Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1959 Time Out album, which includes the popular hit “Take Five”, was the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies. It featured Paul Desmond’s airy, blues-laced alto sax pirouetting over Brubeck’s insistent piano vamps, and it still sounds cool today.
At the time, the album’s odd-metre time signatures and allusions to classical form were felt to be game-changing. Jazz, though, chose a modal, funky and expressionist path, and Brubeck has been relegated to something of a historical side-note.
Time Outtakes, released to mark the centenary of Dave Brubeck’s birth, collects previously unreleased alternate takes and songs to throw new light on this jazz classic. It confirms the album’s enduring popularity — presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are quoted in the album’s notes — and finds the critical emphasis on odd time-signatures meant other qualities were overlooked.
Revisiting the songs through this newly available material shines the spotlight on the near-perfect balance of Brubeck’s quartet. The pianist’s forceful attack can border on the heavy-handed, but here Desmond’s wispy, light-toned lyricism, firmly supported by Eugene Wright and Joe Morello on bass and drums, softens the edges.
Brubeck wrote great tunes with bravura passages, dramatic shifts and room for soloists to stretch out. The cross-stitch of Eurasian folk and blues on “Blue Rondo à la Turk” remains spine-tingling, as do the alternating passages of waltz, counterpoint and walking bass swing on “Three to Get Ready” and “Cathy’s Waltz”.
The outtakes are also jazzier than the original release and feel more adventurous and vibrant on the ear. “Take Five”, originally written as a feature for drums, has longer solos, Desmond on song and Morello rumbling to a thrilling peak despite the occasional glitch.
Two tracks, “I’m in a Dancing Mood” and the piano trio “Watusi Jam”, are released here for the first time. The first changes tempo, the second is funky and off-the-cuff and both capture the sense of adventure of this fine working band.
★★★★☆
‘Time Outtakes’ is released by Brubeck Editions