Very Cool

Saxophonist Lee Konitz was one of the architects of the cool jazz style — in fact, he was one of the musicians who played on the groundbreaking Birth of the Cool sessions under the leadership of Miles Davis. This 1957 date finds him fully embracing the genre designation and the style, leading a quintet through a set that includes a couple of standards, a Konitz original, and compositions by his sidemen. The tempos are moderate, the playing is expert but not show-offy, and everything is, you know, very cool — including a strutting, defiantly mid-tempo take on Charlie Parker’s bebop classic “Billie’s Bounce.”