lotterlotta
das jazzjahr 1959 ist gespickt mit perlen, zu brubacks time out kam ich über den umweg al jarreau mit seiner fantastischen vocaladaption von paul desmonds meisterwerk take five auf dem live in europe album, take five fasziniert mich heute in der hier vorliegenden version vor allem wegen dem absolut nur so vor leichtigkeit strotzendem schlagwerk von joe morello, das über allem zu schweben scheint, traumhaft…..warum downbeat das album damals mit **/***** abwatschte ist mir unverständlich!
Das hat mich jetzt gerade neugierig gemacht … finde die Kritik als Text (abgesehen von der Besternung, die bei den Worten durchaus auch einen höher liegen könnte, dünkt mich) leicht nachvollziehbar:
DownBeat Review 1960
TIME OUT-Columbia CL 1397: Blue Rondo A La Turk; Strange Meadow Lark; Take Five; Three to Get Ready; Kathy’s Waltz; Everybody’s Jumpin’; Pick Up Sticks.
Personnel: Brubeck, piano; Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Gene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums.
Rating: **
If you take Steve Race’s notes at face value, you are led to believe that this record, because of it’s exploration into time signatures foreign to jazz, is a jazz milestone. Jazz experiments of any kind are fine, but there has to be something in addition to the experiment. The substance of the compositions being played should engender a jazz feeling. It doesn’t have to be a cat playing whorehouse piano with a drummer laying heavy on the two and four. I appreciate the tender moments of jazz and fully realize that you can’t swing hard all the time, but when the underlying tenor is more like drawing room music, I leave the drawing room and go into the bar.
In classical music, there is a kind of pretentious pap, sometimes called “semi-classical,” which serves as the real thing for some people. As a parallel, Brubeck is a “semi-jazz” player. There is “pop jazz” with no pretentions like that purveyed by George Shearing and everyone accepts it for what it is. Brubeck, on the other hand, has been palmed off as a serious jazzman for too long.
Take Blue Rondo A La Turk in 9/8. After hearing that ersatz, corny Chopinesque he used for Polish representation in Jazz Impressions of Eurasia, Im surprised he didn’t play In A Persian Market here. Blue Rondo’s theme is equally far from jazz. The blues that follows (Desmond’s solo is about as jazzy as it gets) bears little reaction to Brubeck’s Turkish blight. Then, to quote Race, “Dave follows, with a characteristically neat transition to the heavy block chords which are a familiar facet of his style…” I might add, not only familiar but particularly unrewarding. Substituting bombast for swing is a Brubeckian credo, it seems. Swing must have ended for him when Raymond Gram died.
Strange Meadow Lark is the best track in the album, a melody worthy of being placed alongside In Your Own Sweet Way. Desmond is at his most sensitive and, as Race states, “wistful”. Brubeck doesn’t pound here, and he develops some melodic ideas, something he rarely does at faster tempos.
Take Five in 4/5 is by Desmond. Race writes, “Conscious of how easily the listener can lose his way in a quintuple rhythm, Dave plays a constant vamp figure throughout…” This turns out to be like a Chinese water torture. If this is what we have to endure with experimentation in time, take me back to good old 4/4. It’s not far out, but it does swing. Morello’s solo, over the omnipresent vamp, sounds like the accompaniment for a troupe of trampoline artists.
In Three to Get Ready, the thematic material is again alien to jazz, but the alternation of two bars of 3/4 with two bars of 4/4 does engender a different and effective kind of swing. Morello’s brush work is supreme, and Wright’s tone is light but firm. Desmond cruises but Brubeck, who starts well, then gets into one of his cul de sacs.
Kathy’s Waltz , another attractive theme, shows off Brubeck, the romantic, in a warm light. Desmond is again poetic and the idea of the rhythm section playing in quick 3/4, actually heightens what the soloists are doing.
Everybody’s Jumpin’ has a six-note figure for its theme. It is worked in incessantly by Brubeck in his solo, as if to hit us over the head with the fact that this is “ev-ry-bo-dy;s jump’in.” It’s a bore.
Pick Up Sticks, in 6/4 is anchored by bassist Wright, who repeats six notes throughout, much in the manner of Brubeck’s vamp on Take Five. That, and Morello’s purposely heavy accents on the bass drum, nearly drove me to distraction. When Brubeck, as Vulcan at the forge, came in with his heavy-handed approach, the drive was completed.
It’s obvious that I disagree with Race’s observation that “something great has been attempted… and achieved” in Time Out. If Brubeck wants to experiment with time, let him not insult his audience with such crashing-bore devices as mentioned. Better still, if he wants to experiment, let him begin with trying some real jazz.
http://www.davebrubeckjazz.com/Take-Five-&-Time-Out/Time-Out-~-Reviews
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #164: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv, 10.6., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba