"Take Five" is a jazz piece composed by Paul Desmond and originally recorded by the Dave Brubeck Quartet for its 1959 album Time Out. Made at Columbia Records' 30th Street Studio in New York City on July 1, 1959, two years later it became an unlikely hit and the biggest-selling jazz single ever. Appearing since on numerous movie and television soundtracks, today it still receives significant radio play. "Take Five" was for several years during the early 1960s the theme music for the NBC Today TV program, the opening bars being played half a dozen times or more each day.

Written in the key of E-flat minor, the piece is known for its distinctive two-chord piano vamp, catchy blues-scale saxophone melody, inventive, jolting drum solo, and unusual quintuple (5
4) time, from which its name is derived.

Brubeck drew inspiration for this style of music during a U.S. State Department-sponsored tour of Eurasia, where he observed a group of Turkish street musicians performing a traditional folk song with supposedly Bulgarian influences that was played in 9
8 time (traditionally called "Bulgarian meter"), rarely used in Western music. After learning from native symphony musicians about the form, Brubeck was inspired to create an album that deviated from the usual 4
4 time of jazz and experimented with the exotic styles he had experienced abroad.

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