Do you know what two words terrify record companies and the record-buying public? Experimental. Jazz.

But somehow pianist Dave Brubeck and his fellow Quartetters managed to defy the odds and create one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time.

Brubeck was already doing pretty well for himself throughout the 1950’s with popular albums for both Fantasy and Columbia, primarily of live performances on college campuses, a setting where he began to build a sizable following of the young and hip. Upon touring through Europe and Asia as a government-sponsored music ambassador, he became intrigued by the unusual melodies and time signatures of local folk songs, particularly in Turkey, and when he returned to America, announced his intention to write an experimental album utilizing weird time signatures.

(A quick aside for those who never learned music theory: a song’s time signature is, very basically, it’s “count” — most rock and pop songs are in 4/4, so you can clap or count along 1-2-3-4; a waltz is in 3/4 so 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Most other time signatures are trickier to count along with — and, importantly, are harder to dance to — so they show up less often as a whole, or only briefly, usually as a transition, within a song with standard time. Anyway, let’s continue…)

The head of Columbia Records, Goddard Lieberson (a man so powerful in the music business he was actually referred to, unironically, as God), baulked at the idea of weird but offered Brubeck a deal: make one album of straightforward (i.e. safe) jazz featuring old standards from the American South, and then he could have the money to go off and make his crazy, foreign-inspired, experimental cult record.

Brubeck took the deal.

One of the first songs attempted for the new project stemmed from a request by the drummer, who used to solo in 5/4 time and asked if they could write a song using that time signature. Saxophonist Paul Desmond composed a couple of melodies which Brubeck then arranged in 5/4, hence the title “Take Five.” The quartet attempted the song 20 times on the first day in the studio before giving up and moving on to a different track. When they returned to try again the following month with a slightly altered arrangement, the group nailed it in two takes. Brubeck considered it a throwaway track, and initially, it seemed he would be correct.

Released as a single in September of 1959 in advance of the new album, “Take Five” went nowhere, not helped at all by a lack of support on the part of Columbia Records, who still didn’t fully believe in the project. It also didn’t help when the album, titled Time Out, was initially panned by respected jazz critics. But as Dylan once sang, “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.” A grass roots movement sprouted up, assisted by the massive young audience Brubeck had cultivated over the previous decade, but also by the approval of fellow jazz artists, as well as radio stations who continued to play tracks from the album, particularly “Take Five.”

Re-released as a single in the summer of 1961, “Take Five” shot up the charts, not only becoming the first jazz single to sell one million copies, but also the best-selling jazz single ever.  And the crazy, foreign-inspired, experimental cult record that spawned it? Well, it became the first million-selling jazz album, unlike the trade-off conventional album of American South songs, which sold little and remains little-remembered.

So spread out those jazz hands and count up to five …. with the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

The single edit seems a little odd to me as it only plays the bridge melody, one of the strongest hooks, one time. But hey, it’s the best-selling jazz single ever so what do I know? Here’s the full-length album version with all the bridge melodies intact and a 5/4 drum solo in the middle: