Take Five

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Jazz standard recorded by the Dave Brubeck Quartet

title: "Take Five" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1959-songs", "1961-singles", "1950s-jazz-standards", "cool-jazz-standards", "jazz-compositions-in-e-flat-minor", "columbia-records-singles", "grammy-hall-of-fame-award-recipients", "compositions-in-the-real-book"] description: "Jazz standard recorded by the Dave Brubeck Quartet" topic_path: "arts/music" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Five" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Jazz standard recorded by the Dave Brubeck Quartet ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox song"]

FieldValue
nameTake Five
cover45 label for "Take Five".jpg
typesingle
artistDave Brubeck Quartet
albumTime Out
B-sideBlue Rondo à la Turk
released;
May 22, 1961 (reissue)
recordedJuly 1, 1959
studioCBS 30th Street, New York City
length
labelColumbia 4-41479
composerPaul Desmond
producerTeo Macero
prev_titleJazz Impressions of Eurasia
prev_year1958
title2Blue Rondo à la Turk
next_titleCamptown Races
next_title2Short'nin' Bread
next_year1959
misc{{Audio sample
typesingle
fileDave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five.ogg
::

| name = Take Five | cover = 45 label for "Take Five".jpg | alt = | type = single | artist = Dave Brubeck Quartet | album = Time Out | B-side = Blue Rondo à la Turk | released = ; May 22, 1961 (reissue) | recorded = July 1, 1959 | studio = CBS 30th Street, New York City | genre =

  • Jazz
  • cool jazz | length = | label = Columbia 4-41479 | composer = Paul Desmond | producer = Teo Macero | prev_title = Jazz Impressions of Eurasia | prev_year = 1958 | title2 = Blue Rondo à la Turk | next_title = Camptown Races | next_title2 = Short'nin' Bread | next_year = 1959 | misc = {{Audio sample | type = single | file = Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five.ogg

"Take Five" is a jazz standard composed by Paul Desmond and originally recorded in 1959 by the Dave Brubeck Quartet for their album Time Out. Written in quintuple time (), the composition is built around a distinctive blues-scale melody in E minor and a recurring two-chord vamp. It became the third track on Time Out, which was released by Columbia Records later that year.{{Cite news |last=Russonello |first=Giovanni |date=2020-12-07 |title='Take Five' Is Impeccable. 'Time Outtakes' Shows How Dave Brubeck Made It. – An album of previously unheard recordings from the "Time Out" sessions in 1959 reveals the making of a masterpiece. |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/arts/music/dave-brubeck-time-outtakes-review.html |url-status=live |access-date=2020-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210425123552/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/arts/music/dave-brubeck-time-outtakes-review.html |archive-date=2021-04-25}}{{Cite news |last=Schudel |first=Matt |date=2012-05-12 |title=Dave Brubeck, 'Take Five', and his longtime collaborator credited with the jazz legend's biggest hit |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/dave-brubeck-take-five-and-his-longtime-collaborator-credited-with-the-jazz-legends-biggest-hit/2012/12/05/6ae17f16-3f19-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_blog.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150723092807/https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/dave-brubeck-take-five-and-his-longtime-collaborator-credited-with-the-jazz-legends-biggest-hit/2012/12/05/6ae17f16-3f19-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_blog.html |archive-date=2015-07-23}}

The track emerged after Quartet drummer Joe Morello challenged Desmond to compose a piece in . Brubeck arranged Desmond’s melodies around Morello’s rhythmic ideas, creating a work in ABA ternary form. Its title refers both to the quintuple meter and the colloquial expression "take five," meaning to take a short break.

Released as a promotional single in September 1959, "Take Five" initially charted modestly but became a sleeper hit in 1961, eventually rising to international popularity. It went on to become the biggest-selling jazz single of all time and remains a staple of radio programming and live performance.{{cite web |title=Jazz 88.5 Best Jazz songs |url=https://www.jazz88.fm/2024/09/03/jazz88-5s-best-jazz-songs-of-all-time/ |website=Jazz 88.5}}{{cite web |title=Jazz24 best jazz songs of all time |url=https://www.jazz24.org/the-jazz-100 |website=Jazz24}}

Frequently covered by artists across genres, "Take Five" has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz standards ever recorded.{{cite web |title=Jazz24 best jazz songs of all time |url=https://www.jazz24.org/the-jazz-100 |website=Jazz24}}

Background and recording

The Dave Brubeck Quartet's U.S. State Department-sponsored tour of Eurasia in 1958 inspired Brubeck to create an album, Time Out, that experimented with odd time signatures like ones he had encountered abroad. "Take Five" was composed after most of the album's music had been written. The Quartet's drummer, Joe Morello, frequently soloed in times and asked Brubeck to compose a new piece to showcase his ability. Brubeck delegated Desmond to write a tune using Morello's rhythm. Desmond composed two melodies, which Brubeck arranged in ternary form.

The Quartet first tried recording "Take Five" on June 25, 1959. It proved so arduous that, after 40 minutes and more than 20 failed attempts, producer Teo Macero suspended the effort because one or another of the members kept losing the beat. This first iteration of the tune used a different rhythmic groove than the final version; it was "driving and fast" with a "lopsided Latin rhythm" while the final version has "a sexy 5/4 Take Five beat" which “sits in the groove”. They successfully recorded the final single and album track in two takes at the next session on July 1. Desmond considered the track a "throwaway". The Quartet first played "Take Five" for a live audience at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 5, 1959.

Composition

"Take Five" is written in the key of E minor, in ternary (ABA) form and in quintuple () time. According to Alfred Publishing's sheet music published at Musicnotes.com, the song has a moderately fast tempo of 176 beats per minute. The song is known for its distinctive two-chord piano/bass vamp (Em-Bm7), cool jazz saxophone melodies, drum solo, and unorthodox meter, from which Dave Brubeck derived its name. Desmond believed the borderline decision to retain his bridge melody was key to the tune gaining popularity.

Rhythmically, the five beats to the bar are split unevenly into 3 + 2 quarter notes; that is, the main accents (and chord changes) are on the first and fourth beats. The album version has ten sections: ::data[format=table]

SectionDescription
IntroDrum enters, joined by piano after 4 bars and bass after 8 bars to set up rhythm with syncopated two-chord (Em–Bm7) vamp
AAAlto sax plays main melody (A), based on E-minor hexatonic blues scale, in two similar 4-bar phrases
BBAlto sax plays bridge melody (B), based on G-major scale, in two similar 4-bar phrases
AAReprise
Solo 1Alto sax plays improvised modal solo, based on E-minor hexatonic blues scale,
Solo 2Drum fades in playing improvised solo, halfway through which the vamp abruptly crescendoes before fading down to near-silence as solo ends
AAReprise, cued by intro vamp played softly before alto sax swiftly rejoins with main melody
BBReprise
AAReprise
TagAlto sax plays repeated 4-note riffs from main melody, ending with final note sustained for 3 bars over vamp
::

Release and chart success

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Paul_Desmond_from_Carl_Van_Vechten_collection.png" caption="work=Los Angeles Times}}"] ::

Columbia Records quickly enlisted "Take Five" in their doomed launch of the -rpm stereo single in the marketplace. Together with a unique stereo edit of "Blue Rondo à la Turk", they pressed the full album version in small numbers for a promotional six-pack of singles sent to DJs in late 1959.

News of Brubeck's death on December 5, 2012, rekindled the popularity of "Take Five" across Europe, the single debuting in the Austrian Top 40 at No. 73 (December 14) and the French Singles Chart at No. 48 (December 15) while re-entering the Dutch charts at No. 50 (December 15).

::data[format=table title="Chart performance for "Take Five""] | Chart | Peak position | US Billboard Hot 100 | US Billboard Easy Listening | New Zealand (Lever Hit Parade) | Australia (Kent Music Report) | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | 25 | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | 8 | | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | ::

Future within the Quartet

Over the next 50 years the group re-recorded it many times, and typically used it to close concerts: each member, upon completing his solo, would leave the stage as in Haydn's Farewell Symphony until only the drummer remained ("Take Five" having been composed to feature Morello's mastery of time). Upon his death from lung cancer in 1977, Desmond left the performance royalties for his compositions, including "Take Five", to the American Red Cross, which has since received payments averaging well over $100,000 a year.

Legacy

Take Five was positively received both in its release and current times and is the biggest-selling jazz single of all time. In 2020, The New York Times called the standard "among the most iconic records in Jazz". The single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1996. It has received subsequently replay in movie and television soundtracks, giving it continued radio airplay.

Take Five was played in restaurant scene, in 1993 film Manhattan Murder Mystery.

Covers and adaptations{{anchor|covers}}

"Take Five" is considered a jazz standard and has been covered many times in a variety of genres. The first known cover was by Carmen McRae on the 1961 live album Take Five Live, supported by Brubeck, Gene Wright and Morello. For the recording, McRae sang lyrics written by Brubeck's wife Iola; these lyrics would later be used for other vocal recordings.

Desmond wrote and recorded the similar-sounding (and similarly named) composition "Take Ten" for his 1963 solo album Take Ten; he released another rendition of "Take Ten" on his 1973 album Skylark.

Jamaican saxophonist Val Bennett covered the song in 1968 in a roots reggae style, in time, and retitled "The Russians Are Coming". Bennett's version became the theme of British television series The Secret Life of Machines in the late 1980s. Al Jarreau recorded an acclaimed scat version of the song for NDR Television in Hamburg, West Germany on October 17, 1975. Moe Koffman recorded a cover for his 1996 album Devil’s Brew. In 2011, a version by Pakistan's Sachal Studios Orchestra won widespread acclaim and charted highly on American and British jazz charts; Brubeck called it "the most interesting" version of Take Five he has heard. Canadian animator Steven Woloshen created the 2003 animated short film Cameras Take Five, which animated an improvised series of abstract lines and figures set to the song.

Track listing

| headline = Take Five / Blue Rondo à la Turk (1959) | title1 = Take Five | length1 = 2:50 | title2 = Blue Rondo à la Turk | length2 = 2:59

Personnel

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Dave_Brubeck_Quartet_1962.jpg" caption="Dave Brubeck Quartet (1962)"] ::

Notes

References

References

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1959-songs1961-singles1950s-jazz-standardscool-jazz-standardsjazz-compositions-in-e-flat-minorcolumbia-records-singlesgrammy-hall-of-fame-award-recipientscompositions-in-the-real-book