Birth of the Cool (1949: Migration to France) | The Chronicle of Jazz

By Mervyn Cooke • 325 illustrations,
82 in full color • 256 pages • 8-1/2 x 8-1/2"
Cloth • ISBN 0-7892-0399-5 • U.S. $45.00


	Miles Davis's nonet at a Capitol recording session on 21 January 1949. Davis is standing behind saxophonists Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz. [ view larger image ] (The Frank Driggs Collection)


	Birth of the Cool The epithet "cool" in jazz has no precise definition, being used as a loose opposite of hot and embracing a wide range of styles. The intricate ensemble arrangements by Gil Evans, inspired by Claude Thornhill's orchestra and recorded by Miles Davis's nonet in 1949-50 after the band appeared at The Royal Roost on Broadway, were issued with the prophetic title The Birth of the Cool in 1954. These influential tracks were later seen to epitomize certain aspects common in all later "cool" jazz: emotional restraint (achieved partly through an avoidance of "expressive" playing techniques such as vibrato), and a harmonic and contrapuntal sophistication made possible by more pre-composition and therefore less improvisation. Although the Davis nonet continued to demonstrate its debt to bop, the subsequent evolution of "cool" jazz represented a sometimes self-conscious turning away from the highly charged and spontaneously virtuosic atmosphere of the bop style. Participating in Davis's nonet were saxophonists Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz, who went on to spearhead their own West Coast "cool school" (• p. 134). The term "cool" has also been applied to the tightly organized music of John Lewis's Modern Jazz Quartet (• p. 128), and to the refined piano styles of George Shearing and Dave Brubeck (• p. 188).