Which one is your favorite? - XLI -

This week's song is one of the most well-known jazz standards of all time.  It is composed by Paul Desmond and originally recorded by the Dave Brubeck Quartet for their album "Time Out" at Columbia Records' 30th Street Studio in New York City on July 1, 1959. Two years later it became a surprise hit and the biggest-selling jazz single ever. Revived since in numerous movie and television soundtracks, the piece still receives significant radio airplay.

Here is the song for this week;

"Take Five"

Paul Desmond, who was Brubeck's alto saxophonist, wrote this song. It's called "Take Five" because it was written in an unusual 5/4 meter. It was one of the first Jazz songs with a time signature other than the standard 4/4 beat or 3/4 waltz time. Brubeck explained in a 1995 interview with Paul Zollo that he asked Desmond to try writing a song in 5/4. Said Brubeck: "I told Paul to put a melody over (drummer) Joe Morello's beat. So Paul put a couple melodies. But he didn't have a tune. He just had two melodies. He said, 'I can't write a tune in 5/4,' and he had given up. I said, 'You've got two good melodies here, let's work out a form.' So I worked out an A-A-B-A form and Paul caught on immediately."

On the album Time Out, Brubeck used a different time signature for each track, which was very unusual. In Brubeck's interview with Zollo, he said: "The album came out but the salespeople, they have formulas that are unwritten laws about what's going to work, what's going to sell. And my album couldn't have worked because it's all originals. They said you should never put out all originals, you have to put in some standards and some show tunes. Well, they were wrong. It worked. And you have to be in tempos that the public can dance to. Well, they couldn't dance to most of Time Out unless you got into some dance halls where people could dance to 5/4 and they did dance to it. So it's exposure. And also they didn't want a painting on the cover. I was breaking a whole bunch of rules." 

The Dave Brubeck Quartet first played "Take Five" to a live audience at the Village Gate nightclub in New York City in July 1959. 

"Take Five" is known for its distinctive two-chord, piano/bass vamp; catchy blues-scale saxophone melodies; inventive, jolting drum solo and an unorthodox quintuple (5/4) time.

The single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1996.

Here are the 6 versions I picked for you;

• Carmen McRae - "Take Five"

• Trio Elf - "Take Five"

• The Specials - "Take Five"

• Rodrigo y Gabriela - "Take Five"

• Sachal Studios Orchestra - "Take Five"

• North East Ska Jazz Orchestra - "Take Five"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers.