"Kathy's Waltz" from Dave Brubeck's 1959 Time Out album is a graceful composition in 3/4 time dedicated to Brubeck's daughter, featuring Paul Desmond and Brubeck in successive solos over a 36-bar form in B-flat. Desmond's two-chorus alto saxophone solo at 189 BPM demonstrates his remarkable ability to create long, singing melodic lines that float above the waltz rhythm with seeming weightlessness. Brubeck follows with three choruses of piano at 190 BPM, his more percussive approach to the waltz feel providing rhythmic contrast to Desmond's airborne lyricism. The composition's personal dedication adds an emotional dimension to its musical charm, and the waltz meter is handled with the naturalness that comes from the quartet's deep familiarity with unconventional time signatures. The 36-bar form is somewhat unusual, though less radically so than some of the album's other structural experiments. The track sits comfortably within the Time Out program as a relatively gentle interlude between more dramatically innovative pieces, demonstrating that the album's exploration of time signatures extends to the most traditional of odd meters.
