It’s 100 years since the birth of the jazz musician and Catholic convert, Dave Brubeck. Our music critic assesses both his orchestral work and the music he wrote for the Church

Dave Brubeck always insisted that he hadn’t converted to Catholicism because there hadn’t been anything to convert from. He had simply joined the Church. It happened 40 years ago this year, which also happens to be Brubeck’s centenary. The pianist had recently composed a Mass, “To Hope!”, which was performed at Washington National Cathedral and subsequently recorded there. Brubeck’s orchestral and sacred music is much less well known than his work as a jazz pianist, but it is a major achievement nonetheless.

Some continue to find it strange that an exponent of the Devil’s music should have turned to praising God, or that jazz musicians, not widely known for piety, should choose to work in sacred forms. Brubeck saw no strain, pointing out that gospel as well as blues was a major component of early jazz (the recorded legacy doesn’t quite bear this out) and that the sacred/profane distinction was, in any case, a “silly and irrelevant” one. Brubeck had always worked in ambitious forms. His early octets played a form of jazz-influenced chamber music and like his composer brother, Howard, Dave had continued to write orchestral music.