Popularity is double-edged, and perhaps no jazz artist exemplifies this better than Dave Brubeck. The unparalleled success of his classic quartets with Paul Desmond, which expanded the market for jazz into colleges and the homes of suburbia, often obscured his very real musical innovations. The ever-increasing professional sheen of Brubeck's 60s albums for Columbia, his interest in writing for orchestras, the quartet's base in traditional swing rather than bop, and their largely white, middle-class fan base have all led some to brand Brubeck as a lightweight, or worse yet, an 'entertainer'. Although there is a grain of truth to this characterization, extended exposure to Brubeck's best work argues otherwise.

Columbia Records' long-overdue reissue program of classic Brubeck albums has gone some way towards rehabilitating Dave's reputation. The latest release is a 5-CD box set entitled For All Time , which brings together all of the classic quartet's albums devoted to exploring unusual time signatures and rhythmic combinations: Time Out (1959) and Time Further Out (1961), which were already available in remastered editions, along with three records that have never appeared on CD domestically; Countdown: Time In Outer Space (1962), Time Changes (1964), and Time In (1965). While Brubeck fans will rejoice in the availability of these latter CDs, they are likely to be disappointed by the box as a whole. Unlike Columbia's exemplary Miles Davis sets, which included extensive new liner notes (in some cases almost book-length) and unreleased material in a quantity exceeding that of the original albums, For All Time simply re-packages the already-available editions of Time Out and Time Further Out with the separately packaged new CDs in a slipcase. Fans hoping for never-before-heard outtakes of classic tunes such as 'Take Five', 'Blue Rondo a la Turk', or 'It's a Raggy Waltz' will not find them here. Nor will they gain any new perspective on the importance of these albums or insight into what went into their making, despite some very brief new notes from Dave. Indeed, it is unclear just for whom Columbia is releasing such a configuration: any serious Brubeck fan will already have purchased the first two albums (many several times over), while the casual jazz listener will be unlikely to shell out for a 5-disc set. Since Columbia will almost certainly release the later three albums singly after the box has had its run (as they did with all of Miles' records), most listeners will probably wait until then to pick them up.

But in spite of Columbia's missed opportunity, the release of For All Time is welcome not only for the 3 'new' albums, but for the opportunity to listen to and consider all of Brubeck's timely adventures in one bundle. These 5 albums abundantly demonstrate his many merits as well as his shortcomings. Brubeck's explorations beyond the basic 4/4 beat are at the heart of his musical life, and certainly represent his greatest contribution to modern jazz. With this music, he and his bandmates developed complexities of meter and rhythm that are every bit as ingenious as those of other artists that are considered to be more 'authentic'. That so few people listen carefully enough to hear just how much is going on in this music is testament to how effortless the DBQ made it sound, and to how good Brubeck was at wedding these rhythmic oddities to memorable melodies in a way that still swung. 'Take Five' is the 'Stairway to Heaven' of jazz; overplayed to such a degree that it has become a clich', used or aped in countless commercials and ubiquitously thumping along in coffeehouses worldwide. But a listen with fresh ears will reveal how ingenious, how radical (this was 1959 !), and how utterly compelling the best of this music is.

Time Out is so well known, and so likely to be already owned by any reader of All About Jazz, that little comment on the original concept album is necessary here. Suffice it to say that anyone not familiar with this album should get it immediately, and that those who have taken it for granted should give it a careful new listen. The shock of the pounding 9/8 opening section of 'Blue Rondo A La Turk' giving way, almost under duress, to the deep blues pocket of the song's middle; the loveliness of 'Strange Meadowlark''s melody masking the subtle internal rhythmic shifts; the sheer, monolithic funkiness of 'Take Five''s piano vamp underneath Joe Morello's jaw-dropping drum solo; the sprightly alterations of 3/4 and 4/4 in 'Three To Get Ready'; these and more combine to make Time Out simply one of the modern era's greatest jazz records, and one of the greatest albums , with all the cohesiveness and balance that suggests, in popular music of any genre. That Columbia did not see fit to include additional material from these sessions is thus all the more painful.