A Concert For All Time Well Before My Time

Stumbled across a copy of The Dave Brubeck Quartet's 1959 album Time Out, probably my favorite Jazz album of all time (not that I have a whole lot of Jazz albums in my music collection, truth be told).

It's a great album, and to have an original release in great shape is a prize of sorts, even though I do not actually have a turntable to play it on.

It was a fairly risky album to release back in 1959, extremely experimental, full of unconventional (or rather, uncommon for the period) time signatures and subdivisions that Brubeck had been exposed to while on a world tour that included countries in the Balkans of southeast Europe.

 

The album surprised everyone associated with Columbia Records, Brubeck's label, as it was only recorded and released under the condition that the quartet record an album of more conventional Jazz interpretations of classic tunes that had originated in the American South (and by classic I mean there are covers of Stephen Foster songs on that album, including Camptown Races).

Time Out became the first Jazz album to sell a million copies, as did the song Take Five (the only song on the album not written by Brubeck - Paul Desmond, the great Alto Saxphone & Clarinet player for the band, composed that one).

Hmmm.., stating that Take Five sold a million copies seems like an understatement. It took a few years, but Take Five became the single best-selling Jazz single ever, and features some of the best drumming you will ever hear (but listen to the album cut, not the single - the single eliminates the drum solo, which is a shame because Joe Morrello's drumming is  fantastic).

But that's not the point of this little rave. The point of this little rave is what I found inside the album sleeve.

When I pulled the vinyl album out of the sleeve, a tri-folded piece of paper came along with it. 

I open the folded paper and lo & behold I was holding the program for a concert performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet on Tuesday, February 9th, 1960, at the Whitefish Bay auditorium located a few miles north of Milwaukee.

It's rare for me to be envious of anyone who lived in times past, as I believe we are truly living in the best time to be alive ever, but man o' man did I feel a little envy reading that program.

To be able to catch that band at the height of their powers...geez Louise, what a night that must have been!