they were going out of their way
The Rhythm
As explained on the previous page, the sounds of Take Five are relaxing, and very accessible to a lot of people, even those who won't listen to jazz normally. The same thing was probably not going to be true for the rhythm. Remember, we're talking the beginning of the sixties here, and while even now most songs are in 4/4 or sometimes 3/4 (or 6/8) time, the situation was even more drastic by then. How could people accept a rhythm in 5/4, how could they get used to this, and more importantly to the Columbia Records people, how in heaven's name were they going to dance to this!? If people could dance to an album back then, it would sell, but this had nothing to do with dancing. This was a rhythm in the, at least to the untrained ear, difficult 5/4 time-signature. Jazz had just taught a lot of people how to clap along to 4/4 on the 2nd and 4th beat. Seeing that took quite some years, how was 5/4 ever going to be accessible to the people, when even jazz musicians had great difficulties in playing music in this time-signature?
I don't know whether or not a lot of people danced to Take Five, but they sure didn't mind the song being in 5/4 time. As a matter of fact, I don't even think that most people noticed it. Upon hearing the album Time Out, you would never think that this was an experimental album. But in reality, the album was produced by four brave men who were exploring new areas in music, areas that had not often been visited before their arrival. Still, when playing for instance Take Five, they made it sound so effortless that most people hardly noticed that the time-signature was in fact 5/4. I didn't either. When I would listen to Take Five when I was oh so little, I would always count to four, but I was cheating of course. When I counted, I would make the 1 and 2 too long, one and a half count to be precise. This way I could cheat my way until the actual 3, after which I counted 3 and 4 on what was actually 4 and 5. Please someone mail me and tell me I was not the only one doing this! Of course I knew something was fishy about this way of counting, but I had never heard of 5/4 time, so I just convinced myself of the fact that this was in fact the correct way of counting along with Take Five. But even if you don't count along to the song, it's easy to fall into the groove of it, it has a relaxed swing to it.
This is of course thanks to the rhythm section. Normally, this includes only the bass and drums, but I think it's safe to say that in Take Five, Brubeck was just as good a member of the rhythm section as Wright and Morello were. The constant vamp Brubeck plays is rock-steady, and even when you're not trying to count along to the rhythm, it's hard to get lost, because there's always Brubeck playing that vamp on the piano. I've noticed that a lot of people like the piano in Take Five very much. Just one simple chord change in 5/4 time on paper, but in reality it just sounds so damn good. Then there's Wright, to back up Brubeck, and he does a fine job. Nothing too special, he just provides an extra oomph on the first, fourth and fifth count. Wright has always been known for his steadiness in playing the bass, and Desmond said once that without Wright, all of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's experiments in time would have probably stalled within five minutes. While this is kind of cruel to the other bandmembers, it has to be said that Wright never loses count on even the most difficult of songs, he'll always be there to back up the others. Paul Desmond constructed the rhythm of the melody of Take Five in such a way that it has a light swing to it. Howard Brubeck, Dave's brother, transcribed a lot of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's music, mostly for piano, and even though he writes down the tempo of Take Five as 'Moderately Fast, 172', one can't deny that Take Five just flows lightly, and the rhythm turns out to be very relaxing.
Morello, as said before, started out with the rhythm, and the way he plays 5/4 on his drums is something special. If you hear later live versions of Take Five with other drummers, like Alan Dawson, you'll notice that they play 5/4 very different, in their own style. I think I like Morello's beat the best though. Let's analyze what he's doing.
Everybody knows the standard sound of a jazz ride cymbal in 4/4 time. On the first count, the drummer will hit the ride once, on the second count twice, again once on the third count and twice again on the fourth count. See or hear this. For Take Five, this wouldn't work, so Morello altered this rhythm a little bit. Basically what he did, was to add an extra count after this rhythm, and hit the ride once on that fifth count. He plays it in such a way that we can count along as 1-2-3-1-2, 1-2-3-1-2 etc. Again, see or hear this. He keeps this rhythm throughout the whole thing, except for his solo, where he stops using cymbals and only uses the snare and toms. The bass drum is being used too of course. Again, in order to keep things easy to follow, Joe only hits the bass drum on every first count of a measure. On the original recording of Take Five, the hi-hat is hardly used I think. At least not for the rhythm part. In later recordings of 5/4 songs, including Take Five, we can distinctly hear Morello close the hi-hat on the second and fourth count most of the time. Combined with the bass drum, this creates a very easy to follow rhythm, and it allows Morello to do all kinds of magic with his hands, because this basic rhythm is played using only the drummer's feet. If you listen to Morello's famous solo on Castilian Drums, recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1963, we can hear how Morello uses his feet to create the basic rhythm (during his solo the other bandmembers play nothing, so Morello has to create his own backing!) and his hands to improvise in 5/4 time.
Back to the original recording of Take Five. Morello combines the bass drum and the ride cymbal to create a 5/4 rhythm. Enter Morello's left hand. Morello is known for his virtuosic left hand, and while he doesn't rely on speed while playing Take Five, it does play an important part in the song. I think it's one of the overlooked secrets why Take Five sounds so good, why the rhythm is so catchy. I think the most important aspect of Morello's left hand is the fact that he hits the snare drum between the second and the third count. If we would count along to the ride cymbal as one - two 'n - three - four 'n - five, one - two 'n - three - four 'n - five etc., then Morello hits the snare on the 'n between two and three. Then, on the fourth and fifth count he plays some filling notes, to smooth out the rhythm and to add more color to it. The thing that happens is, that in the first 2 and a half counts, he builds up the tension with the ride cymbal and the bass drum, and he releases it with the snare drum. Jazz is often about building up tension, releasing it and repeating the process. Applying this rule to the drumming on Take Five would take things a bit far, but I really think that in every measure, the tension is built
up, only to be released again with the snare drum, and because he plays the snare too on the fourth and fifth counts, and not usually on the first two counts, the tension starts to increase again within the first two counts.
Combined with the piano, the drums create a very relaxed beat for Desmond to improvise on, and the catchiness of this rhythm must surely have been one of the biggest factors in the success of Take Five. What's interesting to see is, that Morello tries to move away from the rigid 5/4 structure as much as possible during his solo. He stops using the cymbals, and constructs his solo not relying on speed, but on technique and timing. Using the snare, toms and bass drum, he creates an intricate solo, and it's amazing to think that this was the quartet's first recorded adventure into 5/4. It sounds very natural, but it's not.
In the end, the rhythm of Take Five proved very catchy, it proved that 5/4 could indeed sound very nice and not confusing, and it proved that it could be very worthwhile for musicians to experiment with different time signatures, since new and interesting music could be created.
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