FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
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FOR this Vinyl Corner…
I am recommending the classic Time Out from The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Released in 1959 on Columbia Records, it was recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City. Even if you are not a Jazz fan, I would urge people to get the album on vinyl. It is a masterpiece that still sounds breathtaking over sixty years since it was released. Even though the album is known for its famous hit, Take Five (which was actually written by Paul Desmond), there is so much to appreciate throughout the album. As I do with these features, I am going to source a couple of reviews. Before that, this article talked about Time Out and why the signature and sound of Take Five was especially bold and unusual in 1959’s Jazz world:
“Hollywood knows a good stereotype when it sees one, hick or slick, and “Brubeck” meant cerebral, cool, West Coast. The Dave Brubeck Quartet was already one of the hottest ensembles in jazz in the ’50s, playing hundreds of concerts, and releasing multiple LPs, every year. Brubeck’s face had been on the cover of Time magazine in 1954, Jailhouse Rock came out in 1957, and it would still be two years before the Quartet had its incandescent burst into the stratosphere—and into jazz history—with the release of Time Out.
Led by the hit single “Take Five,” written by alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, Time Out was the first jazz album to sell a million copies. It broke many conventions in achieving that. For one thing, it was a jazz album with nothing but original pieces. No comforting “standards” were on it to reassure buyers wary of new music.
For another, the cover art was a contemporary, abstract painting. People like to look at faces, especially of celebrities, but there were no photos of the popular musicians greeting the public, just egg shapes and abutting slaps of color.
But the biggest risk, of course, was the music. “Take Five” added one little beat to the normal 4/4 pulse and made it 5/4, an unheard-of time signature for jazz. It’s found in avant-garde music or in folk traditions tucked away in Hungary, India... or in Turkey, where Dave discovered it. On tour, he heard local musicians playing odd rhythms and decided right there that he’d make a jazz album employing unusual time signatures. “Blue Rondo à la Turk” in a crazily sliced 9/8 was born there, and so was Brubeck’s lasting popularity.
These are beats you can’t dance to and can’t sing to, or so we’d think. The album was a gauntlet slammed into the ground of jazz. With Time Out, it’s as if Dave Brubeck were announcing, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one rule in jazz. It’s got to swing. And we can swing in 4, 3, 5, 7, 9, or anything. Here we go.” And off they went. “Take Five” was not only the Quartet’s biggest hit, it is still the biggest jazz single in history.
Desmond’s tune, and his sound, epitomize the ice-smooth and pungent spice of his talent. He likened his own playing to a dry martini, and there’s never been a better description. His supple, mid-air twists still amaze, but he’s a giant because of the non-headlining gifts he prized above all others. In a letter to his father he listed them: “beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.”
He was Charlie Parker’s favorite alto player. Desmond admired Parker and other bop musicians, but knew he could never be one. He joked, “I have won several prizes as the world’s slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness.”
Joe Morello is the kind of drummer whose talent knocks you down in stages. He’s not the freight train that Art Blakey was, nor a Buddy Rich Formula One race car. Philly Joe Jones played like he was falling down a flight of stairs and then strolled away smiling, but Joe Morello was Picasso, painting himself into cubist corners and turning the trap set into a mirage. Or like M.C. Escher, with finely detailed, perfectly executed stick-work leading you down a stairwell and out onto a roof.
But he could shout, too. His solo on the “Take Five” single sneaks in, stutter-stepping, but before long he’s slamming doors, or the same door, over and over, until he’s satisfied that it’ll say shut. Then he skips away on the ride cymbal.
With time-bending sax and shape-shifting drums, the bass player had better be strong, and Eugene Wright is that rock. His playing has been described as “Kansas City,” which, to my ears, in the context of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, means solid and fluid at the same time. It’s steady but always singing and tuneful. Wright is more than just the reliable springboard for the others, but a master technician of blues and feel. The little laugh at the end of “Unsquare Dance,” a blues Rubik's Cube from the Time Further Out album, is Wright’s relief that their layered syncopations over 7/4 actually worked!
The secret of Brubeck’s music, though, and of his success, has nothing to do with style. His impact on jazz isn’t because he's cool or West Coast. It’s not that Brubeck didn’t play standards (he did). It’s not even rhythm or time signatures or the supposed braininess Hollywood made him the poster boy for. If you want intellect, after all, bop’s your game.
No, Dave Brubeck’s secret is that his music is beautiful—unerringly, dreamily, laughingly beautiful. Paul Desmond’s playing, Joe Morello’s, Eugene Wright’s: all beautiful. He wrote new standards. Jazz or no jazz, he wrote songs, and each solo within the song was also a song. Dave Brubeck made music like no one else. That is his secret, and that is his legacy”.
It is a good time to get to some reviews. As I said, one does not need to be a Jazz aficionado or lover to understand what Time Out is all about. It is such a rich, detailed and wonderfully performed album that everyone should own. This is what AllMusic said in their review:
“Dave Brubeck's defining masterpiece, Time Out is one of the most rhythmically innovative albums in jazz history, the first to consciously explore time signatures outside of the standard 4/4 beat or 3/4 waltz time. It was a risky move -- Brubeck's record company wasn't keen on releasing such an arty project, and many critics initially roasted him for tampering with jazz's rhythmic foundation. But for once, public taste was more advanced than that of the critics. Buoyed by a hit single in altoist Paul Desmond's ubiquitous "Take Five," Time Out became an unexpectedly huge success, and still ranks as one of the most popular jazz albums ever. That's a testament to Brubeck and Desmond's abilities as composers, because Time Out is full of challenges both subtle and overt -- it's just that they're not jarring. Brubeck's classic "Blue Rondo à la Turk" blends jazz with classical form and Turkish folk rhythms, while "Take Five," despite its overexposure, really is a masterpiece; listen to how well Desmond's solo phrasing fits the 5/4 meter, and how much Joe Morello's drum solo bends time without getting lost. The other selections are richly melodic as well, and even when the meters are even, the group sets up shifting polyrhythmic counterpoints that nod to African and Eastern musics. Some have come to disdain Time Out as its become increasingly synonymous with upscale coffeehouse ambience, but as someone once said of Shakespeare, it's really very good in spite of the people who like it. It doesn't just sound sophisticated -- it really is sophisticated music, which lends itself to cerebral appreciation, yet never stops swinging. Countless other musicians built on its pioneering experiments, yet it's amazingly accessible for all its advanced thinking, a rare feat in any art form. This belongs in even the most rudimentary jazz collection”.
To round off, here is a link, where All About Jazz reassessed Time Out in 2011. They start by saying that the album is not the only Jazz milestone and masterpiece released in 1959:
“The album is one of two masterpieces made in 1959 sharing that fate. The other is trumpeter Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (Columbia). But Brubeck's album has suffered the most. Davis' studied cultivation of his image, along with such spurious qualifications for hipsterdom as his bouts of heroin and cocaine addiction, mean that Kind of Blue's magic still shines through the cloak of over-familiarity.
Time Out, on the other hand, was made by a quartet which included three nerdy looking white guys in college professor spectacles. Plus it spawned an international hit single in "Take Five"/"Blue Rondo A La Turk." With all that going against it, you had—and, perhaps, still have—to be truly hip to recognize the album's perfection.
Despite its eventual commercial success, Time Out was slow off the blocks. Columbia executives thought Brubeck's exploration of unusual time signatures (5/4, 9/8, 6/4, 3/4) would baffle the public and they did little to promote the disc. But the public proved to be thoroughly unbaffled and sales multiplied through word of mouth, fired by the quartet's relentless touring. Finally, a year after Time Out's release, the "Take Five" single was put out and history made.
Columbia then got the group back in the studio in short order to record a follow-up, Time Further Out (1961), another fine album which included the hit "It's a Raggy Waltz."
"Take Five" includes one of the most thrilling drum solos ever recorded, a 2:20 master class in percussive accentuation, colorization and structure. Unlike the rest of Time Out, which was composed by Brubeck, the tune was written by alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. "It was never supposed to be a hit," Desmond said later. "It was supposed to be a Joe Morello drum solo." Morello had joined the quartet in 1956 over Desmond's initial objection: the saxophonist was concerned that Morello's muscular style would jar with his own lyrical approach. Desmond was won over, and when the composer royalties for "Take Five" started pouring in, he must have been relieved Brubeck had stood his ground and insisted on hiring Morello.
There is much, much more to love about Time Out, most particularly Desmond's deceptively fragile alto and Brubeck's unique blend of blues tonalities, two-fisted block chording, and advanced, European-derived harmonization. And a bunch of great tunes including "Take Five," "Blue Rondo A La Turk," "Strange Meadow Lark," "Three to Get Ready" and "Kathy's Waltz," named after Brubeck's daughter, Cathy, but misspelled by the sleeve's typographer.
If Time Out has become a little inaudible in your life, it is time to play it again and marvel”.
A magnificent and hugely important album that definitely warrants more mainstream attention, 1959’s Time Out is perfect on vinyl. From Blue Rondo à la Turk to Pick Up Sticks through Take Five, there are few albums as mesmerising as The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s finest work. This is a great album that…
VINYL was intended for.