Cool Jazz & Third Stream
Cool Jazz
Cool Jazz markedly different from the complexities of bebop
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Relaxed tempos, subtle instrumental colors
Expanded ensembles
New instrumental colors
Players took on an attitude of emotional detachment that helped define what is
meant to be “cool”
“Chamber ensembles”-performing in more intimate settings
Cool players were often conservatory trained
Cool music contained:
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Intricate arrangements and innovative forms
Little or no vibrato
Use of the middle register of the instrument rather than the extreme
Relaxed sound
Cool jazz is often differentiated from other jazz idioms by its emphasis on the
intellectual aspects of the music.
Typical symphonic instruments
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String instruments became important voices in the composition-violin, viola, cello
Woodwinds - flute, oboe, French horn
Flugelhorn - like trumpet, a darker, more mellow sound
The Sounds of Cool
Cool players were not confined to 4/4 or 2/4 meters….new meters were added like 3/4,
5/4, 9/4
Use of polymeters (simultaneous use of several meters)
Use of classical form in jazz (thus categorizing it as Third-Stream music)
School of jazz moved closer to classical music adopting such forms as rondo and fugues
Cool Bands
Modern Jazz Quartet
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Piano, Vibraphone, Bass, Drums
Claude Thornhill band
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Tuba, French horn, baritone sax
Miles Davis
Trumpet player, Composer/arranger
Innovative band leader
Leading personality among the giants of jazz
He was not destined to be known only for his contribution to the development of cool
jazz but rather he was an innovative force in the evolution of jazz
Posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006.
Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century
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Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World
War II to the 1990s.
He played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jazz
records.
He was partially responsible for the development of modal jazz, and jazz fusion
arose from his work with other musicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Belongs to the great tradition of jazz trumpeters that started with Buddy Bolden and ran
through Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie
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He was never considered to have the highest level of technical ability.
His greatest achievement as a musician, however, was to move beyond being regarded as
a distinctive and influential stylist on his own instrument and to shape whole styles and
ways of making music through the work of his bands, in which many of the most
important jazz musicians of the second half of the Twentieth Century made their names.
Important in the development of improvisational techniques incorporating modes rather
than the standard chord changes
Davis’s tone is straight with very little vibrato, long tones…epitomized the cool attitude
Many critics consider his album “Birth of the Cool” as the beginning of the “Cool Jazz”
Always searching for new, fresh, exciting ways to play his music
Befriended Jimi Hendrix and were going to record an album together – Hendrix died…
Of all the stylistic periods contributed to or initiated by Davis, it was the cool period
which he is most connected
Gil Evans
Arranger, composer, pianist, and bandleader
His arrangements made use of string instrument as as well as nontraditional jazz
instruments
Influenced by Duke Ellington
The music of Cool Jazz was much associated with Gil Evans
His contribution to Cool Jazz was as important as Davis's.
Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond
Dave Brubeck – piano
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Much of his music employs unusual time signatures (“Odd meters”).
His long-time musical partner, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, wrote the Dave
Brubeck Quartet's most famous piece, "Take Five", which is in 5/4 time and has
endured as a jazz classic. Brubeck experimented with time signatures through
much of his career, recording "Pick Up Sticks" in 6/4, "Unsquare Dance" in 7/4,
and "Blue Rondo à la Turk" in 9/8.
In 1954 he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, the second jazz musician
to be so honored (the first was Louis Armstrong).
Paul Desmond – alto sax
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Known to have possessed an idiosyncratic wit, he was one of the most popular
musicians to come out of the West Coast's "cool jazz" scene.
“Take Five”
Cool Jazz Performers
Lennie Tristano -piano
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“New School of Music”
Lee Konitz- alto sax
Gerry Mulligan-baritone sax
Stan Getz – sax Video
Chet Baker – trumpet Chet Baker Live – notice the flugelhorn
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Specializing in relaxed, even melancholy music
West Coast Jazz
Late 1940’s-cool style on the West Coast
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“Lighthouse at Hermosa Beach”-center of activities
Competition between East Coast and West Cost Cool Jazz
Most of West Coast musicians - white, associated with Swing band tradition
Most of East Coast musicians - African American, associated with the bebop style
West Coast musicians working in Hollywood studio orchestras
Influences of Western European classical music
Third Stream
Combines elements of Jazz and 20 Century art music
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Extension of the cool compositional style
Gunther Schuller
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One of the key figures in contemporary classical music.
Schuller coined the term “third stream” in a lecture
Thus describing a style that is a synthesis of classical music and jazz
The World According to Gunther Schuller
In 1981, Schuller offered a list of "What Third Stream is not”:
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It is not jazz with strings.
It is not jazz played on “classical” instruments.
It is not classical music played by jazz players.
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It is not inserting a bit of Ravel or Schoenberg between be-bop changes—nor the
reverse.
It is not jazz in fugal form.
It is not a fugue played by jazz players.
It is not designed to do away with jazz or classical music; it is just another option
amongst many for today’s creative musicians. (Schuller, 120)
Most of the pieces in this style fall into 1 of 4 categories:
1. Concerto Grosso types…
•Combine classical groups (playing composed sections) alternating with jazz
groups (playing improvised sections)
2. Pieces written for classical groups but which borrow heavily from jazz
3. Pieces written for jazz groups which use forms compositional techniques, and other
elements from classical music
4. Pieces which are more integrated works in which the 2 idioms (jazz and classical
music) merge in instrumentation, performance practice, and techniques
From Jazz:
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Language, gestures, improvisation, and rhythmic drive
From Classical:
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Instrumentation (orchestra, string quartet, etc.), forms (fugue, suite, concerto,
etc.), and compositional techniques