Time Out (Dave Brubeck Quartet album)

Time Out is a studio album by the American jazz group the Dave Brubeck Quartet. It was released in 1959 by Columbia Records. It was recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City. The album is known for being one of the first to use unusual time signatures in jazz, such as ⁹₈, ⁶₄, and ⁵₄. Its music mixes cool and West Coast jazz styles in a gentle way.

The album reached number two on the Billboard albums chart. It was the first jazz album to sell one million copies. Its best-known song, "Take Five", was also the first jazz single to sell more than one million copies. By 1963, the album had sold over 500,000 copies. In 2011, it was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. This means it had sold more than two million copies.

In 2009, the album was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2005, the Library of Congress chose it for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry. The Library said it was "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Background

The album was meant as an experiment. It used musical styles that Brubeck had discovered abroad on a United States Department of State-sponsored tour of Eurasia. In Turkey, he heard street musicians play a traditional Turkish folk song in ⁹₈ time, with beats grouped as 2+2+2+3. This is a rare pattern for Western music.

Columbia president Goddard Lieberson agreed to release Time Out, but only if Brubeck's group first recorded Gone with the Wind. That album was a traditional collection of songs from the American South, and critics did not like it. Time Out then produced a Top 40 hit single, "Take Five", written by Paul Desmond. It was the only song on the album not written by Dave Brubeck.

Music

The theme of Time Out is uncommon time signatures, which are unusual patterns of beats. "Blue Rondo à la Turk" starts in ⁹₈ and is grouped 2+2+2+3. This is like the Turkish zeybek dance and the Greek zeibekiko, and it is different from the more usual 3+3+3. Its saxophone and piano solos are in ⁴₄. The title is a play on Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca" from his Piano Sonata No. 11. The band heard the rhythm while traveling in Turkey. "Take Five" is in ⁵₄ all the way through. Desmond said it was never meant to be a hit. It was supposed to be a Joe Morello drum solo. Other songs also change patterns, such as "Three to Get Ready." It switches between two bars of ³₄ and two bars of ⁴₄.

"Kathy's Waltz" is named after Brubeck's daughter, although her name was misspelled. It starts in ⁴₄, then switches to double-waltz time, and finally mixes the two. In an article for The Independent, Spencer Leigh suggested that this song inspired the Beatles song "All My Loving," which was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon/McCartney. The two songs have similar rhythms at the end of their final melody phrases.

Legacy

The Dave Brubeck Quartet made three more albums with similar names that also used unusual time signatures: Time Further Out (1961), Countdown—Time in Outer Space (1962), and Time Changes (1964). Time In (1966) also featured the quartet, but it was credited only to Brubeck. It used more common time signatures.

Time Out was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry in 2005. That same year, it was also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2009, the album was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Reissues

In 1997, Legacy Recordings made a new, clearer version of the album for compact discs. In 2009, Legacy Recordings released a special three-disc 50th Anniversary Edition. This version had a wider range of loud and soft sounds than the 1997 version. It included the full album and a bonus disc of concert recordings by the Brubeck Quartet from the Newport Jazz Festival in 1961, 1963, and 1964. The third disc was a DVD. It had a 30-minute interview with Brubeck from 2003. It also had a "piano lesson" where viewers could switch between four camera angles of Brubeck playing "Three to Get Ready" by himself.

In 2020, Brubeck's children released Time OutTakes on their own record label, Brubeck Editions. The album has different versions of "Blue Rondo a la Turk," "Strange Meadowlark," "Take Five," "Three to Get Ready," and "Kathy's Waltz." That last song is now credited as "Cathy's Waltz." It also has two songs from the same recording sessions that were not on the original album. One is a cover of "I'm In a Dancing Mood," which Brubeck had recorded before, both live and on the album Dave Brubeck and Jay & Kai at Newport. The other is "Watusi Jam," a version of Brubeck's "Watusi Drums." The New York Times chose this release as a Critics Pick.

Track listing

Dave Brubeck wrote all of the songs, except where noted: Dave Brubeck.

Personnel

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

• Dave Brubeck: piano
• Paul Desmond: alto saxophone
• Eugene Wright: bass
• Joe Morello: drums

Production

• Teo Macero: producer
• Pat Maher: engineer
• Fred Plaut: engineer
• S. Neil Fujita: cover artwork
• Seth Rothstein: project director
• Russell Gloyd: reissue producer
• Mark Wilder: reissue remastering
• Cozbi Sanchez-Cabrera: reissue art direction
• Jeff Powell: 2024 vinyl reissue lacquer cutter

Charts

Album Billboard (United States)

Time Out reached No. 2 in the week of November 27, 1961, on the Monaural LPs chart. Only Judy at Carnegie Hall by Judy Garland was ahead of it.

Singles Billboard (United States)

Sales and certifications

Time Out was the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies. It was certified platinum in 1997 and double platinum in 2011. The single "Take Five" also sold over a million copies.