Self-Analysis: Time Out

I often wonder what caused my musical taste to veer so far off the mainstream track. Why am I fascinated by the chaos and complexity of experimental music when so many others find it unlistenable? Why do I find minimalism to be compelling when so many others find it boring? These questions are certainly elements of a larger inquiry on how an individual forms their aesthetic preferences, but for me they’re also linked to a relatively simple theme: How did I get this way?

I’ve pondered these questions before, and one thing I always come back to is one of the very first CD’s I ever owned. On my eleventh or twelfth birthday (I don’t remember, but I know it was before high school), my parents had gotten me a pretty sweet boombox and a copy of Blues Traveler’s “Four,” probably because I had liked Hook when I heard it on the radio. So I remember listening to that album and listening to the radio pretty heavily for awhile, and I think there was a Boyz 2 Men cd in there somewhere and a few Christian bands. But the album that I think had such a striking effect on me wasn’t Four, wasn’t Motown Philly and wasn’t Jars of Clay.

Full disclosure here: My mom made me sign up for tap dance lessons when I was little, to help vent the crazy amount of energy I had around the house. At first, like all proper young boys, I resisted. Dancing was for girls, right? But for whatever reason, I loved it. So I’d been doing tap for a couple years, and every class we’d warm up to a song by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I don’t remember what song it was, but I told my parents I liked it, and I had this boombox now, so they took me to Best Buy and I picked out a seven-song compilation of the quartet’s greatest hits.

Let me tell you, “The Essence of Dave Brubeck” quickly became my youthful #1. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, playing video games and listening to that album on repeat, over and over again. I remember how I furrowed my brow at Joe Morello’s solo on Take Five. And I remember loving how the swing of Maria kicked in so smooth. But the strongest memory for me is Dave Brubeck’s piano solo on the live cut of Tangerine — my twelve-year-old brain was just not ready for the dissonance and rhythm in that solo. Every time it came around, I’d stop playing my game and try to figure it out, but I never quite could.

Now that I’m older, and I’m learning more about jazz, I think I understand how that album might’ve had a powerful effect on my future taste. Several songs on it are drawn from Time Out, an experimental LP that the quartet managed to talk an exec into releasing — this is notable because Time Out is a concept album where all the songs are in signatures other than 4/4. Blue Rondo a la Turk, which switches between an insistent, boisterous 9/8 and a smooth, ultra-swinging 4/4, starts off the Essence comp, and it’s immediately followed by Take Five, which was famously penned in 5/4 time by Paul Desmond, the group’s saxophonist.

So is it possible that listening to a sometimes challenging jazz record in odd time signatures birthed my interest in other sometimes challenging and odd music? I think so. One thing I know is that twelve years later, I still have that Essence compilation — it’s sitting on my desk right now, a survivor of numerous garage sale purges. And I’m not sure if it’s wholly responsible for my love of records like Amon Tobin’s “Supermodified” or Triosk’s “The Headlight Serenade,” but I definitely suspect that’s the case, and sometimes I think “suspect” is as close as I’ll ever get to knowing.

~ by Mike on August 23, 2008.