Time Out Ten
Feelin' Groovy
(59th Bridge Song)
from the Paul Desmond album
Bridge Over Troubled Water
For this item you need to be able to stop for ten minutes.
We are often moving on to the next job, the next meeting, scrolling down social media, taking the next call ......'Time Out Ten' asks you to stop for ten minutes and listen to a particular piece of music; to find a time when you won't be interrupted, when you can put in/on your headphones and chill out. Ten minutes isn't long.
Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy
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When is the best time for Time Out Ten? When everything is spinning and you need to stop? When you get stuck with something and need to step back from it for a while? During that after lunch drop in energy? Or perhaps when you have got into the habit of working through lunchtime?
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Here is one of those 'pop' songs that has found its way nicely into a jazz album. Written by Paul Simon it first appeared on the 1966 Simon and Garfunkel album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Less well known perhaps is that Dave Brubeck Quartet members Joe Morello (drums) and Eugene Wright (bass) played on the track.
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The song is apparently named for the Queensboro Bridge which spans the East River between Manhattan and Queens in New York City. It is said that the song came to Paul Simon during a daybreak walk across the Queensboro Bridge: the line: "Just kicking down the cobblestones" refers to the paving at the approach to the bridge's Queens' end, while "Hello lamppost, what'cha knowing" refers to either of two bronze lampposts one of which stood at both the bridge's Manhattan and Queens' ends, the latter was removed circa 1975.
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Hello lamppost, what'cha knowing
I've come to watch your flowers growin'
Ain't you got no rhymes for me?
Doo-ait-n-doo-doo, feeling groovy
Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy
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For our Time Out Ten this month we feature a fine track by another Dave Brubeck Quartet member, saxophonist Paul Desmond in the company of Herbie Hancock (keyboards), Ron Carter (double bass) and others. Apart from solos by Paul and Herbie, listen out for Ron Carter's double bass work and the lovely double-tracking from Paul Desmond at the end of the piece.
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Take a little time out and listen to the track here.
