Take Five
Coltrane's centennial week opens tonight at Dizzy's Club, Ravi Coltrane takes the bandstand in Los Angeles, and Philadelphia listens in the dark. Then Sekou tells the story of "Take Five," the tune its credited composer valued at one used electric razor.
LioraColtrane's centennial week starts tonight, and Ravi Coltrane is already on the bandstand in Los Angeles. Today's record is "Time Out." And later, a used electric razor. It's Tuesday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Tuesday, September 22nd. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: John Coltrane turns 100 tomorrow, and the centennial week opens tonight with six nights
LioraJohn Coltrane turns 100 tomorrow. The week starts tonight.
In New York, Jazz at Lincoln Center opens its John Coltrane Centennial Celebration at Dizzy's Club. Six straight nights. The pianist Geoffrey Keezer curates it and plays it.
Tonight is the quartet shape. Roxy Coss on tenor and soprano, Keezer on piano, James Cammack on bass, Rudy Royston on drums.
Tomorrow, the birthday itself, is the Johnny Hartman program, with the singer Jose James. That one is gone. The page reads "Sold Out!" and sends you to the phone.
The club prints more than one cover this week, so I will not read you a number. There is a cover, and a twenty five dollar food and drink minimum.
LioraIn Los Angeles, Blue Note has the Ravi Coltrane Quartet, billed "Centennial Celebration," three nights, tonight through Thursday, at seven and nine thirty. The club names no other player and prints no ticket price.
In Philadelphia tonight, Jazz Philadelphia lists a listening session in the dark: Coltrane highlights, 1957 to 1964, seven to nine.
Two. Listen to This: "Time Out," the Dave Brubeck Quartet, 1959, in the National Recording Registry
LioraToday's record is the one tonight's story made.
"Time Out," the Dave Brubeck Quartet, 1959. The Library of Congress put it in the National Recording Registry in the class of 2005, and the Library's own essay, by Stephen Crist, carries the rest.
The band is Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Joe Morello on drums, Eugene Wright on bass.
Here is the tip. It was not one afternoon. Crist writes that the sessions took place in New York on June 25th, July 1st and August 18th, 1959.
There is a joke buried in the title, too. In November 1954 Brubeck made the cover of Time, the second jazz musician to do it, after Louis Armstrong. Columbia put out an album three months later called "Brubeck Time," using the magazine's portrait. Every one of its eight selections is in standard four four.
LioraNow the release desk. The Coltrane Estate says the Tiberi Tapes, private recordings of Coltrane's group made by the musician Frank Tiberi in the early sixties, come out in full this month on Impulse! A month, no day.
New York, 1959. Paul Desmond, the credited composer of "Take Five," later said he would have traded the entire rights for a used electric razor, and by one account the Red Cross went into his will as a placeholder. Sekou has the story.
Three. The Bridge: "Take Five." Paul Desmond, its credited composer
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Sekou tells it, I ask the questions. Sekou, where are we?
SekouNew York. The summer of 1959. The Dave Brubeck Quartet is making an album for Columbia. Brubeck on piano. Paul Desmond on alto saxophone. Joe Morello on drums. Eugene Wright on bass.
Brubeck wants an album in different time signatures. He said, "I often would slip into complicated times." One new tune is in 5/4. Five beats to the bar.
SekouIt's called "Take Five," and it's credited to Paul Desmond. Looking back in 1976, he said, "At the time, I thought it was kind of a throwaway. I was ready to trade in the entire rights of 'Take Five' for a used Ronson electric razor."
The first try goes badly. Philip Clark, Brubeck's biographer, has listened to the session tapes. By his account, they attempt it about twelve times. In the end, Joe Morello just can't play it.
LioraThe drummer can't play it?
SekouThat's the strange part. Brubeck always said the beat was Morello's, and so did Morello. Brubeck's version: Morello had been messing around with a 5/4 beat while warming up backstage, and Desmond improvised over it.
Desmond brought in two melodies. Brubeck put them together into one tune and gave it its name. Nearly half of the finished record is a drum solo. The composer credit went to Desmond. Brubeck said later, "We credit Paul Desmond as composer. But I know the whole story, and I'd have to credit Joe."
Clark says the tapes challenge that. On them, the first try uses a completely different rhythm. How it became the record we know, he could not learn. Sony told him the tapes of the later recordings were never returned.
LioraDid Columbia want it?
SekouNot the sales force. Brubeck said they didn't want to put it out. "They said nobody can dance to these crazy time signatures." They also objected, he said, to a painting on the cover and to an album of all originals.
Columbia's president, Goddard Lieberson, loved it, Brubeck said. From the beginning, Lieberson had to fight the sales department and everybody else to get it out. The album, Time Out, came out in December 1959.
The single took a year and a half. Columbia issued "Take Five" in 1961, and that fall it reached number 25 on Billboard's Hot 100, number 5 on the chart Billboard now calls Adult Contemporary, and number 6 in Britain. Brubeck gave the credit to the listeners. "It was grassroots that made that happen."
LioraAnd the man who'd have traded it for a razor?
SekouPaul Desmond. There is one account of Desmond and his will. It's in Doug Ramsey's biography of him, and it seems to come from Noel Silverman, his friend and lawyer. He told Desmond to name someone, "because there will be income for a long time after your death." Desmond said, "Put down the Red Cross and I'll think about it."
A placeholder. By that account, the Red Cross went in, and a few months later Desmond died without changing it. Lung cancer, at his home on West 55th Street in New York. May 1977. He was 52. NPR reported that he left huge "Take Five" royalties to the Red Cross.
And Joe Morello, whose beat Brubeck said it was? In Ramsey's book, Morello says, "It was my idea. Everybody made a lot of money but me."
LioraIt took three men to make that tune, and the credit went to the one who'd have traded it for a razor.
That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Two trios at Smalls, four seatings at Preservation Hall, Shemekia Copeland in Seattle
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket first.
If I had one ticket tonight, it's Smalls in New York. The Jordan Young Trio at six and seven thirty, Eric Finland on organ, Matt Chertkoff on guitar. Then the Mike Karn Trio at nine and ten thirty, Karn on bass, Steve Wilson on alto, Billy Drummond on drums. Thirty five dollars a set, twenty five at the door.
Now the sweep. In New Orleans, Preservation Hall has the Preservation All-Stars, four seatings, at five, six fifteen, seven thirty and eight forty five. Forty five minutes each, no players named and no price printed.
In Seattle, Jazz Alley opens two nights with Shemekia Copeland at seven thirty, doors at six, forty one dollars with the fee in. The club bills her as a blues and roots singer.
LioraAlso in New York, the Village Vanguard opens six nights with the Miguel Zenon Quartet, with Luis Perdomo, Hans Glawischnig and Henry Cole. The club prints no set times against the date, and no price.
In Oakland, Yoshi's has one booking tonight, and it is karaoke.
Three rooms list nothing: Jazz St. Louis, Rudy's in Nashville and the Jazz Gallery. The Regattabar in Cambridge posts no dated listings at all.
Five. One More Note: September 22, 1932: Duke Ellington's orchestra spends two hours and forty minutes on
LioraSeptember 22nd, 1932. New York, eleven in the morning.
Mosaic Records publishes the session sheet. Two hours and forty minutes at the American Record Corporation studios on Broadway, and two tunes out of it.
The band is the famous one. Cootie Williams, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Juan Tizol, Sonny Greer. Ellington at the piano.
The titles are "Stars," with Ray Mitchell singing, and "Swing Low." "Swing Low" went out as Brunswick 6432.
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
That's your Tuesday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.