Fr Stephen Wang on Dave Brubeck - jazz musician, Catholic convert who wrote a Mass setting!

The jazz musician and composer Dave Brubeck died on Wednesday at the age of 91. Fr Stephen Wang writes in his blog Bridges and Tangents: 'His recordings were the first jazz I ever listened to, on a scratchy LP from my dad's collection; and Paul Desmond's lyrical playing on Take Five was one of the main reasons I took up alto sax as a teenager.'... Fr Stephen goes on to include a beautiful tribute to Brubeck and a link to a live studio version of Take Five - to read more see: http://bridgesandtangents.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/dave-brubeck-rip/

In his next blog, Fr Stephen speaks about Brubeck's conversion to the Catholic faith: For years, he asserted he was not a convert, saying: "to be a convert you needed to be something first" - Brubeck said he was "nothing" before he was welcomed into the Church.

His Mass has been performed throughout the world, including in the former Soviet Union in 1997, and for Pope John Paul II in San Francisco during the pontiff's 1987 pilgrimage to the United States. See: http://bridgesandtangents.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/and-dave-brubeck-was-a-catholic-convert-who-wrote-a-musical-setting-for-the-mass/