Artist:The Dave Brubeck Quartet
Song:Take Five
Album:Time Out
Dave Brubeck's 1959 classic Take Five probably did more to popularize jazz than any song in history. And the great thing is Brubeck never compromised his music to become popular. He was born Dec. 6, 1920 in Concord, CA. His mom was a piano teacher and Brubeck studied music at College of the Pacific before leading a service band during WWII. While in the service, he met future collaborator sax player Paul Desmond. He studied with classical composer Darius Milhaud in 1946 and Milhaud encouraged Brubeck to play jazz. Brubeck led a popular Bay Area trio featuring vibraphonist Cal Tjader in 1949. But a swimming accident put him on the shelf for a couple of years. When he returned in 1951, Paul Desmond convinced Brubeck to turn the group into a quartet. He recorded for Fantasy Records in the early 50s and moved to Columbia in 1954. By 1958 he had settled on drummer Joe Morello & bassist Eugene Wright along with Desmond for the quartet. Brubeck was known for exploring odd time signatures and giving his music a sophisticated classical feel. Time Out became the biggest selling jazz album in history and the Desmond composition Take Five got an unprecedented amount of radio airplay for a jazz song. I don't think that Brubeck even knows why the song was so popular. Time Out is a classic album but Columbia has never released any sort of expanded edition on CD. That's strange for such a big seller. Paul Desmond died in 1977 but Dave Brubeck continues to tour the world and his latest CD is 2007's Indian Summer on Telarc Records. Here's The Dave Brubeck Quartet performing Take Five on Jazz Casual in 1961.
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