A legendary jazz artist noted for his daring improvisations, Dave Brubeck is also a composer of many works for performance by classical musicians. He studied composition with the French composer, Darius Milhaud, who encouraged Brubeck to compose using the language of jazz as well as classical music. Brubeck himself notes that perhaps his best compositions were created ‘at the moment for the moment’. Both Chromatic Fantasy Sonata and Two-Part Adventures take their inspiration from the music of J. S. Bach. Rising Sun is taken from the 1965 album Jazz Impressions of Japan while The Salmon Strikes is a tribute to pianist John Salmon, with whom Brubeck has enjoyed a long association and who performs on this recording. In 2003 Dave Brubeck was elected into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.