Perhaps the most overlooked
fact about the song "Take
Five" is that it was not written by
Dave Brubeck; rather, it was written by the
quartet's saxophonist Paul Desmond.
The song was not intended to be a hit in any way. The whole album that the song first appears on, "Time Out", is an experimental foray into odd time signatures (besides the 5/4 of Take Five, there is the alternating 9/8 and 4/4 of Blue Rondo a la Turk, and the 3/4 and 7/8 of much of the rest of the album). In fact, Take Five was originally written as a drum exercise for drummer Joe Morello.
Brubeck himself has little to do in this song, playing a simple vamp of the three basic chords while Desmond and later Morello go to town soloing over this sparse backup.
There is even a break in the song where it switches to 4/4**. It is a tribute to these musicians that this switch, and indeed the awkward timing of this song, seems perfectly natural, even to the Western ear trained to 4/4 and 3/4 as being the "real" time signatures.
An edited version of the song was released as a single, with the drum solo chopped slightly and the piano break that leads into said solo removed. The B-side of the single was "Blue Rondo a la Turk" (mistitled "Blue Rondo a la Tuna" on the jukebox page).
Desmond's thoughts on "Take Five":
At the time I really thought it was kind of a throw-away. I was ready to trade the entire rights, lifetime-wise of "Take Five" for a used Ronson electric razor. And the thing that makes "Take Five" work is the bridge, which we almost didn't use. We really came within ... I shudder to think how close we came to not using that, because I said "Well I got this theme that we could use for a middle part". And Dave said, "Well let's run it through." And that's what made "Take Five".
Take Five was also used as the opening theme to a Playboy or Hugh Hefner televison show in the late 20th century.
And
no one has yet mentioned that to "take five" means to
take a break, as in "take
five minutes off". It's often used to
disassemble groups such as
actors or
musicians. Without this
phrase as part of the
vernacular, this song would not have had such a
catchy title.
**
One of my sources claims this, anyway; I listened to the Time Out version of the song several times with a pair of headphones and a pencil to tap out the beat and never found it. I could be wrong, or it could be a different version, like the mangled single version mentioned above.
Sources:
http://www.morewisdom.com/desmond.htm
http://www.sonymusic.com/artists/SoundtrackForACentury/ns4/track/1724.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/s/x/sxh209/reviews2.html