There were two main sub-genres of jazz to emerge in post-war America, morphing out of the big band swing era that had dominated in the 1930s and 1940s: they were bebop and cool jazz. Now, whereas bebop was “hot,” i.e. loud, exciting, and loose, cool jazz was “cool,” i.e. soft, more reserved, and controlled. In bebop, the emphasis was on improvisation; in cool jazz, the emphasis was on arrangement. Bebop was East Coast, nightclub-oriented; cool jazz was West Coast and took jazz out to the college campuses. For bebop, think Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk; for cool jazz, think early Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Dave Brubeck.

Dave Brubeck was one of the most active and popular musicians in the jazz world from the late 1940s forwards. Having served in Patton’s army in Europe during the Second World War, he enrolled at Mills College in Oakland, California to study composition with French composer, Darius Milhaud. It was Milhaud who encouraged him to pursue a career in jazz and to incorporate jazz elements into his compositions, and this cross-genre experimentation with like-minded Mills students led to the formation of the Dave Brubeck Octet in 1947.

It was, however, the smaller incarnation formed in 1951 that would become the “classic” Brubeck outfit – the Dave Brubeck Quartet – featuring Brubeck on the piano, the legendary Joe Morello on drums, Eugene Wright on bass, and long-time Brubeck collaborator Paul Desmond on alto sax. In 1959 they released the album Time Out, featuring the song that would become a jazz standard and the biggest-selling jazz single ever, Take Five. Written by Paul Desmond, Take Five rapidly became Brubeck’s best-known, and signature, tune, famous for its distinctive, catchy sax melody and use of the unusual 5/4 time from which its name is derived. It’s been used in countless movies and television soundtracks, so if you think you don’t know it, I’m pretty sure you will!

Here’s a wonderful recording of the quartet playing Take Five live in Belgium in 1964. Enjoy these master musicians on top of their game…it’s cool, man!