The cool style of jazz is as popularly associated with the 1950s as bebop is with the 1940s but, in fact, both prototypical modern jazz styles arose from the unprecedented musical ferment that began in New York City in the early 1940s. Bebop, having been burdened from the start with sensational media coverage focusing on the extramusical, was quickly categorised, stereotyped, then slavishly imitated; thus leaving “the cool"—yet to run through similar stages—on the cutting edge of modern jazz by 1950.
Both bebop and cool jazz represented a break with the tradition of swing arrangements. Yet, while the combos of virtuoso bebop improvisers at the clubs on Manhattan’s 52nd Street relied on a very small repertoire of well-known chord progressions to allow for maximum spontaneity in ensemble playing, the future of detailed ensemble writing was taking shape three blocks north on 55th Street—in the basement studio apartment of arranger Gil Evans.
Since 1940, Gil Evans had worked for pianist and big band leader Claude Thornhill who, like Claude DEBUSSY and the classical Impressionists of the late 19th and early 20th century, was fascinated with the atmospheric qualities of individual, static harmonies. Thornhill’s approach to arranging demanded special attention to timbre, in particular a clean, vibrato-less tone from the saxophones, trumpets, and trombones. This determined absence of vibrato was to become the most stereotypical feature of cool jazz, ensuring that a lead instrument would sound “cool” even if the musical arrangement was a mixture of fast-tempo ballads and laid-back bebop.
In general, cool jazz would come to denote any of the rather diverse group of jazz styles that could be traced back to either the Gil Evans school of orchestration, or to another New York school, that of blind pianist, Lennie Tristano. Tristano also moved beyond bebop harmony to a more abstract tone-painting approach, which he himself called “impressionistic,” that favoured a detached, smooth timbre. Saxophonist Lee KONITZ—so cool that some critics described his sound as “cold”—was Tristano’s best-known disciple.
Konitz was also influenced by the relaxed rhythmic style of tenor player Lester YOUNG. AS early as the 1930s, Young had developed a soft, dry, lightweight tone and a slow vibrato that was exhibited in tuneful improvisations. But it was Tristano even more than Young who had the greatest impact on Konitz’s playing. Tristano’s teaching, which was always rigorous and demanding, stressing the analysis of the work of the early jazz improvisers, made such an impression on Konitz that he became one of the few alto players who did not attempt to place himself directly in the Charlie PARKER mould.
Coming from the other main branch of cool, the Gil Evans school, was baritone saxophonist, arranger, and bandleader Gerry MULLIGAN. Mulligan brought cool jazz to America’s West Coast, specifically to Los Angeles. It was the cool movement on the West Coast that produced trumpeter Chet BAKER, whose long career and well-publicised personal problems ensured him world renown far out of proportion to his musical legacy. In the early 1950s, Baker and Mulligan formed their own quartet. This group had no piano—a revolutionary development in jazz at the time. The quartet rapidly became internationally successful, introducing a fresh wave of public interest in cool jazz. If Baker’s playing is regarded as excessively languid, Mulligan’s style is more driving and blues-based than the typical cool approach to playing the saxophone.
Liberation from the tyranny of the dominant chord would ultimately force the basis of improvisation to become modal, rather than chordal. In this, no cool jazz could ever go all the way, but trumpeter Miles DAVIS went furthest on Kind of Blue (1959), prefiguring the linear modal and free jazz of Omette COLEMAN and the mature John COLTRANE.
Davis was the chief ambassador of cool, with his muted sound, exploration of the subtle colours of the trumpet’s middle register, and avoidance of technical flash. His series of late 1940s recordings with Gil Evans was eventually compiled and re-released as Birth of the Cool (1954). These recordings also featured other influential cool musicians—namely Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, and pianist John Lewis.
In the meantime, the saxophonists most closely associated with the early cool style, Stan GETZ and Lee Konitz, attracted attention more for their light, unforced tones and impeccable taste than for any musical groundbreaking. On the other hand, the work of Miles Davis, a visionary who would later revolutionise jazz again—with albums such as ESP, Miles Smiles, and Bitches Brew—in response to the increasingly progressive style of rock in the late 1960s, came to the fore as the finest fruit of post-bop.
Through the late 1950s, Davis toured with Coltrane, pianist Bill EVANS (not to be confused with Gil Evans), bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer “Philly” Joe Jones. Kind of Blue, the album that virtually ended this period, shows modal improvisation in full, if austere, flower, halfway to free form, and can justly be regarded as the artistic culmination of “cool qua cool.” However, cool is unique among post-bop styles in the wide range of jazz that is related to it, but which defies categorisation except, perhaps, as modern jazz or post-bop.
Bill Evans, as leader of his own group, beginning in the early 1960s, retained much of traditional song structure and worked largely within the quite limited arranging possibilities of a trio, while at the same time taking an intellectual approach to harmony that owed much to cool jazz. As a pianist, Evans’s eclectic style proved greatly influential for some of the most important and popular modern jazz pianists, including Chick COREA, Herbie HANCOCK, and Keith JARRETT, all of whom are difficult to categorise, but whose playing retains distinct elements of cool jazz.
The MODERN JAZZ QUARTET (MJQ)—led loosely on piano by John Lewis, who meticulously arranged most of the numbers for the group—was, like Evans’s trio, another hornless ensemble. It was very much an equal partnership, hence the unprecedented use of an independent name for the combo. MJQ vibraphonist Milt “Bags” Jackson, the group’s main soloist, had worked with Dizzy GILLESPIE in the early days of bebop, and brought to the group a hard-bop respect for the roots of jazz in vernacular African-American blues and gospel music. While Lewis and Jackson were with the combo from the outset in 1946, they were originally partnered with Ray Brown on double bass and Kenny Clarke on drums. However, Brown was replaced by Percy Heath in 1952 and Clarke by Connie Kay in 1955. During its long existence, MJQ, which disbanded in 1974, attempted—not always successfully—to merge the characteristic rhythmic qualities of bebop, hard bop, and cool.
Pianist Dave BRUBECK, leading an often tightly arranged band also featuring saxophonist Paul Desmond (replaced by Gerry Mulligan in the late 1960s), stood at the forefront of the “third stream"— a term that was first coined by the American-born, European-trained composer and critic Günther Schuller. The “third stream” was the most compositional, allegedly European development of the jazz arranging revival.
The best of 1950s cool jazz still sounds ultra-modern, even today. Among contemporary artists, trumpeter Wallace Roney, whose subtle playing is admired by jazz purists, and the organ-led trio of Medeski, Martin, and Wood, gaining in popularity with rock audiences, reveal cool jazz as a primary influence. A more profound testament to the legacy of cool is that vibrato has not yet come back into fashion for saxophonists, while the classic sounds of cool—Desmond’s airy alto playing, Jackson’s vibes, or Getz’s melodic tenor—are still among the most popular in jazz.
Joseph Goldberg
SEE ALSO:
BEBOP; HARD BOP; JAZZ; MODAL JAZZ.
FURTHER READING
Blumenthal, Bob. Cool, Man (Los Angeles, CA: General Publishing Group, 1997);
Marsh, G., and G. Callingham, eds. California Cool: The Album Cover Art (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1962);
Vincent, Ted. Keep Cool (Boulder, CO: Pluto Press, 1995).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Chet Baker: My Funny Valentine; Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool; Miles Ahead ; Kind of Blue; Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings; Trio ′64; Lee Konitz : Subconscious-Lee; The Carnegie Hall Concert; Lennie Tristano: The New Tristano.