The fact that the 1959 LP Time Out became such a huge success took the musicians themselves by surprise. None of their previous albums had such an ambitious concept as Time Out, which only presented tunes written in unusual time signatures. It was impossible to predict that such an unusual idea would lead to one of the best selling jazz albums of all time. In Dave Brubeck's own words: "Some people may be able to analyze in a scientific way what will 'catch on' with the public, but I never could. I think it must be a serendipitous combination of a 'catchy' melody, an insistent rhythm, and the general musical climate of the times. Creating a 'hit' out of the odd-meter experiments of Time Out was the farthest from any of our minds in 1959 when Paul Desmond, Joe Morello, Eugene Wright and I went into the studio to record."
