Cool jazz: Difference between revisions

CD reissue of Davis's 1957 LP Birth of the Cool, collecting much of his 1949 to 1950 work.

Cool jazz is a jazz style that emerged in the late 1940s in New York City.

History

In 1946, after the Second World War, there was an influx of Californian (predominantly white) jazz musicians to New York. Once there, these musicians mixed with the mostly African-American bop musicians, but being heavily influenced by swing musicians such as Lester Young (Prez) and Coleman Hawkins (Bean), incorporated a mellower tone. The product, cool jazz, was a lighter, more romantic style of jazz than Be-Bop; cool jazz took a relaxed, simple approach to rhythm while preserving the harmonic ideas of bop. The Claude Thornhill Orchestra with the arranger Gil Evans recorded cool jazz as early as the late 1940s; Thornhill's most popular song, "Snowfall", is still played today. Other cool musicians of the 1940's included Lennie Tristano and his colleagues Billy Bauer and Warne Marsh. The style grew more prevalent in the 1950's, attracting the attention of musicians like Miles Davis, whose recordings Birth of the Cool (1957) and Kind of Blue (1959) became among the most popular jazz albums ever produced....

Cool jazz artists

• Miles Davis Nonet 1949/50 and with Gil Evans (1957-63)
• The Gil Evans Orchestra (1957-64)
• Bill Evans
• Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker
• Lee Konitz (with Tristano, Thornhill, Evans, Davis)
• Dave Brubeck with Paul Desmond
• Stan Getz
• Chico Hamilton
• George Shearing
• Vince Guaraldi
• Shelly Manne
• Modern Jazz Quartet
• Lester Young
• Chet Baker

See also

• West coast jazz
• Modal Jazz

External links

• Forever Cool: Cool and West Coast Jazz on the Internet
• Jazz History - Cool

http://redhotjazz.com/coolarticle.html

Samples

• Download sample of "Boplicity" ('Cleo Henry' aka Gil Evans) by the Miles Davis-Nonet from the album Birth of the Cool