Time Out (Remst)

• Kind Of Blue (Remst)
• A Love Supreme
• My Favorite Things
• Birth Of The Cool
• Mingus Ah Um

In fact, in the context of Brubeck's work as a whole and of jazz in general, the quartet's experiments with time are less significant than is often supposed. The claim that these experiments would have an important influence on other jazz musicians has not been justified, and it's not difficult to see why. What matters in a jazz musician's use of time is not time signature - the number of beats in the bar - but rhythm - how phrases are placed and accents distributed in relation to the beat. In other words, what matters is how the music "swings". All four members of the Quartet knew how to swing (saxophonist Paul Desmond more subtly and flexibly than Brubeck or drummer Joe Morello). But the jazz musician swings most effectively and employs a greater range of rhythmic and poly-rhythmic resources when playing in a conventional time signature, one which, in the development of jazz, has been internalised to the point of being its "natural" rhythmic medium. The problem for jazz musicians when they try to improvise in time signatures more complex than "common time" (4 beats to the bar) or "triple time" (3 or 6 beats to the bar) is that the need to consciously "count" the beats in the bar inhibits the usual flexibility with which they can play in, against and around the beat (as well as inhibiting their melodic and harmonic invention). You can hear the effect of this inhibition on Time Out when the playing becomes overly self-conscious and the rhythms laboured and mechanical: for example, when Brubeck, on "Kathy's Waltz", hammers out his repetitive 4/4 phrases against the rhythm section's 3/4 time, or when Joe Morello, in his solo on "Take Five", tries to find rhythmic patterns to play "against" the 5/4 measure and sounds in danger of being cut adrift from any coherent time signature (on the other hand, his light, bouncing swing behind Desmond's playing on this famous track is one of the best things on the album).

Once the novelty value of these experiments with time has worn off, a listener might justifiably ask the question: why? Why play 4/4 against the rhythm section's 3/4, other than to show that it can be done? (And didn't we already know this from centuries of folk, ethnic and European classical musics?) In a piece like "Three to Get Ready", why bother to alternate throughout between two different time signatures if the musicians can play more freely and naturally in one? What would "Take Five" lose, apart from its novelty value, and its rhythmically inhibiting effect, if it were "Take Six"? (It would presumably not need Brubeck's repetitious "comping" to mark the time signature so obviously.) One of the most original compositions on the album is "Blue Rondo a la Turk". But it's not really a jazz composition as such, and it's significant that for its improvised solos it shifts from the "Turkish" theme in a complex 9/8 time signature into a conventional 12-bar "walking" blues in 4/4 time - which seems to concede that the unusual time signature is of limited value, and too tricky to negotiate, for an improvising jazz musician.

The other effect of this "time" material was to shift the focus of interest within the quartet's music to the compositions themselves, and away from their function as vehicles for jazz improvisation. This would matter less if they were more interesting as compositions, if the melodic and harmonic material were less simplistic ("Strange Meadow Lark", "Three to Get Ready" and "Kathy's Waltz" sound like themes which didn't make it into The Sound of Music or Mary Poppins). Perhaps this simplicity is a reason for the album's appeal to listeners from a background of pop/rock - that it makes the often-complex nature of jazz more easily assimilable. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

I'm a long-time fan of the Brubeck quartet, and still find things to enjoy on this and the other "time" albums. But the problem when part of an artist's work is overvalued is that other works can be unfairly undervalued and the artist's true strengths neglected or misunderstood. The Brubeck quartet's strength was always in its spontaneous, creative improvisation - particularly in the ability of Brubeck and Desmond to improvise genuinely tuneful lines on fairly conventional standards. You can hear that gift for melodic invention on Time Out, but it is stronger on other sessions without the use of tricky time signatures to needlessly complicate the process; and both musicians were more rhythmically inventive when improvising within a conventional time signature. So I suggest that we should take with a pinch of salt some of the extravagant claims made for Time Out, see it for what it is - a lightweight, enjoyable but overrated album - and look elsewhere for the best of the quartet's music, not least to the early-50's concert recordings: Jazz at Oberlin, Jazz at Pacific College and Jazz Goes to College.

There's more to offer in the way of rhythm, from the catchy alternating 4/4 and 9/8 of "Blue Rondo a la Turk" to the slow-hopping swing of "Three to Get Ready" to the easy-walking 6/4 beat of "Pick Up Sticks." The group has a wonderful chemistry. They listen and respond to each other but it never seems awkward or forced; they're all just having fun, and that's what really makes the whole affair sound so informal and inviting.

I wouldn't hold all its popularity against it - like Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Time Out is one of those classics that transcends its genre and succeeds wildly without sacrificing any of its quality. And like those other two albums it's highly recommended for jazz neophytes, absolutely essential for any serious collection, and even remains pretty enjoyable to non-jazz fans too. So simply put, if you have any interest in jazz at all, you need this disc. No way around it.

• Styles > Jazz

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