Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet
1959

Time Out is pleasantly polite, easy-listening jazz. If that sounds dismissive then that's unfortunate; the music is unobtrusively groovy and inconspicuously accomplished. It doesn't barge its way into your consciousness, but moves in gradually, until suddenly you find you can sing along with all the tracks.

Given that the linking idea between these choices is that they are in a variety of time signatures, with only a few excursions into 4/4, it's quite a feat that they should sound so natural. It doesn't feel like challenging music. I expect this is partly why it was such a success in its time - that, and the one-off, mellow hummability of the famous "Take Five" (in 5/4 time, of course). Even the featured drum solo doesn't dent its likeability.

If none of this comes across as a whole-hearted endorsement, that's probably more to do with the fact that I find most jazz a little bloodless, rather than anything else. It's all ... well, like I said, pleasant.