Return to Vinyls: Golden Age and New Jazz, Classic Soul, RnB and Blues

This episode looks at Time Outtakes‚ a Vinyl, CD and download from Brubeck Editions of just that - outtakes of the famous Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out sessions. The album comes from an earlier recording session where they were still ironing out the details that would become Time Out and Take Five. It is a chance to look further at the process of building the album and explore and compare the original release with this release of alternative outtakes. It is an interesting dive into the creative process of four masterful musicians.

Color may not be the first thing you think of with music. But it is there hiding in plain site. Western music is based on the Chromatic Scale from the Greek, chrôma, meaning color. Think of a piano with white and black keys. If you follow through both the white and black keys (the flats and sharps) you get 12 equal pitches — that is the Chromatic Scale. The term Chromatic goes back to the Greeks and was refined in the Renaissance. 

Or the notion of color in music can be used in the sense that visual colors, like music, consists of a spectrum. Also in music the term timbre, referring to the quality of sound as opposed to its tone or strength, can also be referred to as "tone color." But what if color itself is a major motivator for a musician. Up and coming British jazz saxophonist Emma Rawicz is such a musician.

Rhythm and Blues, or R&B as it is normally referred to, emerged on the music scene in the early 1950s. By the early 1960s R&B, particularly that coming out of Detroit from Barry Gordy’s Tabla and Motown labels was popular across a broad spectrum of music. But as the Beatles and British invasion music begin to dominate the pop charts, R&B took a turn from the heavily orchestrated Motown sound of groups like the Supremes and Temptations to deeper soul music. Wilson Pickett was one of the singers who both rode that new wave and helped drive it. Pickett’s story tells us a lot about not just his career and R&B in general but American culture as well. So what is the story? We will find out and look at a new exclusive version of a Wilson Pickett classic LP and a new compilation of Pickett’s hits. New updated version with video and more music.

Updated newly edited version of the first episode with improved content.

The thing about a great work of art, a true masterpiece, be it music, visual art or literature is that the person or the people who created it generally had no idea that it would take on a life of its own. Creativity can be frustrating at times!

The song Take Five and the Dave Brubeck jazz album Time Out were both huge commercial hits. Released in December of 1959 Time Out was the number two selling album in the country in November 1961. Why the almost two year gap? That's what we are here to find out. It is a fascinating story.