Although The Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out was intended as an experiment and received negative reviews by critics upon its release, it became one of the best-known and biggest-selling jazz albums ever. Obviously, timing is everything!
A1: Blue Rondo À La Turk
A2: Strange Meadow Lark
A3: Take Five
B1: Three To Get Ready
B2: Kathy's Waltz
B3: Everybody's Jumpin'
B4: Pick Up Sticks
Time Out was intended as an experiment using musical styles Brubeck discovered abroad while on a United States Department of State sponsored tour of Eurasia, such as when he observed in Turkey a group of street musicians performing a traditional Turkish folk song that was played in 9/8 time, a rare meter for Western music. Columbia president Goddard Lieberson took a chance to underwrite and release Time Out. It received negative reviews by critics upon its release, but despite this, it became one of the best-known and biggest-selling jazz albums, charting highly on the popular albums chart when 50,000 units sold for a jazz album was impressive. It consequently produced a Top 40 hit single in "Take Five", composed by Paul Desmond, and the one track not written by Dave Brubeck. The cover art is just as important as the LP itself featuring specific artwork created by S. Neil Fujita best known for his covers for CBS Records, which introduced abstract art to jazz LP packaging.
"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."
- All Music Guide - Steve Huey
Should some cool-minded Martian come to earth and check on the state of our music, he might play through 10,000 jazz records before he found one that wasn't in common 4/4 time.
Considering the emancipation of jazz in other ways, this is a sobering thought ... and an astonishing one. The New Orleans pioneers soon broke free of the tyranny imposed by the easy brass key of B-flat. Men like Coleman Hawkins brought a new chromaticism to jazz. Bird, Diz and Monk broadened its harmonic horizon. Duke Ellington gave it structure, and a wide palette of colors. Yet rhythmically, jazz has not progressed. Born within earshot of the street parade, and with the stirring songs of the Civil War still echoing through the South, jazz music was bounded by the left-right, left-right of marching feet.
Dave Brubeck, pioneer already in so many other fields, is really the first to explore the uncharted seas of compound time. True, some musicians before him experimented with jazz in waltz time, notably Benny Carter and Max Roach. But Dave has gone further, finding still more exotic time signatures, and even laying one rhythm in counterpoint over another.
The outcome of his experiments is this album. Basically it shows the blending of three cultures: the formalism of classical Western music, the freedom of jazz improvisation, and the often complex pulse of African folk music. Brubeck even uses, in the first number, a Turkish folk rhythm.
Blue Rondo à la Turk plunges straight into the most jazz-remote time signature, 9/8 - grouped not in the usual from (3-3-3) but in 2-2-2-3. When the gusty opening section gives way to a more familiar jazz beat, the three eighth-notes have become equivalent to one quarter-note, and an alternating 9/8 - 4/4 time leads to a fine solo by Paul Desmond. Dave Brubeck follows, with a characteristically neat transition into the heavy block chords which are a familiar facet of his style, and before long "Rondo à la Turk" is a stamping, shouting blues. Later the tension is dropped deliberately for Paul Desmond's re-entry, and for the alternate double-bars of 9- and 4- time which herald the returning theme. The whole piece is in classical rondo form.
Strange Meadow Lark opens with Dave Brubeck playing rubato, though there are overtones of 3's and 4's, and the phrase length is an unusual 10 bars. Dave Brubeck's performance throughout is simple and expressive, with fine support from Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. Strange Meadow Lark closes with a contribution from the wistful, dream-like saxophone of Paul Desmond.
Take Five is a Paul Desmond composition in 5/4, one of the most defiant time-signatures in all music, for performer and listener alike. Conscious of how easy the listener can lose their way in a quintuple rhythm, Dave Brubeck plays a constant vamp figure throughout, maintaining it even under Joe Morello's drum solo. It is interesting to notice how Joe Morello gradually releases himself from the rigidity of the 5/4 pulse, creating intricate and often startling counter-patterns over the piano figure. And contrary to any normal expectation - perhaps even the composers! - Take Five really swings.
Three To Get Ready promises, at first hearing, to be a simple 'Haydn-esque' waltz theme in C major. But before long it begins to vacillate between 3- and 4- time, and the pattern become clear: two bars of 3, followed by two bars of 4. It is a metrical scheme which suits Dave Brubeck down to the ground; his solo here is one of the high spots.
Kathy's Waltz (dedicated to Dave Brubeck's little daughter) starts in 4, only later breaking into quick waltz time. As in the Disney-born "Someday My Prince Will Come", Dave Brubeck starts in triple time, then urges his piano into a rocking slow 4. Theoretically it is as if Joe Morello's three beats had ceased to be the basic pulse, and had become triplets in a slow 4-beat blues -- though with Eugene Wright's 1-in-a-bar bass as the constant link between piano and drums. The listener who keeps abreast of the cross-rhythms here can congratulate themself on sharing with the Brubeck Quartet an enlightened rhythmic sense. Even feet are useless in following a time experiment of such complexity.
Everybody's Jumpin' opens without any precise feeling of key, but with a vague impression of 6/4 time, and a strong beat. Joe Morello's brief drum solo shows again what a superb colourist he is on the canvas of percussion tone.
With Pick Up Sticks, the earlier hint of 6/4 becomes positive. As so often in Dave Brubeck's time experiments, it is the bass part which supplies the anchor for the listener. This time Eugene Wright plays a regular pattern of six notes: a passacaglia on which is built the whole structure of this closing number. The high spot of "Pick Up Sticks" comes near the close, in a session of commanding piano. This is Dave Brubeck in the grand manner, as exciting as eight brass, but with that feeling of urgent discovery which can never be captured by the arranger's pen.
In short: "Time Out" is a first experiment with time, which may well come to be regarded as more than an arrow pointing to the future. Something great has been attempted...and achieved. The very first arrow has found its mark.
- Steve Race
Label: Columbia – 88697 26944 1, Music On Vinyl – MOVLP038
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo, 180 Gram
Country: Europe
Released: 2010
Genre: Jazz
Style: Bop, Hard Bop
| Model Number | G39897 |
|---|---|
| RRP | 69.00 |
