Time Out

Ok

5 stars for Take Five, of course. This album is the one and only.

Epic album by Dave Brubeck!

Dave Brubeck's Time Out is a jazz recording for people who have had trouble getting into jazz music. And by that, I don't mean that it's watered down easy listening for pop lovers. What I mean is that it's the perfect gateway to the challenging world of improvisation and song structures found in works by Brubeck, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and countless others.While works by hard bop musicians like Davis and avant-garde masters like Coltrane are considered the pinnacle of jazz music, they can be very challenging for listeners not accustomed to the genre. Dave Brubeck's album (often labeled as "college jazz" due to it's appeal to white audiences) provides a "way in" for the jazz novice without being any less an artistic masterpiece than "Kind Of Blue" or "A Love Supreme". Released in 1959, it had to compete with other influential jazz recordings such as the aforementioned "Kind Of Blue", Charles Mingus's "Mingus Ah Um" and the very avant-garde "The Shape Of Jazz To Come" by Ornette Coleman. It's success among them can most likely be attributed to it's popularity with mixed race audiences at colleges and other types of schools. The sound of "Time Out" is less abrasive than the experimental releases of the time and yet a little more energetic than the smoother sounds of what Miles Davis was recording at the time. It was the perfect crossover for university students without alienating jazz's core audience.The album's most well known composition is the jazz standard "Take Five". Very recognizable even to those who know very little about jazz or 50s music in general, it features a catchy saxophone hook and a primal drum solo. Written by saxophone player Paul Desmond, it has become Brubeck's "Stairway To Heaven" in terms of how iconic it is to the artist and the genre. The album's opener Blue Rondo A La Turk is less iconic but no less a masterpiece. Starting in 9/8 time, the pounding piano riff is very unique for a song that later enters a smooth jazz bridge with some very melodic improvisation from Brubeck's piano and Desmond's Saxophone. Another highlight is "Strange Meadow Lark" which stars with a free time piano solo before flowing into another smooth jazz improvisation. Actually, this is one of those albums where every track is a highlight as deeper cuts like "Three To Get Ready" and "Kathy's Waltz" provide their fair share of the fun too.If you like jazz then you probably already own this album and enjoy it. Even if you don't listen to jazz, you will be doing yourself a favor in purchasing it as it is a highly essential addition to any serious music collection.

In another lifetime, I had the pleasure of seeing the Brubeck Quartet in performance more than once. They spoke about their experiments with time signatures and played examples like "Blue Rondo ala Turk" and "Take Five". The story goes that Brubeck's producers did not want to issue an album of "different" tunes but the public loved it. The album is in the category of Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" and Erroll Garner's "Concert by the Sea". I had the album on vinyl but since I rarely play vinyl, I purchased the CD and am glad I did.

I finally broke down and picked up this CD to replace my two vinyl LPs (monaural and stereo). Whether due to age, dust, a fading cartridge and stylus, I was getting distortion from Joe Morello's cymbals. So I've received this latest deluxe version trumpeting its advanced technology and audio--but where are the cymbals? And on a recording where time and percussion deserve top billing! The first thing noticeable on the opening track is the near-inaudibility of the ride cymbal (it becomes louder by the end of the track).In short, this is not the greatest transcription--not even close. Desmond's alto is full, silky, and very present, and the bass, as usual on recordings these days, is certainly adequate (thankfully not over-cranked). The piano sound, on the other hand, is "cramped and narrow," lacking the rich Steinway sonorities of the vinyl original. And even as I've got my treble control turned all the way up, Morello's percussion--brush work and especially cymbals--is simply weak and distant in the mix. Shame on the Sony-Columbia engineers (especially after their glorious transcription of "Duke Ellington at Newport 1956"--perhaps the best-ever transfer of a vinyl recording to digital).Besides the introduction of unconventional time signatures to jazz, "Time Out" was the beginning of the Brubeck Quartet's many studio albums. All you have to do is go back to some of their earlier, "live" concert dates on Fantasy and Columbia to realize that "Time Out" is actually a relatively "conservative," uninspired recording, as is true of most of the Brubeck studio sessions. (As for those reviewers who call this the best Brubeck recording or, for that matter, best jazz recording of all time, I almost envy them: imagine their ecstatic response when they get around to listening to "Kind of Blue.")

Not Traditional Jazz, Not Swing! Simple AND Complex Musical Arrangements performedFLAWLESSLY by Dave Brubeck Quartet.