Chapter 9

Cool/

Third Stream

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Cool contrasted with Bop

• Understated playing style– Relaxed tempos– Subtle instrumental colors– Emotional detachment

• Ensembles larger then in bop– Emphasis on tonal colors and harmonic possibilities– Likened to jazz chamber music

Refer to demonstration 7

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Cool contrasted with Bop-continued-

• Conservative playing style like pastel colors– Conservatory trained musicians– Orchestral conception

• Expanded forms and solo space

• Delicate attacks

• Little or no vibrato

• Middle register playing

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New instruments

• A number of instruments not previously associated with jazz were used– Bowed string instruments– Orchestral woodwinds

• Flugelhorn– Same key as trumpet– Conical bore produces darker, warmer

sound

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Third-stream music

• A version of cool wherein classical forms and devices were used– Rondos and fugues– Polymeter– Longer orchestral type works

• Reaction by the public was mixed

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Cool era bands

Woody Herman (1913-1987)– Clarinetist, band leader– Four Brothers sound

ca. 1947– Featured 3 tenor saxes

and a baritone– Proved that

independent minded musicians could play well together

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The Performers

Gil Evans/Miles Davis– The subtle arranging style

of Evans complimented the understated playing of Davis

– Former members of the Claude Thornhill Band

– Effectively highlighted Davis’s talents

– Yielded “Birth of the Cool” sessions in 1949

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The Performers-continued-

• Gerry Mulligan (1927-1996)

– Popularized the sound of baritone saxophone

– Played with Miles Davis, Claude Thornhill, Stan Kenton

• Lennie Tristano (1919-1978)

– Pianist – Explored a compositional alternative

to bop– Subtle yet complex arrangements

were influential Gerry Mulligan

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The Performers-continued-

• Bill Evans (1929-1980)– Introspective style influenced a

generation of future pianists– Classically trained and influenced,

he explored third-stream and collaborated with Miles Davis

– Wrote many interesting tunes and won Grammy awards for solo recordings

Listen to “Autumn Leaves” CD 2 track 6

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West Coast Jazz

• Little difference stylistically from cool played on the East Coast

• Different audience, setting, and some different players

• Many were former Kenton Band members– Shorty Rogers, Shelley Manne, Stan Getz

• Lighthouse at Hermosa Beach was the center of much activity in the developing style

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Third Stream

• Jazz has borrowed from many traditions including classical

• Beginning in the 50s, many artists began to use classical forms and devices e.g. fugue, canon, theme and variations

• Another approach was to play a pre-composed classical piece in a jazz style

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The Modern Jazz Quartet

• Pivotal group between cool and third stream

• Together for over 40 years

Listen to their most well known piece “Django”

CD 2, track 1

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Jazz and Classical

• 20th century non-jazz composers have successfully infused jazz into their music– Gershwin, Milhaud, Stravinsky

• Such works not considered third stream because they did not originate in the jazz tradition

• Both stylistic streams have been enriched by the other

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The Brazilian Wave

• Jazz musicians were influenced by lighter, gentler samba called “Bossa Nova”

• Particularly suited to the West Coast style and musicians like Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd

• The first of many Latin styles and influences that would become part of the mainstream of jazz from the 60s onward