TIME OUT!!!

Last September Kip (and I by default) was given a fantastic birthday present from my parents. It was a chance to see The Dave Brubeck Quartet live. Wow! We were excited, because ever since our wedding, the most common album we have played while setting up our apartment, eating breakfast on a Saturday morning, or the occasional evening at home together, was Time Out, by The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

It's the kind of album which you start, and then press play again as soon as it's ended. Over and over, and over. It just keeps going, and your morning keeps going, and you keep going, until you shut the CD player off as you are heading out the door. There are seven fantastic tracks and neither of them are the classic 4/4 jazz time. They all have some sort of twist whether it's a crazy 9/8 time or swaying a 4 time into a waltz time. I am not a music theory teacher, or student, but this album has a way of moving like no other.

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

Track number one, which is called Blue Rondo A La Turk, has this great moment, at three minutes and fifty three seconds, where this solid base line is having a conversation with a saxophone. Your head has been bobbing up, down, back, up, and then this piano joins in the conversation as the sax drops out that makes you want to laugh as you continue to up, down, back, down, up. Fantastic.

Strange Meadow Lark entreats you with the piano, until it softens a touch and you find yourself waiting for something to happen...and then it does. (2:07) Drums sound and a clear sax brings the song along. Hmmm, very nice.

Take Five: Just turn it on. This is my favorite on the album, and when the Quartet began to play this live there was this electric applause and everyone was bouncing at the edge of their seat. Seeing four, white-haired old men playing this, jamming out and delivering the most amazing drum solo was...well, enlivening.

Three To Get Ready makes me want to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

Kathy's Waltz was named after Brubeck's daughter. Her name is really spelled with a C. This is my second favorite track on the album...especially about thirty seconds in, when the higher notes of the piano is having a back and forth conversation with the lower piano. The sax swings in at about 1:20-ish and away you go.

Everybody's Jumpin' is a move your shoulders up and down song.

And we finish with a great bass line in Pick Up Sticks.

The concert was even more then I expected. As they shuffled across the stage you waited in anticipation, and then couldn't help but grin the entire time at their musical agility, and the fact that you knew they were having a lot of fun. Apparently Brubeck was nearly expelled in college when a professor discovered he could not read music, several teachers came to his defense, but the school, still fearing a scandal, only let him graduate if he promised to never teach piano. (wikipedia)

If you have Time Out, put it on for a few go 'rounds. If you don't, I would suggest picking it up. Enjoy.