Dave Brubeck Took Jazz Behind Iron Curtain, and So Much More Bloomberg 12/19/2020 Joe Nocera (Bloomberg Opinion) -- I rarely listen to music when I’m working — it’s usually too distracting — but right now I’m playing “Jazz Impressions of Eurasia,” a lesser-known album by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. December marks the centennial of Brubeck’s birth, you see, and a flurry of concerts and radio shows has honored his legacy over the past few weeks. Not many of them feature tunes from the Eurasia album, but one had a particular importance both for Brubeck and the audience he first played it for. The song is titled “Dziekuje,” Polish for “thank you.” Brubeck wrote it in early 1958 during a train ride to the Polish city of Poznan, part of a 12-city tour of the country, which was behind the Iron Curtain at the time. The tour was sponsored by the U.S. State Department.(1)