Dave Brubeck Time Out 320 Rar
Lora Ceasor
Time Out is a studio album by the American jazz group the Dave Brubeck Quartet, released in 1959 on Columbia Records. Recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, it is based upon the use of time signatures that were unusual for jazz such as 9
8, 6
4 and 5
4.[6] The album is a subtle blend of cool and West Coast jazz.[7][8]
The album 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 with subdivisions of 2+2+2+3, a rare meter for Western music.[12]
Although the theme of Time Out is non-common-time signatures, things are not quite so simple. "Blue Rondo à la Turk" starts in 9
8, with a typically Balkan 2+2+2+3 subdivision into short and long beats (the rhythm of the Turkish zeybek, equivalent of the Greek zeibekiko) as opposed to the more typical way of subdividing 9
8 as 3+3+3, but the saxophone and piano solos are in 4
4. The title is a play on Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca" from his Piano Sonata No. 11, and reflects the fact that the band heard the rhythm while traveling in Turkey.[8][15]
"Strange Meadow Lark" begins with a piano solo that exhibits no clear time signature, but then settles into a fairly ordinary 4
4 swing once the rest of the group joins. "Take Five" is in 5
4 throughout. According to Desmond, "It was never supposed to be a hit. It was supposed to be a Joe Morello drum solo."[14] "Three to Get Ready" begins in waltz-time, after which it begins to alternate between two measures of 3
4 and two of 4
4. "Kathy's Waltz", named after Brubeck's daughter Cathy but misspelled, starts in 4
4, and only later switches to double-waltz time before merging the two. "Everybody's Jumpin'" is mainly in a very flexible 6
4, while "Pick Up Sticks" firms that up into a clear and steady 6
4.
I didn't have a copy of this classic album in my collection because for many years it was so readily available at such an affordable price (I remember when you could find copies in the bargain bins), that I always just figured I would grab it at some point. Well, as we all know, vintage vinyl prices have steadily risen over the past twenty years, and before I knew it, even a flimsy 1970's pressing was sometimes fetching $20 - and that wasn't always for a VG+ copy.
As it turns out this was a 6-eye pressing from 1961, with the cropped cover and the "Featuring Take Five & Blue Rondo A La Turk" text in the top right corner. I wasn't sure what to expect sound-wise, but the 6-eye pressing indicated that it should be of a pretty high audio quality. Once on the turntable back home I was very happy with the loud and clear audio coming through the speakers, with a nice separation and clarity of the interplay between the quartet. London Jazz Collector claims his "Columbia-CBS" 6-eye copy of Time Out is "inferior sonically to the original editions," but I can only think he may be right that his pressing may be "an end-of-run stamper artefact." I don't have an original to compare with, but I have a hard time imagining that my copy could be called sonically inferior. Of course, we all know that the same pressings can differ in quality, so it is not wholly out of the ordinary that there would be some anomalies, either on his copy or mine.
Not surprisingly, considering many jazz critics resistance to change, the album received a fair amount of poor reviews upon its release, including Ira Gitler's now famous review in Downbeat magazine (the premier jazz publication at the time) that gave the album 2 stars and proclaimed,
Ouch. But in a two short years "Take Five" would become a Top 40 hit single and go on to become the best selling jazz single of all-time. I guess in the end the jazz audience won out in this battle with the critics, they could recognize a masterpiece when they heard it, and now there is no doubt that Time Out is one of the greatest jazz records ever produced.
Why definitive? The dead-quiet double-LP, with the music spread over four sides of vinyl, reduces distortion and high frequency loss as the wider-spaced grooves let your stereo cartridge track more accurately. But it's more than just the vinyl that makes this release so special. For the first time in its history, Time Out is presented here packaged in a deluxe gatefold jacket. Inside are eight fantastic black and white images shot during the recording session at Columbia's famous 30th Street Studios. Sony Music supplied the images for use in our SACD reissue, and gave us persmission to use them in our LP reissue as well.
The album was intended as an experiment using musical styles Brubeck discovered abroad while on a United States Department of State-sponsored tour of Eurasia. In Turkey, he observed a group of street musicians performing a traditional Turkish folk song that was played in 9/8 time, a rare meter for Western music.
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.
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.
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 composer's! - 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.
Dave Brubeck has been a musical pioneer, pushing beyond the traditional forms and standard techniques of American jazz. From the earliest days of Brubeck groups playing in San Francisco in the late 1940s, Brubeck established himself as an innovative and unusual jazz musician using unorthodox techniques such as multiple rhythms, unusual time signatures, and playing in more than one key at a time.
For other jazz musicians and aficionados, these techniques - polyrhythm, polytonality and odd time signatures - became trademarks of Brubeck's jazz style. Brubeck himself understood that they often made his style hard for other musicians to copy. Even some critics have missed the beat of his more experimental ideas.
Nearly twenty years later, when Brubeck was auditioning musicians for what would become his 'classic quartet,' he was taken with Joe Morello's polyrhythmic drumming. 'Joe Morello can play a rhythm with one foot, another rhythm with the other foot, another rhythm with one hand and another rhythm with the other hand, all at the same time. Four different rhythms,' Brubeck explains. 'When we went to India and they heard Joe in India, they said, 'This is the first Western drummer we've ever heard that motivates us to appreciate what goes on in jazz and Western music.''
aa06259810