[audio:https://dowdycornerscookbookclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/08-Take-Five_0.mp3|titles=Introduction to the jazz hit “Time Out”]

If the soundtrack to My Big Fat Greek Wedding isn’t your thing, there are other options. The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s hit “Take Five,” the third cut on the 1959 album Time Out, uses syncopated 5/4 time of traditional Greek folk dances.* Time Out, the first jazz album to use non-4/4 meter, was nearly rejected by Columbia Records for its nonconventional use of unusual meters. They would have regretted that decision: “Take Five” became the first jazz single to sell one million copies. Brubeck must have slowed the tempo way down in his relaxed, laid-back, and über cool “Time Out”; I can’t imagine myself or Greeks dancing to it. But that makes it perfect dining music.

*I owe this tidbit of meter knowledge to an audio course called “Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion,” given by Professor Bill Messenger and published by The Great Courses company.