Dave Brubeck didn’t stay still during the heyday of his classic quartet in the 1950s and 1960s. Year after year, the group piled up recording sessions, releasing as many as five albums a year, touring the world whenever they weren’t in the studio. In all the bustle, 1964’s Jazz Impressions of Japan wasn’t so much lost in the shuffle but swept up in the deluge; it was one strong album among many. Time revealed it not only to be something special and prescient, but also a punctuation mark to Brubeck’s purple period with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, drummer Joe Morello, and bassist Eugene Wright.