Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out (180g Vinyl LP Reissue)

Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out | Vinyl LP - 2024 Columbia/Legacy Reissue (CS 8192, 180g)

Dave Brubeck's quartet recorded Time Out across three sessions in the summer of 1959 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York, the same converted church where Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue earlier that year. Columbia's executives didn't want to release it. An album built on odd time signatures, they argued, wouldn't sell. They were wrong by a factor that nobody predicted. "Take Five," composed by Paul Desmond rather than Brubeck, used a 5/4 meter that should have been too unusual for popular success but became one of the most played jazz pieces in history, a staple of radio, film soundtracks and waiting rooms for six decades. Joe Morello's brushwork on the track is what makes it work: his ride pattern holds the 5/4 feel steady enough that the listener doesn't count, just moves.

"Blue Rondo à la Turk" opens the album with a 9/8 pattern Brubeck heard in Turkish street music, subdivided into groups of 2+2+2+3 rather than the usual 3+3+3. "Strange Meadow Lark" is the ballad, Brubeck playing solo piano before Desmond enters. "Three To Get Ready" shifts between 3/4 and 4/4 every two bars. "Everybody's Jumpin'" and "Pick Up Sticks" are the most straightforwardly swinging pieces, and Gene Wright's bass anchors all of it with the steadiness the time signatures demand. Desmond's alto saxophone tone, dry and light and utterly distinctive, carries the melodies across every track.

This is the 2024 Columbia/Legacy reissue (CS 8192 / 19802803211), pressed on 180g vinyl.