The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Unsquare Dance | Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶

In the 31^st edition of Throwback Vibez (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Unsquare Dance” by The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

The vibes, the vibes, those Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶! Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 is a column that celebrates awesome songs from the past.  The records that grace this column are older, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ancient – no fossils 🦴! All genres of music are welcome. In the 31^st edition of Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Unsquare Dance”, performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck (1920 – 2012) had no shortage of innovative spirit as a musician. He opted against the tried and true and pushed boundaries.  One such way he did so was exploring nontraditional and asymmetric meters.  Jazz music, prior to Brubeck, wasn’t known for unorthodox time signatures, often staying the tried-and-true common time.  Time Out marked a landmark jazz album, featuring songs in 9/8 (“Blue Rondo a la Turk”) and 5/4 (“Take Five” written by alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond). In 1961, The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Brubeck, Desmond, Joe Morello (drums), and Eugene Wright – released Time Further Out, which features the 7/4 masterpiece at hand, “Unsquare Dance”.

“Unsquare Dance” runs merely two minutes in duration.  Two minutes is ample time for Brubeck and company to deliver another musical tour de force. It should be noted that Paul Desmond is absent on alto saxophone on this joint. Eugene Wright provides a mighty foundation with the string bass highlighting key beats – one, three, and five.  It’s not only Wright who maintains a groove.  Handclaps play a pivotal role – part of the charm of “Unsquare Dance.” Who performs those claps? That is a compelling question. Did Desmond clap since he didn’t play sax on it? Eventually, Brubeck enters the mix into this unorthodox dance, which incorporates both the blues (it’s still built on a blues progression) and country/western flavor.  Eventually, Joe Morello brings the drums in alongside the handclaps, but doesn’t embrace the whole kit – it’s rim of the snare action, baby! Minimalist yet brilliant musically, “Unsquare Dance” ranks among the best songs of the Dave Brubeck catalog.

🎙 The Dave Brubeck Quartet • 💿 Time Further Out • 🏷 Sony Music Entertainment Inc. • 🗓 1961

The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Unsquare Dance: Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 No. 31 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Sony Music Entertainment Inc.; OpenClipart-Vectors, Speedy McVroom via  Pixabay]