24: Swing in Venasque

The Darius Brubeck Quartet are special guests at Swing in Venasque (France).