Cool Jazz defined-page 2

Cool Jazz Musicians Move West!

In the meantime, Gerry Mulligan (an outstanding baritone sax player as well as a great composer and arranger) and others moved from the east coast to the west coast, looking for work. Mulligan met Chet Baker and others at jam sessions that were happening on Central Avenue in Los Angeles. The style of music there was very compatible with what Mulligan had been doing in New York.

Mulligan got a Monday night gig at a small place known as The Haig, on Wilshire Boulevard. There was no room for a piano on the stage, so Mulligan put together a group with Chet Baker on Trumpet, Bob Whitlock on bass and Chico Hamilton on drums. This piano-less quartet became a huge hit, featuring Mulligan's compositions and the amazing interplay between Mulligan and Baker. With no chordal instrument, the group had a great deal of freedom to explore the harmonic textures of the tunes.  This all helped to define cool jazz.

Other musicians also explored this style, including Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, Lee Konitz, and Art Farmer. Because many of the musicians who explored it were on the west coast, it also became known as west coast jazz.  It became very popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Another aspect of this style is known as Third Stream music.  The phrase was coined by Gunther Schuller, and refers to the combination of classical and jazz elements, as exemplified by the Modern Jazz Quartet and Dave Brubeck's various groups.

So what is cool jazz?

For our purposes here at Dancing Hippo Music, we define cool jazz  as music that is usually instrumental, composed and arranged throughout the piece, with improvised solos that are melodic, and with emotional as well as musical power. It has elements of swing and other jazz styles, and relies on the human connection between the musicians. This is not heavy be-bop where the goal seems to be to play as many notes as possible in the shortest amount of time; and it is not "smooth jazz" where the harmonic and thythmic content is simplified and machine-like with little emotional connection to the melody. It is also not  any music where the rhythm is the only element to the music and harmony and melody are mostly ignored, or afterthoughts at best.

So, look around the site, and enjoy cool jazz.  For another taste, here's the same tune as on the previous page, recorded about 34 years later (1991).