Thomas Dolby on his favourite jazz album
Like a synth-age Pete Townshend, Thomas Dolby was only ever happy working at the musical vanguard. If popular acclaim arrived as a side effect of his creativity, then all the better. In perhaps his most enduring hit, ‘She Blinded Me With Science’, Dolby introduced a character he describes as a “slightly forlorn mad scientist”. Undoubtedly, Dolby sees part of himself in this eccentric character, but with fewer test tubes and more Moog hardware.
Dolby set out on his illustrious career at the end of the 1970s and began to garner support in London’s blossoming synth-pop scene in the early 1980s. As a huge fan of Kraftwerk and a plethora of similar yet less widely venerated experimental electronic artists, he honed in on the synthesiser as the key to progressive composition.
Speaking to Songfacts in 2011, Dolby described ‘She Blinded Me With Science’ as “probably about the most frivolous song that I’ve ever written”. Despite this, he appreciates it as a fan favourite from a catalogue that is otherwise unconducive to a career in the pop charts. “I don’t cut any corners, I don’t write simple pop relationship songs,” he said of his general approach. “They are pretty deep, and a lot of my heroes when I was growing up were marginal cult artists that weren’t easily pigeonholed and certainly weren’t adorning the charts week in-week out.”
Thanks to his commercial success with ‘She Blinded Me With Science’ in 1982 and the 1984 album The Flat Earth, Dolby managed to establish an early fanbase who would follow his movements into new territory, no matter how niche. Crucially, this early success allowed him the financial freedom to pursue his artistic desires. “I might easily have been a cult artist just like them were it not for the fact that I managed to have some mainstream success, and that opened up a whole new fan base to me and provided a way to get them into the more intense side of my music,” he noted.
As a musical scientist, Dolby operated at the vanguard but evidently had an astute eye for a pop hit. Like his peer Brian Eno, Dolby has scored movies and picked up several production and collaboration credits in popular music. His portfolio includes notable work with Prefab Sprout, Def Leppard and Foreigner.
In a 2013 interview with Goldmine, Dolby discussed some of his key influences as a musical artist. Alongside expected nods like David Bowie’s Low and Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine, he revealed his love for Elton John’s early classic Honky Chateau and Talking Heads’ 1977 debut album, Talking Heads ’77.
Dolby also saved a spot for his tentative jazz sensibilities. Although he was never a jazz aficionado in the guise of a pop star like Pete Townshend, Dolby fell in love with the genre thanks to the Dave Brubeck Quartet and their pivotal 1959 record Time Out. “I dabbled in jazz and was attracted to the bohemian lifestyle but could never stand the endless self-indulgent solos,” Dolby said, making an all-too-common admission about the divisive genre.
Unlike a lot of jazz music of its time, like that recorded by Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Time Out was less reliant on protracted solos. “Along came Dave, who was actually a composer – though I only recently discovered saxist Paul Desmond is credited with the smash hit ‘Take Five’, much to Dave’s disdain,” Dolby noted. “There has always been a strong jazz flair in my songs, especially the harmonies. Now you know where it came from!”
Dolby isn’t alone in his appraisal of Time Out as a jazz album accessible to the untrained ear of the pop musician. Stewart Copeland, the drummer of The Police, admitted that, although he always admired Buddy Rich’s percussion skills, he has a general “immunity” to jazz. However, he sees Dave Brubeck as an exception to the rule. He explained that ‘Blue Rondo A La Turk’ and ‘Take Five’ “reset the rules of rhythm” with their exotic time signatures. On the latter, Copeland said, “From the age of seven unto this very day, I still sob with emotion on hearing the drum solo.”
Furthermore, the pst-punk group The Stranglers were clearly fans of Time Out, given that they based their most enduring hit, ‘Golden Brown’, on the rhythm of ‘Take Five’.