Pianist-composer Dave Brubeck has become a jazz legend.

The public at first associated him with the intricate, lightly swinging sound known as West Coast Cool.

His distinctive harmonic approach and daring improvisations generated excitement with critics and fans.

His group won the Critics Poll and the Readers Poll the same year in Down Beat magazine.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet became the sound that identified an era.

It was they who started the wave of popularity of jazz on college campuses in the Fifties.

The outfit played the leading jazz clubs and toured with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and other musicians of the bop era.

They won the first jazz poll conducted by a black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier.

By 1954, Brubeck's picture had appeared on the cover of Time Magazine along with a story heralding the rebirth of jazz.

In 1960, the quartet, with Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello, released their first experiment in odd-metered rhythms. The album, Time Out, and its singles, Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk, became the first in modern jazz to "go gold."

More than 40 years later, at the age of 83, Brubeck and his quartet are still producing fine-sounding albums.

Last month he released Park Avenue South, recorded in a Starbucks coffeehouse in Manhattan in July 2002.

Despite the unconventional setting, the album is "a mix of the familiar and the new" from one of the most influential jazz pianists of the last half century and his talented crew.

"I've recorded in many different situations," says Brubeck.

"Live in a nightclub, in a cathedral, in concert halls and of course in several different studios.

"The experience of recording in a Starbucks was something unique and a challenge for musicians and sound engineers alike."

Despite these obstacles, the final product is on a par with Brubeck's other fine recordings of the past decade.

The opening track, Sunny Side Of The Street, kicks off with high energy and plenty of spirit.

Other well-known standards include Love for Sale and Slow Boat To China.

In addition to the standards, Brubeck also serves up a few original compositions, including the poignant Elegy, a piece written for, and dedicated to, the memory of Randi Hultin, a Norwegian jazz critic and long-time friend of Brubeck who died of cancer before she could hear the quartet perform it.

On the lighter side is Crescent City Stomp, an ode to New Orleans with a mix of melody, harmony and backbeat.

Brubeck will perform tracks from his new album at his Brighton concert.

Tickets £17.50 to £25. Call 01273 709709.