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Time Further Out

Time Further Out (Miró Reflections) was my first Dave Brubeck Quartet LP. It was initially released in 1961, with my copy having the look of a later-'60s repress. Within a year of finding it, I'd also picked up a copy of its more famous prequel, Time Out. A couple of the Quartet's other albums have only rested briefly on my shelves, but one further LP of theirs I enjoy and will be keeping is Anything Goes! (The Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays Cole Porter).

As on Time Out there are a variety of unconventional time signatures included here. The tracks are arranged in ascending order of beats-to-the-bar, starting with 'It's a Raggy Waltz' and 'Bluette' in 3/4, by way of 'Unsquare Dance' in 7/8 (the record's big hit, and the only one of its pieces I knew before buying it), and ending with 'Blue Shadows in the Street' in 9/8. 

According to Brubeck, the album is also a musical interpretation of the Joan Miró painting shown on its cover, and a "blues suite" with each track "in the form of 12 bar blues or a variation thereof". Fortunately, all these underpinnings don't adversely affect what is a thoroughly enjoyable album of light-ish jazz. The band all sound great and the recording is first-rate too. My favourite tracks are 'Bluette', 'Far More Blue' and, unsurprisingly, 'Unsquare Dance'.

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