Wood Goblin wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 2:39 pm

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 2:29 pm "Cool jazz" is such a corny fucking title. "Hey man you know, like, jazz, right? Well, like what if we made it cool?"

See also “smooth jazz.”

+ "Hot jazz" preceded "cool jazz".

Wood Goblin wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 2:39 pm

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 2:29 pm "Cool jazz" is such a corny fucking title. "Hey man you know, like, jazz, right? Well, like what if we made it cool?"

See also “smooth jazz.”

That makes more sense because there is "rough" jazz that's angular, abrasive, jarring, tweaky etc. Smooth jazz does really sound smoother than other jazz. Cool jazz is only cooler than other jazz if you happen to think so. this could translate to any genre, for example "cool punk" is the type of punk that I listen to, which makes it cool. That punk you like? Not cool.

Teacher's Pet wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 3:24 pm+ "Hot jazz" preceded "cool jazz".

Shhhh

Speaking of which, I want to see someone go to bat for hot jazz. Surely someone prefers the first decade over the subsequent nine decades!

jimmy spako wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 6:06 am Miles helped define "cool jazz", see "Birth of the Cool" etc.

I get that part but I don’t think that’s what 99% of people mean when they refer to “cool jazz” in 2025

Anything that Rudy Van Gelder was involved in through at least '65. That 2nd Miles quintet is the shit and so different than the Van Gelder stuff. I was listening to some live Oscar Peterson trio stuff the other night, and Stan Getz and Jerry Mulligan are at leat as important to me on reeds as 'Train. Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Clifford Brown. Those are just some of the box sets that I can see from where I'm sitting right now.

And I'll got to bat for big band. I started playing drums when I was 10. My parents favored all of us with private instruction in our various arts endeavors. My drum teacher started everyone on snare exclusively in drum and bagel corps tradition and when he thought you were ready, you got to use the kit and you learned by playing modern big band shit of the day like Maynard Ferguson or Buddy Rich. I played big band from 6th grade through my 2nd year of college in '85. Loved it. Gotta read the charts, yo. And the power of a good band, and as the drummer you're driving the band dynamics so you help direct that power? Fuckin' great. 18 -20 people on stage killing it together. I never felt I was playing "old man" music. Listen to Basie's band play April In Paris. That's fun as fuck to play when you got a good band.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote:

jimmy spako wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 6:06 am Miles helped define "cool jazz", see "Birth of the Cool" etc.

I get that part but I don’t think that’s what 99% of people mean when they refer to “cool jazz” in 2025

Honestly, I don't really hear "Birth of the cool" as "cool jazz"(tm) either; more like meticiously *and* stylishly arranged (=Gil Evans already showcasing his future trademark style with lower tones holding long notes etc.) bop. With apologies to Lee Tristano, it *is* the birth of the "cool jazz" aesthetic though; those recordings were done like back in 49/50 and they combined bop with "stiff"and "clasically influenced" (=white (tm)) arrangements, just like later cool jazz.... they just sound, um, "cooler", to my ears than the Brubeck and Getz stuff

jakethesnake wrote: Fri Jul 25, 2025 4:32 pm
Honestly, I don't really hear "Birth of the cool" as "cool jazz"(tm) either; more like meticiously *and* stylishly arranged (=Gil Evans already showcasing his future trademark style with lower tones holding long notes etc.) bop.

Yeah, it's more like "orchestral jazz". It actually has a lot in common with what Ellington was thinking about: stacking timbres in unique ways to create new textures in a more dense harmonic way. The modern jazz club quartet playing Real Book songs is by definition playing harmonically sophisticated music- as sophisticated as classical. But the idea of a limber, portable quartet means that all of these chords are just gently, almost skeletaly implied by the rhythm section so a soloist can shred over them. That's cool and all, but what Gil Evans/Miles, or Oliver Nelson, or Mingus thought about is what kind of sweetness and tension can we craft by writing for multiple unique voices (strings, different horns) just carrying harmony. I feel like that's a much less explored corner in jazz. Brad Mehldau has done some interesting things with that conversation in the past couple decades. I'm not sure who else.

Speaking of Duke Ellington, I learned about his mid-60s Sacred Music concert from the Miles Davis autobiography, which is also crucial.

For some reason this lp sounds really, really good on my tube receiver thru old JBLs. I like listening to that system anyways, but that record in particular jumps out of the speakers.

And I learned about this sorta obscure Ornette lp from a Godspeed You Black Emperor interview. Its kind of him shredding at a block party.

I won't answer from best but lots of love for free and spiritual. Recently listened to Spirits Known and Unknown: New Vocal Frontiers and also have lots of time for standards singers like Julie London. I do have an affinity towards the noisier side of jazz but I can't state which is better than which. Giving my vote to spiritual since it encompasses so much.