Dave Brubeck was born on December 6, 1920 in Concord California. His mother taught him piano at age 6, although vision problems kept him from learning to read musical notation. He began performing professionally by the age of 13. After completing military service during World War II, he found his way into the graduate program at Mills College where he studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud. He was an equally distinguished as a composer and pianist. He has written and recorded several large-scale works, including at least two ballets, a musical, an oratorio, four cantatas, a mass, and works for jazz group and orchestra. He demonstrated employing classical techniques such as polytonality and dissonance, and working in unusual time signatures to create a distinctively modern jazz sound. After founding Fantasy Records in 1949, Dave Brubeck and his trio started to enjoy some recognition. Radio helped bring his music to a wider audience and in 1950 the band won both the Downbeat and Metronome for best new combo. Dave Brubeck worked persistently to secure gigs across the country and literally invented the college concert circuit. These shows brought the band an enthusiastic young fan base and helped make "Jazz Goes to College" one of the best-selling jazz records ever released. Dave Brubeck was the first jazz artist to sell one million album copies and second to appear on the cover of Time magazine (November 1954). At the time of this writing, over the age of 80 he is still touring and releasing albums.