Ambassador of Cool

With Brubeck at his side, Smith simply said to the reporter, "I'd like you to meet my son."

A Summit Breakthrough

There's a picture from Brubeck's 1958 State Department tour of Desmond playing his saxophone in an Indian marketplace. He was trying to charm a cobra out of its basket.

On another occasion, when Brubeck found a piano that hadn't been warped by subtropical heat, he asked if he could use it at later concerts. A group of men picked up the 12-foot Boesendorfer and carried it through the streets on their shoulders.

Thirty years later, when the Cold War was quickly thawing, cultural diplomacy had become a little more refined. On May 31, 1988, President Ronald Reagan had invited Brubeck to join him at a gala dinner at Spaso House, the U.S. ambassador's residence in Moscow, during Reagan's summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Three days of diplomatic talks had proved fruitless, and faces were grim during the dinner at the ambassador's house. Afterward, Brubeck and his group got up to play. A year before, they had performed to enthusiastic audiences in Moscow, Leningrad and Tallinn, Estonia, but on this night they were limited to only four songs. That was all they would need.

"The Russian guests appeared to appreciate the entertainment," the Associated Press soberly reported, "and many tapped along with their feet as Brubeck's quintet played."

During the final number, "Take Five," people noticed that even Gorbachev was drumming his fingers in time with the music.

"I can't understand Russian," Brubeck said, "but I can understand body language."

After the concert, according to the New York Times, Reagan was "bantering" with Brubeck "as Mr. Gorbachev and members of the ruling Politburo looked on with broad grins."

The diplomatic stalemate was suddenly broken, and the Americans and Soviets reached a historic agreement to dismantle parts of their nuclear arsenals.

"The next day," recalls Brubeck's longtime manager and producer, Russell Gloyd, "[Secretary of State] George Shultz broke through the ranks, gave Dave a big hug and said, 'Dave, you made the summit. No one was talking after three days. You made the breakthrough.' "

It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that a piano player helped end the Cold War, but Brubeck and his music certainly didn't hurt. Ever since that first jazz journey in 1958, he understood the power of music to cross the boundaries of language, culture, politics and race.

When he took his music to new lands, people instantly recognized what they were hearing. "Jazz," Brubeck says, "is the voice of freedom, more than anything else in the world."