The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
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Free Music Notes for Time Out
Free Music Review: Let's analyze this a little bit for the Mr. Know-it-alls out there
Hit: 5 Stars
This is in response to the one star reviewer 'Ivan' who decided to use 5 or 6 feeble lines to vent his personal disgust of the Brubeck Quartet in a primitive, offensive manner as if it had any merit outside his own lack of true discernment and taste by calling them less than 'worthless' and 'liquid sugar.'
First of all, you did not offer any valid or even sensible reasons for your 'opinion' and no coherent argument for hating and taking a dump on one of the most well-liked and highly-regarded jazz groups of all time. All you managed to blab out was that it's 'sugary' or 'liquid sugar.' Well, compared to what? The amount of sweetness someone wants in their coffee or music is a personal taste and some take no sugar at all but there certainly is a general area most people agree on that constitutes too much sweetness, is there not? And what's nauseating 'sweetness' in music then? Too much melody of an obvious, non-refined, non-sophisticated, predictable and cliched kind that's not counterbalanced by other elements within the same composition?
Well, having listened to the music of most of the jazz players of that era and beyond many, many times over the last 25 years, I'd say that the Brubeck Quartet with Desmond is definitely melodic and sweet but rarely exceeding one or one-&-a-half teaspoons of sugar which, furthermore, is always one of many ingredients in a nutritious, gourmet dish of full-bodied flavor and never there simply to make 'liquid sugar' or candy bars or even fancy gourmet pastry or dessert.
Now, less than two teaspoons of sugar, maybe that's still way too much for Mr. Jack-Daniels-in-his-Black-Coffee Wiccan Ivanhoe lumberjack-Outdoorsman over there but for most people it's a pleasant sweetness. When the Brubeck Quartet exceeds two-teaspoons and becomes too 'sugary' it's usually on a standard and not on the Brubeck or Desmond original compositions which all of 'Time-Out' happens to consist of. Desmond is definitely deliberately and tastefully melodic, sometimes a little too much so but he's also a virtuoso, a master musician who can play anything but rarely chooses to show off, whose number one priority is to be at all times, come hell-or-high-water, the KING of laid-back understatement, the master of cool, no matter what tempo or complicated meter he's soloing over (for an even better demonstration than the superb solos on "Time Out" people should check out his mind-blowing zen-master laid-back solo on the volcanically propelled odd-meter tune Eleven-Four on The Brubeck Live At Carnegie Hall album). No one understates like Desmond and that balances out and more than makes up for the occasional over-indulgence in melody or 'sweetness' that still rarely exceeds two teaspoons. Stan Getz is often much sweeter on his bossa nova albums but because the bossa tunes are much more melancholy and downbeat, the bitterness balances out the sweet to make an artful statement.
Desmond is also always balanced out by the deliberately percussive and polyrhythmic approach of Brubeck who has one of the greatest rhythm sections in jazz in Morello and Wright to work against. Just the complexity of compositions alone and the masterful improvisations within that structure should be enough for anyone who understands how difficult it is to play with such control and tightness and telepathic interplay and stay 'cool' despite it all to be in awe of this group. Trying to pigeon-hole and dismiss the Brubeck Quartet as nothing but 'liquid sugar' is lke saying Renoir wasn't a great artist or less of an artist than Picasso because he didn't paint unhappy subjects.
Alas, there is a problem, a certain deep cynicism people have been conditioned with that has nothing to do with true musical merit but which makes them dislike bands like Brubeck or Pat Metheny, whose very popularity fuels the fire against them. The thing that some people tend to confuse with too much 'sweetness' and hold against the Brubeck Quartet is that they are UPBEAT and NON-CYNICAL and cynicism and a certain down-beat, depressed, fed-up-with-it-all attitude seem to be the ultimate requirement of jazz-music to those people. Less immediately hummable melody does tend to go with those other states but so what? Since when was it a requirement for your cynicism to show in your art for it to be considered worthy? So, yes, if you want cynicism and misanthropy and depression being wallowed in and overcome, sometimes magnificently so, definitely go elsewhere but if you want music that is happily transcendent and soaring just for the sake of soaring, flying like a bird, not ignoring but rising above all negativity and floating, then the Brubeck Quartet is the ULTIMATE band for that.
And did I mention that they are the EPITOME or ultimate musical expression of what it really means to be an American at its best, or what the real American personality is like or at least used to be like at its best? Yes, the very American vibe exemplified by famous personalities like James Garner, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Bill Cosby, Andy Griffith, Rosalind Russell, Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Carole Lombarde, Jack Lemmon, Bob Newhart, Henry Fonda, Peter Fonda, Steve McQueen, George Clooney, Diane Keaton, even Jack Nicholson. Generally friendly, non-cynical, forward-looking, kind and forgiving with ample reserves and not worrying too much about ending up anybody's fool. I know, you're going to say that that breed is now extinct but why should America-at-its-best be extinct or considered a naive state of being while America-at-its-worst is being trumpeted out every media outlet of the propaganda ministry bought-and-paid-for by the already entrenched fascist state? (Most of my reviews include ruminations about the connections of art and politics, so if you don't think that politics and art are connected you should stop reading now). Yes, make no mistake about it, the Brubeck Quartet is the key to Americans re-discovering the best in themselves, hence its undying popularity. And it was for this very quality that the US State Department hired them and cynically used them to do "goodwill" tours of places as far-off as Turkey, Pakistan, India, even Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq while other agencies of the same government were busy supporting their installed dictators and such. I'm sure the Brubeck Quartet themselves saw nothing but the positive in being 'ambassadors' of art and I'm certainly not implying they were blind. So, my question to myself was: where did the non-hypocritical, honest aspects of all that in-retrospect 'hypocritical' goodwill go? Wherever it went in day-to-day-life, the genie's in the bottle on Brubeck albums. All it takes is one spin of "Time Out" or "Brubeck Live At Carnegie Hall" for it all to come back, in peak symbolic manifestation, radiant and untarnished by untempered actions and psychotic irrationality, heralding not hypocricy and a veil for charlatans and double-dealers but honest-to-goodness, actual Americans of goodwill, the Thomas Jeffersons, Henry David Thoreaus, Ron Pauls and Alex Joneses of the world, people you can trust with your life. The Brubeck Quartet is one of those groups you can trust with your life and even with your children's life because they will be there forever as transcendent testament to the America that was.
Free Music Review: An extraordinary recording
Hit: 5 Stars
Take Five is an amazing CD by one of the master quartets of jazz. The music seems as fresh and new today as it did when it was first recorded
-- lilting, clever, intricate, and yet utterly right in every note. If you like jazz at all, you must listen to this album. It is delicious!
Free Music Review: Entertaining, solid musicianship,
Hit: 4 Stars
My piano instructor recommended this CD to me. I decided to pick it up, and presto a day later a review is jumping from my fingers. This album is considered a classic Jazz album by many and I can hear why. Odd time signatures, solid play, and quality compositions. That being said I can't rate this CD 5 stars. I just can't put this recording in the same catagory as Miles Davis "Kind Of Blue." Don't get me wrong!!! I'm glad I own it, and it will get many plays in my CD player and I-POD. However, I just can't put it on par with some of the other Jazz CD's I've come across in times past.
I actually enjoyed the entire CD. However, my favorite compositions on here are: Blue Rondo, and Strange Meadow Lark. I just find that my ear happens to enjoy the rhythmic and melodic content in those two compositions over the others. This CD sounds before it's time (1959 originally recorded), but music has come a long way since.
Bottom Line: I really enjoyed this CD, it's worth having, but there are other jazz artists I like more.
Free Music Review: Not thrilled with SACD version
Hit: 4 Stars
The music itself is very good, but not great I would have liked more sax, horns. (This is coming from a Steely Dan fanatic) However, for a recording that is nearly 50 years old, the sound is fantastic, most people couldn't tell the age. My main comment is that the SACD surround mix is TOO subtle. I thought my player wasn't working. I have yet to compare the CD version to the SACD version. Maybe the SACD version is better, but I was hoping for a better surround mix such as Avalon. Free Music Review: Take Four Stars!
Hit: 4 Stars
There's no doubt this album is important, but that's not why you should listen to it. This album's exotic rhythms are one of a kind, and they are put to good use. Rather, the reason you should listen to this is the great music, that was made using cool rhythms. The Rhythm backs everything, and everything can follow suite. Therefore, cool melodies could only be strung together if they were in that rhythm with the particular time signature backing it up. It shows that yes, it's okay to know different music techniques.
While the music theory freaks would easily eat that up, this is where Time Out retains it's deserving praise as a good album: You don't have to have to know a lick about anything related to the technical parts of music to enjoy this. It has it's melodicous center, and it will stay with you because the time signatures made music that still makes you want to stay with this album, even if you don't know how it's done. You don't know either, because technical factors are not the main reason you should listen to music. So Time Out will stay a well known album and find new audiences in all camps of music listeners and music dissectors, alike.
There's not a single bad song, although I do find plenty of parts (in particular, toward the end) that make me loose interest. But that's not bad at all, as some of these songs on here more than likely do great, and
Take Five is on here! There's no substitute for this song, with it's drum solo, cool rhythm, the cool sax solo, Paul Desmond is great. There's the opener, with it's pounding piano intro, totally chill parts after, and the piano pounding yet again. Three To Get Ready is another masterpiece. It's jazzy piano and trading lines of the instruments, with it's swinging groove. Strange Mellow Lark is cool and even a bit romantic. Pick Up Sticks has some akward piano playing with a cool beat. Kathy's Waltz isn't as good, but it's got a good intro, and Everybody's Jumpin' is my least favorite, though it stands on it's own greatly. Really, not a single poor song. Just not some of the greatest music I've ever heard, but still great stuff.
Okay, so it didn't do much for me as it did for others (which is why it got the score), but still, get it. Jazz veterans and newbies can't go wrong with giving this a listen. And come on, Take Five owns!
7.5/10