Jazz and the Year 1959

1959 is a banner year in jazz, but I had forgotten that. Then I heard this story on NPR. I remember the first time I heard Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" was not even in the recording, but in a orchestra class, where we added strings. It is weird. That album Time Out, became one of the first jazz albums I owned. Time Out, of course, is a play on time signatures. Many of them are written in the 5/4 signature, an odd one. There are few well known pieces with that signature. One that comes to mind is one of the middle movements of the Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphony. Anyhow, Time Out turned 50 this month.

That said, there are others that came out, many of which I also fell in love with. The other biggie for me was Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. Someone I once knew actually gave me the CD again to listen to.

So, 1959 is that year in jazz. I hope we celebrate!