Finding the lyrics was a bit of a treasure hunt. To do a CD of vocal versions of Brubeck’s music, we needed an official Dave Brubeck songbook that included the sheet music from his publisher so we could be sure we had the correct words. But such a collection didn’t seem to exist. No definitive source came up in our search online, just multiple versions of lyrics for a few songs. We didn’t know which, if any, of the lyrics were “official.” … hmmm. … We were stalled until the day producer Ted Howe made contact with a representative for the Brubeck estate who, after talking with Ted and vetting the project a bit, said that an old songbook did exist, and he’d get back to us.
A couple of weeks later, in early 2014, Ted received a photocopy of the long-out-of-print “Dave Brubeck Song Book,” published decades ago. The copy came to us from our contact with the estate, who’d gotten it from Iola Brubeck. Receiving it was a magical moment for me.
What would we find inside? It was wonderful to see song after song full of imagery and emotion. The words, almost all written by Iola Brubeck, were sophisticated, poetic, clever. Some were nostalgic. Plenty were romantic. There were the songs from the musical Iola and Dave had written together, “The Real Ambassadors.” And rare lyrics for classic Brubeck Quartet tunes such as “Strange Meadowlark,” “The Duke” and “In Your Own Sweet Way.”
To the best of our knowledge, some of these songs hadn’t been recorded by a singer since the ’60s, when a live recording captured Carmen McRae guesting at a performance of the Brubeck Quartet. And according to our contact, no one had ever gone into the studio to record them collectively. We were set to go there at that point, thanks to receiving a copy of that elusive songbook.