23. The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out (1959)

1. Blue Rondo a la Turk*

2. Strange Meadow Lark

3. Take Five*

4. Three to Get Ready

5. Kathy's Waltz

6. Everybody's Jumpin'*

7. Pick Up Sticks

B+

I'm struggling to find anything of depth to say about this album. Its importance from a technical standpoint comes from its innovative use of time signatures, about which I know nothing. From a purely musical point of view, its not all that interesting to me aside from two obvious standouts.

 "Blue Rondo a la Turk" is a deeply strange but incredibly fun track. It seems to owe just as much to classical music as it does to jazz, and is really sort of two pieces in one. It alternates between a rapid, technically dazzling passage in an odd time signature that repeats a strange sort of herky-jerky melody first on piano and then on saxophone, and a series of laid-back cool jazz solos in 4/4 time. It's hard to explain but tremendous fun.

The other big track on this album is "Take Five", which is a piece I'm sure most people have heard and which I won't bother describing. One thing I liked when reading about this album is the quote from Dave Brubeck "'Take Five' was never meant to be a hit. It was meant to be a Joe Morello drum solo". And it's true that, while the piano vamp and wonderful saxophone melody are the best remembered parts of the track, the real star is Morello, for whom the song was written as a showcase, and in which he delivers one of the classiest drum solos you'll ever hear.

I also liked "Everybody's Jumpin'", which features some great passages where Brubeck hammers on the chords of his piano to the point where the track stars to sound like something by Steve Reich.

Other than that, while there's a lot here to like, I didn't find much to get excited about. The pieces are all beautifully played and recorded, and I liked the Classical elements, but overall this just isn't the sort of jazz I go for. Possibly the other tracks suffer in comparison to "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo...", which really do tower over the other compositions. I'm always caught when dealing with an album like this between giving it a rating based on my enjoyment and giving it the rating I think it deserves. Maybe I should just abandon the whole rating system altogether. Actually no, I won't do that, but it's nice to know I could.

So anyway, two brilliant tracks everyone should hear and five pretty good ones it's ok to skip.