During the 1950's, the Dave Brubeck Quartet became one of America's most
successful groups, playing ‘West Coast Cool Jazz’. Their second album Jazz
Goes to College sold over 100,000 and Brubeck became the first jazz musician to
feature on the cover of Time magazine. Before then, jazz had rarely engaged the
white middle-class students and ‘pop’ audiences of the late 1950's that
surfed the Elvis phenomenon and indicated the arrival of ‘teenagers’ with
money!
By the end of the decade, the most popular and influential Brubeck Quartet
was born.
Familiar 4/4 straight-ahead jazz was augmented by complex tempos like 9/8 (Blue Rondo a La Turk) and even 11/4, though to improv sections of Brubeck's compositions frequently loosened into regular swing (which cleverly balanced and therefore enhanced their appeal).