Consumer Guide Album

The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out [Columbia/Legacy, 1997]
Inspired by a State Department-backed Eurasian tour and released in 1959, Brubeck's all-time bestseller is supposedly where he and drummer Joe Morello explore exotic Oriental time signatures, although near as most of us can tell it's got a lot of waltzes whether they're in 3/4 or 6/4. The big exceptions are the two classics: Brubeck's "Blue Rondo A La Turk," in 9/8 even though it's a (bluesy) rondo, a sonatalike form invented by the exotic French, and Desmond's "Take Five," in 5/4, steadied by a stubborn Brubeck vamp and covered wherever folks were cool: Stan Getz, Chet Atkins, Grover Washington, Rodrigo y Gabriela. While some say Morello doesn't swing enough, he's an inventive colorist, and as waltzes go, most of the remaining originals combine composition and propulsion with crowd-pleasing panache. B+