Released: 1959
Tracks: Blue Rondo A La Turk; Strange Meadow Lark; Take Five; Three to Get Ready; Kathy’s Waltz; Everybody’s Jumpin’; Pick Up Sticks
Best track: Blue Rondo A La Turk
Track to skip: none
When I went to college I decided to go through my mom’s records and pick a bunch out to branch out a bit and freshen up my music collection. I remember I was writing a song, but nothing was coming out, so I put on some music, one of my mom’s records, to maybe inspire me. After a few minutes I realized that the album wasn’t going to help that particular song, so put that one away and just listened to this Dave Brubeck album for a while. I ended up listening to this album a lot during the course of the evening. Being that it’s only 40 minutes long, I did a whole lot of record-flippin’ that night. The cool thing is, once I ditched the first song I was writing lyrics to, a whole new set of words just flew out of me and I probably wrote that new song (solely under the influence of Time Out) in about an hour. I was very surprised of how good this album was, and once I listened to it, it became one of my favorite pieces of vinyl to put on. It wasn’t until last Christmas when I finally got it on CD.
It’s odd to imagine that songs in 5/4 and 9/8 could be hits, but somehow it happened. Of course Take Five was the biggest hit and the one most people remember, but Blue Rondo A La Turk (in a wonderful 9/8) was also a moderate hit. Although it might seem strange that jazz instrumentals were ‘hits’, modern listeners should know that this music was very mainstream back in the 50’s and 60’s. Rock songs are rare that have been both popular and in odd times. Stuff like Beatles’ All You Need Is Love (verse in 7/4), Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill (7/8) and more recently the Toadies’ big hit was also in 7/8. I really love the use of odd time signatures all through this album. The liner notes are wonderful for education purposes in that they talk about each song and the time signatures of each one. So, you can actually get a musical education from listening to this album. Imagine that, music being something other than wallpaper.
OK, yes, the music is good. It’s not the hard hitting be-bop stuff like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; it’s more of the ‘cool jazz’ kind that was popularized in California. So yeah, the album is fairly mellow, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less enjoyable or that the players are slackers. There are some fantastic musicians here: Dave Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on alto sax, Eugene Wright on bass & Joe Morello on the drums. All 4 really make this album be as good as it is. I really enjoy all of the tracks, but Blue Rondo is the best. I love the main theme especially on this. I recommend this to non-jazz listeners (since jazz listeners already know how good this album is) since it’s not only a great album, but very accessible.
Rating: 93
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