The Dave Brubeck Quartet

The Dave Brubeck Quartet is a jazz quartet, founded in 1951 by Dave Brubeck and originally featuring Paul Desmond on saxophone and Brubeck on piano. They took up a long residency at San Francisco's Blackhawk nightclub and gained great popularity touring college campuses, releasing a series of albums with such titles as Jazz at Oberlin, Jazz Goes to College, and Jazz Goes to Junior College. By 1958, after a handful of different drummers and bassis... more

The Dave Brubeck Quartet is a jazz quartet, founded in 1951 by Dave Brubeck and originally featuring Paul Desmond on saxophone and Brubeck on piano. They took up a long residency at San Francisco's Blackhawk nightclub and gained great popularity touring college campuses, releasing a series of albums with such titles as Jazz at Oberlin, Jazz Goes to College, and Jazz Goes to Junior College. By 1958, after a handful of different drummers and bassists, the "Classic Quartet" — so-called because it remained as such virtually consistently until the group dissolved — had been assembled; consisting of Brubeck, Desmond, Joe Morello on drums, and Eugene Wright on bass. In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet released Time Out, an album their label was enthusiastic about but nonetheless hesitant to release. The album contained all original compositions, almost none of which were in common time. Nonetheless, on the strength of these unusual time signatures (the album included "Take Five", "Blue Rondo à... less