Dave Brubeck, pioneering jazz pianist-composer, dies aged 91

Jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, who tinkered masterfully with rhythm and style and won millions of new fans around the world for the genre, has died of heart failure.

Brubeck died on Wednesday, a day shy of his 92nd birthday, at a hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut, manager Russell Gloyd said.

The musician won a slew of awards in a career that spanned more than six decades and was still playing last year. He played at the White House and was designated a Living Legend by the US Congress' research library.

Brubeck's 1959 album Time Out became the first million-selling jazz record of the modern era, as songs Take Five and Blue Rondo à la Turk defied the indifference of critics to become classics.

A party had been planned for Sunday to celebrate his birthday, but he fell ill on Wednesday and was taken by ambulance to an emergency room. "They came up later and said we just can't keep this heart going," Gloyd said.

Brubeck's success cemented his reputation as one of the great popularisers of jazz, after years of nudging the music into mainstream culture by relentlessly performing at universities.