Time Out Ten
Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise
The MJQ
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.
We heard from Milt Jackson last month in our ten minutes 'You time' and this month he plays for us again, this time with the Modern Jazz Quartet. I remember when I bought this LP, and when I took it home, my father couldn't understand why I liked 'that music'. I listen to it now and find it hard to see why he found it so terrible. Writing in All That Jazz, Rob Mariani says: "... What these four gentlemen brought to jazz and the world of music, out of the careening bebop fury of the early '50s was the sound of elegance. ..... That evening at The Tonight Show, they played "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" and "I'll Remember April." It was a life-changing moment for me. This was a whole other way to think about music, I realized gradually. It was like discovering a colour I'd never even seen before....."
The origin of the song goes back even further than the '50s. The song comes from the 1928 operetta The New Moon with music by Sigmund Romberg with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Since then, it has been recorded by many jazz musicians, including Deirdre Cartwright's ORGANIK in their new album released in July (here).
But here is the MJQ from the 1950s. Take those ten minutes time out for yourself and relax ....
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2026.8