[11] While an undergraduate at Wesleyan, Brubeck worked on Christopher's Movie Matinee for the National Film Board of Canada; he is credited for composing music and performing on the screen.

[14] From 1999 to 2000, Brubeck was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Nottingham, where he earned an M.Phil degree and wrote a chapter ("1959: The Beginning of Beyond") in The Cambridge Companion to Jazz (2003).

[15][16] After moving to London in 2005, Brubeck taught courses at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Brunel University.

[17] Appointed as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Jazz Studies in 2007, he taught at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul and subsequently at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 2010.

[19] He regularly contributes papers to conferences related to jazz studies and retains an academic affiliation of Honorary Professor with the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

[24] The NU Jazz Connection (1992) which performed at the IAJE Conference in Miami also made an album, African Tributes for B&W Music.

In 1990, they recorded Afro-Cool Concept: Live in New Orleans, featuring Barney Rachabane on alto sax, Victor Ntoni on bass, and Lulu Gontsana on drums.

[26] Brubeck, Ntoni and Gontsana backed tenor sax players Winston Mankunku Ngozi, Ezra Ngcukana, and Duke Makasi, and guitarists Allen Kwela, Johnny Fourie and Sandile Shange in Durban and at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

[30] The independent South African record label Sheer Sound released Afro-Cool Concept's Still On My Mind in 2003,[31] and Darius Brubeck albums, Before It’s Too Late (2004) and Tugela Rail and Other Tracks (2007).

[32][33] During the 1990s and early 2000s, Brubeck led a variety of ad hoc bands based in Durban, with saxophonists including Mike Rossi, Chris Merz, and Zim Ngqawana.

Brubeck formed the NU Jazz Connection in 1992, which consisted of himself and Mark Kilian on keyboards; Chris Merz on saxophone; and five students: Fezile Faku on trumpet, Lex Futshane on acoustic and electric bass, S’Thembiso Ntuli on tenor sax, Sazi Dlamini on guitar, and Lulu Gontsana on drums.

[45] In 2004, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra commissioned a piece by Brubeck and Zim Ngqawana for "Let Freedom Swing", a setting of music to extracts from speeches by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.

[46] In 2005, the Rockefeller Foundation awarded Brubeck a residency as a composer at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy.

Deepak Ram (bansuri) Stacey van Skalkwyk (fulte) Chris Merz (soprano sax) Zim Ngqawana (alto sax) Mike Rossi (tenor sax) Candace Whitehead (violin) Brendan Jury (viola) Matthew Brubeck (cello) Mark Kilian (synth) Concord Nkabinde (electric bass) Bhisham Bridglall (tabla) Airto Moreira (percussion) Kevin Gibson (drums) Brubeck, Darius, & Catherine Brubeck, Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and on the Road, UKZN Press, 2023; University of Illinois Press, 2024.