can of worms time re: cool / west coast jazz

look, without placing a value judgement on it or claiming to be infalliable , i just realized that everyone i think of as west coast / cool jazz is white. chet baker, gerry mulligan, art pepper, lee konitz, cal tjader, lennie tristano, al cohn, jimmy giuffre, vince guaraldi, barney kessel, tal farlow, etc etc.

was there some sort of policy or something in LA where you couldn't be a black bandleader? or is this there just some sort of deceptive hindsight thing?

i just began my phase of investigating beyond the miles cool session and stan getz bossa stuff

got the gerry mulligan early 10 inchs. really good stuff.

i fear those who bash it imply that hard-bop was inherently better, yet probably actually enjoy very little hard-bop either.

This
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000000Z5B.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

a couple things --

1. http://www.amazon.com/West-Coast-Jazz-Anthology-California/dp/B00000FXNT
^^^That comp is incredible

2. ...one sec ....

there's a lot of great stuff ... i've especially been really getting into tal farlow and cal tjader lately. and i've enjoyed lee konitz and lennie tristano forever.

i'm sort of suspicious of this question because there's not a huge stylistic gulf between, say, lee konitz in the 50s and kenny dorham in the 50s. but for whatever reason we call lee konitz "cool jazz" and kenny dorham "hard bop".

2.... 'the cool' started @ mintons & monroe's playhouse in ny, not on the west coast altho its associated w/ that scen -- w/ max roach & kenny clarke drumming ... dudes associated w/ basically creating it were white and black, it was a more mixed crowd but then the cool was sorta an offshoot in terms of the mainstream of jazz as a whole ...

j.j. johnson was pretty heavily involved also ... john lewis is probably pretty important to the sound of it.

the only reason i can think of for it being more mixed other than something kinda silly like "white musicians liked the cooler sound" is just the fact that the sound was really centered around the relationship miles had w/ gil evans & the harmonic ideas he introduced miles to ... miles had just left parker & was playing w/ max roach a lot at the time. a lot of the songs miles was playing @ the royal roost (which is where that 2nd disc on the reissue of 'birth of the cool' was recorded) were written by mulligan, evans & john lewis as well as Davis (so white white black black)

so why is it that when people make lists of cool / west coast jazz it's always white dudes?

and to get at what hurting's saying about lee konitz not exactly being confined to a west coast ghetto, yeah i agree, i mean when you hear jimmy giuffre stuff on the radio it's always like the ultra-quiet elevator music type stuff he did with guys like jim hall (who recorded with fire music #1 bassist ron carter, right?) but then he also did ultra-quiet avant stuff in 1961 ("fusion" and "thesis") that practically sounds like what anthony braxton would be doing ten years later

anyway the REASON miles & gil's relationship would add that diversity is bcuz gil had a lot of white musicians coming thru his place also

xp

like if you flip through things tagged 'cool jazz' on amazon, it's like a few 50s miles albums, "giant steps", and then like 100 albums with smiling white people on the cover

ah, maybe i'm projecting here. i mean 90% of that list is gil evans, dave brubeck, chet baker, vince guaraldi, gerry mulligan, art pepper ... hey! see what i'm getting at?

another theory -- woody herman & stan kenton big bands pretty much were the feeder teams for jazz musicians in the west coast & those were both largely white bands, where the east coast in the 50s was more about blue note

just found this

http://vermontreview.tripod.com/Jazz/westcoastjazz.htm

Just as the Blue Note Studios served as a farm system for modern jazz on the East Coast, the big bands of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton had a similar impact on the West Coast. Although the sounds, technique and popularity of Herman’s and Kenton’s bands were quite different, the two bands shared a similarity in the fact that they both played distinctly modern music and by doing so, their bands were able to survive the post-swing era. With the advent of the bop of Dizzy Gillepsie and Charlie Parker during the 1940s, swing met a quick demise. However Herman and Kenton were able to keep the swing sound going through the clever combination of big band and bop styles. From these two bands, the core for both the West Coast Jazz scene and these four discs found its roots. Between the straightforward swing of Herman and the somewhat controversial sounds of Kenton, West Coast players such as Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Jimmy Guiffre, Bill Holman, Bob Cooper, Shorty Rogers and Bill Perkins (even musicians such as Shelly Manne, Zoot Sims, Richie Kamuca and Conte Candoli played in both outfits.) found their springboard for successful careers.

that's not a bad theory - i was figuring it had to do with something like that, or some obscure historical fact like the price of cabaret cards ...

yeah i swear i remember reading some details about miles' time in cali but i cant find whatever book it was -- some stuff about him following parker, & parker bcoming all alcoholic bcuz there was a drought of smack in LA ... the reason they left NY was because of cabaret cards in the first place, i think, and then returned following the drugs, i think, but i could be remembering wrong and im unable to find whatever book it was i read it in

obv everyone on the west coast scene was hugely influenced by parker so his trips there were kind of what allowed the west coast scene to adapt after the end of the swing era

Teddy Edwards was black, but then, he wasn't all that "cool" oriented.

don't forget chico hamilton!

(also, chico's pals in cali were mingus, dexter gordon, buddy collette.)

(and never forget the genius of hampton hawes either, okay? he made some of the best jazz records, period. west coast or east coast.)

also, if you are looking for a black west coast bandleader who made some very cool records:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3143/2577981399_cdf3627f98.jpg?v=0

and another cool black west coast bandleader while i'm at it:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/2898938772_2f6d8e85df.jpg?v=0

but just make sure you own at least five or six essential hampton hawes records, okay?

Scott, I only have I'm All Smiles. More Hawes recommendations?

I love west coast jazz so so much and I have often had the same thought - why is it so many more white dudes than be-bop? wonder whether there are some answers in this in boring stuff like the census, differing rates of diversity geographically (still extant today I think: http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/black-population-2004.html - although yeah if you wanna really get into some politics, talk census with some activists for a minute)

but yeah when I hear west coast jazz on the radio (I wake up to wncu, they are often playing exactly the stuff I dig) I'll lie there and think "who's this? gotta go investigate this!" and then it's, like, three guys who all look like my dad, and then I immediately go <a href=";>hmmm</a>

well, fuck.

sonned by the difference between semicolons and quotation marks

I always got the impression that the relegation of "cool" jazz to white musicians was something largely done by more politicized critics and musicians, and probably more the former than the latter. Some people felt a (rather understandable) need to keep the sense of jazz as a black artform, and it was convenient, if reductive, to take a branch of the music that had a large number of white musicians anyway and was taking on a lot of modern classical influences and just label it "white," as opposed to the hard-bop of the time where black musicians/composers were increasingly breaking out of standards-based composition and increasingly looking to African influences. I don't know if this criticism is something that emerged contemporaneously or if it was a later revisionism though. I could be wrong about my entire theory.

^^ this is basically what i meant when i called it a "hindsight" thing.

this book isn't about cool jazz, but whenever i see it i scoff

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Chords-Musicians-Contribution-1915-1945/dp/019514838X/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231951479&sr=1-11

I feel like a similar question could be asked about the how and why doo-wop went from black to italian-americans. the difference is, there was not a separate tag for them. however, most black musicians were moving onto soul while dion continued doo-woppin.

http://www.ucpress.edu/image/covers/160/8374.160.jpg

This book by Ted Gioia explains all. Or at least I assume it does -- it's been sitting on my shelf for eight years, unread.

The Mulligan/Farmer/Bailey/Crow quartet is one of my favorite "cool" groups and happens to be half black half white.

Off topic, slightly, but I always like Jazz Dudes at Beach album covers:
http://www.jazz.com/assets/2008/1/8/albumcoverCannonballAdderleyQuintetAtTheLighthouse.jpg
Insane to me that the Lighthouse was within walking distance of where I grew up ... Seems like a lot of good stuff went down there before my time.

Ray Brown outnumbered
http://cover6.cduniverse.com/CDUCoverArt/Music/07/1036107.jpg

Only based on the votes of a bunch of mostly white people though!

Ha.

Probably another reason to cut off West Coast branch was that they were making Hollywood session dollars as opposed to keeping it real in the New York, um, cabarets.

i LOVE when barney kessel wears scarves

http://image.listen.com/img/170x170/4/7/7/7/487774_170x170.jpg

^^good record

I just read some story about Barney Kessel going with teenage fan-boy Phil Spector to make a record in a Record-It-Yourself booth.

Also while I'm here let me rep for Barney Kessel novelty track "TV Commercials" on Darlene Love comp So Much Love.

miles davis obviously experimented with some west coast dudes (seven steps to heaven etc.), what other nyc guys took a vacation and made a west coast record?

http://www.jazz.com/assets/2007/11/24/wayoutwest.jpg

^^^^^^ Def. one of my favorite records ...

Ha. I think Shelly Manne was one of Sonny's favorite drummers.

I forget how the lighthouse burned down but it was for a really stupid reason

argh I forget what it was but I was looking at some photography book that was just pictures of jazz dudes hanging out at the beach in LA and jazz dudes riding cable cars in sf

Yeah it is a funny contrast -- the pics from NYC are always b&w, gritty dark nightclubby things, and then Jazz dudes come out west and it's all smiles ... Looking at that pic of Cannonball and Co., I can imagine why! The beach! The ocean! Los Angeles! I guess I've read some unpleasant things about being black at the time and dealing with the LAPD, though ... Big surprise, right?

speaking of barney kessel, and shelley manne, and hampton hawes, this album is great:

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf200/f297/f29716h03d1.jpg

I'm a big fan of Jim Hall also. All the Paul Desmond recordings with him are good. I really like the Jimmy Giuffre "elevator music" stuff (as someone called it upthread) too. The Art Farmer Quartets with him are great if you can find them. Most of all, the Sonny Rollins sessions with Hall, although I don't know if those are properly called "cool jazz."

again, the early trio records are also fab. hampton, red mitchell, and, um...i'm blanking....

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/ACTPOD/OJCCD-316-2~Hampton-Hawes-Trio-The-Trio-v-1-Posters.jpg

Earlier Jim Hall is probably my favorite jazz guitar. His sound got kind of cheesy later though and I don't think he chose the best people to play with.

also search the late 60's black lion stuff. awesome as well. what can i say, i'm a fan.

http://lh4.google.com/MyJazzWorld/RqpoeLdJ-lI/AAAAAAAAAVc/O5sSzZmW5Sk/s288/HamptonHawes_SpanishSteps.jpg

ever hear greg osby's invisible hand record? i haven't heard it for a long time, but it has jim hall and andrew hill on it and whatever it is, it's not cheesy.

best shelley manne cover (and not a bad record either, despite my indifference to andre previn):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/2071307048_42663c04f3.jpg?v=0

Hey, I recently learned that Johnny Mercer wrote those songs!

a later record by a guy from boston who headed out west, this is very cool and worth tracking down (um, cuz it's also another example of a black bandleader making a west coast kinda sound with west coast dudes):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2235/2064941759_c30686f3b9.jpg?v=0

Hampton Hawes' autobio, "Raise Up Off Me" is great, as is Art Pepper's "Straight Life" for depicting the LA scene of the day. I can't remember the author of "West Coast Jazz", but there's a ton of info including the perspective of the WC record label heads, ie Contemporary, Pacific Jazz etc. It's comprehensive, but the writing is less than engaging.

shelly manne and his men at the manhole is the name of an actual (good) shelly manne record fyi

charles mingus came from watts and a lot of his early recordings are 'west coast' in a sense

yeah, i mentioned mingus up top. but it's kinda like calling eric dolphy "west coast". you know? they were both from there and played there, but...

the west coast cool vibe thing was it's own thing and it could be very cool indeed. i like a lot of that stuff. not so much the desmondbrubecktjader stuff though. i have very little time for dave brubeck. blah.

skot, you wanna hate on Cal Tjader, come on over here and fite!

Would like to read Ted Gioia book, but do not want to prove his brother's theory.

i know, he was preemptive with the manhole jokes

Lot's of people seemed to have played at that club. I'm sure they are going to have five hours of Roy Haynes playing there tonight on WKCR. But wasn't it spelt the Mannhole?

Looks like it was "Shelly's Manne-hole."

love this album. sonny making the west coast dudes work for a living.

http://jazzvo.blog.ocn.ne.jp/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/01/the_contemporary_leaders.jpg

yeah a lot of dudes were up in shelly's manne-hole.

xp

― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Wednesday, January 14, 2009 1:46 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

OK, now I see what you were trying to say.

if you can find them - are they in print? - the Black California two volume anthology that savoy put out is friggin' GREAT if you like awesome and swingin' 40's/50's stuff. wardell gray, wild bill moore, slim gaillard, kenny clarke, etc. (um, not "cool" jazz, just great jazz.) (all the bands where dexter and chico and sonny criss and others cut their teeth.)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc500/c584/c58424888is.jpg

listened to this tonight. one of my fave we're all in the same gang east coast/west coast jams:

http://www.jazz.com/assets/2008/1/4/albumcoverArtPepperMeetsTheRhythmSection.jpg

when white dudes had cool names like art pepper

ZOOT SIMS

That Art Pepper record has a great version of "Tin Tin Deo." I think Art claimed in Straight Life that he hadn't picked up his horn in two years prior to making that record but somebody later debunked that.

the west coast cool vibe thing was it's own thing and it could be very cool indeed. i like a lot of that stuff. not so much the desmondbrubecktjader stuff though. i have very little time for dave brubeck. blah.

― scott seward, Wednesday, January 14, 2009 3:21 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

I don't think they deserve to be lumped together. I think Desmond is a way more legit and enjoyable musician than Brubeck. I mean Time Out is an undeniable record, but it's largely because of Desmond and Morello, and also it just SOUNDS so fucking good. I get frothy at the mouth when people swoon over Brubeck as though he's god's gift to jazz, but I'm more mad at people's tin ears and (I think) latent racism than I am at Brubeck. But he's just such a terrible, stiff pianist -- painful to listen to at times.

Cal Tjader is just fun. I have no complaints about him.

i just got smack up by art pepper on vinyl

a superb album

not all that "cool" though

i wasn't really slamming tjader and desmond as musicians. it's just that that end of things is so ubiquitous in my thrift shop world, so i blame them for their ubiquitousness. i blame it on the bossa nova.

i don't think i've ever heard anyone swoon over brubeck before! thank god. i'd hit them over the head and give them a bill evans record or something if i did.

i do hold onto a copy of brubeck's gates of justice for novelty value.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510l3VCqfTL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Time for a new screen name.

SOOOO into Shorty Rogers right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_SvhoMokI8

just got this book in the mail

http://www.ocma.net/img/413_Birth-of-the-Cool-Cover.JPG

it has a big chapter on the aesthetic of cool / west coast jazz album covers, maybe i'll post a couple of tidbits if it's any good

why the fuck can't I find any substantial big band cool from 1952?!

let's see, mulligan left the miles cool sessions to work on the chubby jackson big band later in 1950, then created the new stars in 1951.

shorty rogers did his superb "modern sounds" sides in 1951.

1953 had shorty's giants, wild one sdtk, stan kenton's "New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm", Gene Norman's commision of the Gerry Mulligan Tentet, and multiple projects by The Dave Pell Octet. Hell, even Clifford Brown had a nonet that year, and Tadd Dameron was still doing his "big ten" thing that ran alongside Miles' initial project.

Ceratinly SOMETHING was recorded in this vein in 1952.

is Gerry Mulligan worth investigating

He arranged most of Birth of the Cool, so I'd say yes. Try a couple albums out!

that '59 album he did with Ben Webster is definitely worth investigating, not heard much else.

i don't have a ton of his stuff, but I really enjoy this one
https://img.discogs.com/-ulMF9pOhQkW1DwrTjseFjle-JQ=/fit-in/600x598/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-639802-1141987385.jpeg.jpg

yeah primarily curious about the Baker stuff

he doesn't seem to get much respect these days

https://londonjazzcollector.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/mg_3476.jpg
this one is an absolute gem imo

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mRM0IG68ycc/hqdefault.jpg

lousy album cover but a top quality work of the genre. And it is led by John Lewis (not the civil rights activist who passed yesterday obv) of modern jazz quartet who is criminally underrated imo.

Very nice, thanks!

This is a useful thread ... I wish some of the album recommendations were not obscured by broken image links

In 1961, while at a federal prison hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, Hawes was watching President Kennedy's inaugural speech on television, and became convinced that Kennedy would pardon him.[5] With help from inside and outside the prison, Hawes submitted an official request for a presidential pardon.[5] In an almost miraculous turn, in August 1963, Kennedy granted Hawes Executive Clemency, the 42nd of only 43 such pardons given in the final year of Kennedy's presidency.[5]

"cool" revive

what was he in for??

10 years just for using heroin. Arrested on his 30th birthday. They hoped he would flip on his suppliers. Even though he was eventually (miraculously) pardoned he still spent 5 years in prison. Just for using! He died 13 years later.

It was mentioned upthread but seriously, if you haven't read Hawes' autobiography, Raise Up Off Me, it's one of the greatest books on jazz (and junk) ever — half Miles's autobiography, half The Basketball Diaries.

I wrote about Hawes last year. All the albums mentioned in that piece are amazing.

ahh thank you for the link

Curtis Fuller/Hampton Hawes w/ French Horns is another good one. It seems a miracle that any black jazz musicians with heroin habits managed to survive the 50's/60's. If the habit wasn't going to kill them, the cops would be more than happy to lend a hand (or a club) to the grim reaper.

was going to post "wow the 50s were fucked" but it occurred to me there are probably ppl in california currently serving longer sentences for simple possession of crack cocaine