Hemiolia
The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out [One Step]

December 14, 1959, is truly a historic date! On that day, “Time Out” was released on Columbia Records, an album recorded by Dave Brubeck (piano) in a quartet formation – along with Paul Desmond (alto saxophone), Eugene Wright (bass), and Joe Morello (drums) – between May 25 and August 18, 1959, at Columbia’s 30th Street Studios in New York. Columbia Records was less than enthusiastic about the results of the recording sessions. It was Irving Townsend, a visionary producer and A&R manager who had just wrapped up the “Kind of Blue” sessions, who convinced the label to support Brubeck’s project – which did not prevent critics at the time from viewing “Time Out” as a betrayal of jazz. This, of course, did not detract from the album’s success: in 1961, the title track – composed by Paul Desmond – climbed to the top of the pop charts. The song, played in 5/4 time, was the first jazz record to sell more than a million copies. The album became a definitive milestone in the genre. In 2011, it was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for two million copies sold – even though Brubeck and his band had ventured away from the classic 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures and actively experimented with new sounds. To put it bluntly: The album is really good, even though so many people like it!
The recordings for “Time Out” took place at Columbia’s famous 30th Street Studio in New York (the same studio used for “Kind of Blue”), one of the most extraordinary recording environments in the history of jazz. Housed in a converted Armenian Orthodox church, the studio was characterized by an extraordinary volume of air and natural acoustics, which played a decisive role in shaping the spatial dimension of the recording. In “Time Out,” this acoustic quality results in remarkable sonic clarity: the placement of the instruments in the space and the balance between the voices become just as much structural elements of the listening experience as the album’s metrical structure. The Hemiolia release highlights the remarkable timbre of “Time Out” and reveals a deliberately shaped sound. The balance between the instruments and the precise reconstruction of the soundstage make it possible to immediately perceive every detail of this recording. With this vinyl reissue, Hemiolia Records goes far beyond a “standard” restoration of “Time Out.” While the “Saxophone Colossus” reissues previously available on the market are based on master tape copies of the recordings, Hemiolia Records had access to an original first-generation “flat” 1/4"-production master tape! This allowed the label to create a unique reinterpretation of the source material, one that is a far cry from the usual manipulations in terms of sound quality. Pietro Benini’s remastering approaches “Time Out” with the utmost respect and allows this magnificent work to breathe in a broader and deeper soundstage without distorting the sonic essence and original dynamics of the recording.
Lovingly remastered by Pietro Benini for the “Hermiolia Reference Vinyl” series, the lacquer cuttings for this exclusive reissue were created by Andreas Bauer at AB Mastering in Germany. Stamper Discs in the UK is responsible for manufacturing the stamper sets. Although the market standard allows for the production of up to 1,000 copies per stamper, Hermiolia Records limits the production to 550 copies per stamper to ensure consistent and uncompromising sound quality. The series is therefore limited to the use of three stampers with a total of 1,650 strictly numbered copies with OBI strip. On the back of the cover are two fields in which the number of the stamper used (1, 2, or 3) and the copy number within that stamper run (1 to 550) are handwritten. “Time Out” was pressed using the sonically superior One-Step process to avoid intermediate duplicates and ensure the absolute purity of the grooves. RPM