Six studio albums into his Columbia contract, Dave Brubeck recorded Time Out in June, July and August 1959. It was one of a handful of albums in a vintage year that helped change jazz. Its huge success catapulted Brubeck's Quartet to the forefront of jazz, and not unnaturally Columbia wanted more of the same. In 1961 came Time Further Out and the lesser known Countdown: Time In Outer Space. Both enjoyed good sales, Countdown remaining in the Billboard charts for 21 weeks, peaking at number 21. It continued the theme of what was then “unusual time signatures in jazz”, ‘Eleven Four’, for example, was released as a single to follow-up to ‘Take Five’, and was also written by Paul Desmond. The best track on the album is a version of ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ in the not-so-unusual time signature of 3/4, while ‘Castilian Drums’ became a regular feature for drummer Joe Morello in live performance. With seven rare ‘bonus tracks’ from what is enigmatically described as ‘Live in New York, July 1961’ (Where in New York? What source? A live recording?), this may be one of Brubeck's lesser known albums, but nevertheless is a good representation of this group both in the studio and in live performance.