1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 7. Miles Davis – Birth of the Cool (1957)

Although this is a February 1957 release, the tracks date from between 1949 to 1950, and I suspect that had Robert Dimery decided to start his compilation at the start of the 1950s rather than in the middle we would have had a lot more jazz from the bebop era. 

Now I can definitively say that it’s the “cool jazz” sub-genre that really doesn’t work for me. That’s not to take away from Davis’ undoubted talent, nor his importance in the development of music, but something about this just doesn’t grab me. It’s fine as background music, and I gave it a chance of actively listening too, but it failed to provoke much of an emotion in me. 

Cool jazz takes the bebop style of playing, and smooths out the edges. While it has the same kind of rapid-fire melody as bebop, the tone is softer, horn playing more muted and less hard-edged. At the same time the backing becomes smoother – if I listened more closely there may be the difference between brushes vs sticks on the drums, or even the softer use of brushes entirely, I’m not sure. So the net effect, as described by Paul Tanner in the book Jazz, is that the cool sound is akin to a colour palette of pastels compared to the vibrant colours of bebop.  

Which is fine, I don’t mind a muted aural soundscape. I think perhaps for me it’s the combination of that with the fast playing. Music can be all about the gaps, and Davis leaves no gaps, so the net effect is like a smooth wall of soft jazz with nothing to hang onto.