Time Out & Time Further Out (2LP VINYL SET)

The ‘Time Out’ album presented here was recorded in three sessions between June and August the following year: we feature it in both mono and stereo versions, the latter format having just been introduced. The album was produced by Teo Macero at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City. The title, a play on words, refers not only to a period of relaxation, but also alludes to the use of time signatures that were ‘out’ or non-standard. The album was experimental and Columbia’s president Goddard Lieberson took a chance in allowing it to be released. The album opens with ‘Blue Rondo A La Turk’ which, incidentally, has nothing to do with Mozart’s ‘Rondo Alla Turca’ piano sonata but is so-named because it uses a rhythm that Brubeck heard being played by street musicians while he was in Turkey. This dance rhythm, called a zeybek, uses a 9/8 rhythm which creates an odd limping or stuttering effect. This rhythm alternates with a conventional 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 every fourth bar. The next track, ‘Strange Meadow Lark’, begins with no definable time signature but soon settles down to a fairly standard four-in-a-bar, although the restless harmonies of the piece, which is ostensibly in E flat major, give it a strangely unsettled feeling. The third track on the album is ‘Take Five’ the piece which will forever be associated with Brubeck. The title is another play on words for ‘take five [minutes]’ has the same meaning as ‘time out’ but it also refers to the use of the 5/4 time signature, although the music actually uses alternating 3/4 and 2/4 rhythms like ‘Mars’ from Holst’s ‘Planets’. The piece has a very clear ABA structure where A is the well known tune and B is an improvised section, first led by Desmond’s alto sax and then by Morello’s drums. ‘Three To Get Ready’, the next track, is written by Brubeck and starts out in waltz time but then alternates between two bars of 3/4 and two of 4/4. If the listener has never heard ‘Kathy’s Waltz’ before but is familiar with the songs of Lennon and McCartney, it can come as something of a shock to hear the reference to ‘All My Loving’ partway through the track. ‘Kathy’s Waltz’ was written four years before the Beatle song, although it is not known whether either Brubeck or Paul McCartney was aware of the resemblance. The Brubeck track (misspelt) was named after the composer’s daughter Cathy. The last two tracks ‘Everybody’s Jumpin’’ and ‘Pick Up Sticks’ each use a clear 6/4 time signature which actually consists of a 4/4 bar followed by one of 2/4. ‘Time Out’ was not well received by critics at the time, but the record-buying public knew better. The LP went platinum – the first jazz album to sell more than a million records – and hit Number 2 on the pop chart (Number 11 in Britain). It would establish the Quartet and help propel jazz firmly into mainstream culture. ‘Take Five’ became a Top 40 hit single, peaking at Number 25 on the Billboard pop chart and reaching the Top 5 on the adult contemporary chart. The only track on the album penned by Paul Desmond, it would go on to become a mainstay in television and movies and is still often heard today. It reached Number 6 in Britain, where the Daily Telegraph’s obituary called Brubeck ‘one of the most famous jazz musicians of the 20th century, adding that ‘his recording of “Take Five” remains one of the few jazz records instantly recognised by members of the general public.’