Cool Jazz

We all know about “important” jazz albums. Too often, the very qualities that make them “important” may not make them any fun to listen to. This one, however, is both important and deeply, richly enjoyable. Recorded in 1961 with a trio that included bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, it finds pianist Bill Evans at the top of his powers. His lush, impressionistic chordal playing and his heartbreakingly beautiful melodies are everywhere, and LaFaro and Motian support him with a level of communication that seems nearly telepathic. In retrospect, LaFaro’s death in a car accident only days later adds to the emotional resonance of these performances. This is arguably one of the ten best jazz albums ever.

With their skinny ties, dark suits, and reserved demeanor, the Modern Jazz Quartet were one of the iconic ensembles of the cool jazz style, and Django is one of the most notable albums in their considerable discography. The title track is a tune written by pianist John Lewis in honor of Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, but its restrained, decorous style could hardly be more removed from the headlong swing of its namesake’s playing. Elsewhere, tracks like “Le Ronde Suite” and “The Queen’s Fancy” illustrate the ongoing dalliance of cool jazz with European classical music, to delightful effect.

Saxophonist Stan Getz had such amazing tone that his colleagues and competitors had an awestruck nickname for him: “The Sound.” Here he’s teamed up with pianist Oscar Peterson and his unconventional drumless trio (guitarist Herb Ellis and bassist Ray Brown) for a program of standards with a few Getz originals thrown in. As always, Ellis does a fine job of driving the groove with his four-beats-to-the-bar, Freddie Green-style comping, while Peterson and Getz dance around each other joyfully. Every track is a joy, but Getz’s golden tone on the ten-minute-long ballad medley is particularly gorgeous.

Lorraine Geller’s career as a jazz pianist was all too brief. Most of her recordings were made alongside her husband Herb (a fine saxophonist), but on this 1954 date she’s accompanied by bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Buzz Freeman. Although she is mainly associated with the “cool” style of the 1950s, here you’ll catch more than a hint of bebop powerhouse Bud Powell and some of the lushness of Errol Garner in her sound. But she’s entirely herself on these performances, and her sudden death at age 30 just a few years after this release was one of the great tragedies of jazz history.

Alto saxophonist Art Pepper was in bad shape when he teamed up with Miles Davis’s rhythm section (Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones) for this 1957 recording date. He was strung out on heroin, his saxophone wasn’t working well, and he had never played alongside these musicians before. But somehow the quartet wrung magic out of the session. Jones, in particular, is on fire, pushing Pepper to unusual heights of invention, and the whole crew sound as if they’ve been playing together for years. Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section is a monument of the West coast cool jazz style.

Despite its title, this was actually bassist Red Mitchell’s third album, and his second as a leader. It’s a masterpiece of the “cool” jazz style that was in the ascendant at the time of its release, in 1957. Mitchell leads a quartet that includes saxophonist/flutist James Clay, drummer Billy Higgins, and the brilliant but little-known pianist Lorraine Geller through a delightful program that includes standards like “Scrapple from the Apple” and “Cheek to Cheek,” as well as some lovely blues and ballads. Everyone is playing at the top of his or her respective game on this album.

This isn’t the definitive album of the cool jazz era — it is what it claims to be: a document of that era’s birth. The recordings span a couple of years, during which Miles Davis led a nonet that included musicians who would go on to become major icons of 1950s jazz, including trombonist Kai Winding, saxophonist Lee Konitz, and pianist John Lewis. There’s still a fair amount of bop in the group’s sound, but the audacious arrangements and the soloists’ playing style are pointing clearly to new things to come.

Saxophonist Herb Geller and his wife Lorraine made some of the freshest and most exciting jazz of the 1950s, and would have certainly continued to do so if Lorraine hadn’t died tragically of a heart condition at age 30 in 1958. Their eponymous album as a couple finds them playing standards at brisk, boppish tempos but in a cool and accessible style. Herb was an outstanding alto player, but Lorraine’s sparkling and inventive piano stylings are the real center of this album; she had a quicksilver musical mind and sounded like she was playing with 20 fingers. Their sheer joy in playing together is evident through every track of this marvelous album.

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.”

Chet Baker was the doomed romantic prince of the cool jazz era. An untrained trumpeter and singer with a reputation for barely being able to read music, he had a keen ear and an uncanny melodic ability, and his dry tone on the trumpet was matched by his vibrato-free, nearly affectless singing style. Chet is an all-instrumental standards set, featuring the killer rhythm section of pianist Bill Evans, guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Paul Chambers, with Philly Joe Jones and Connie Kay alternating on drums; the front line includes flutist Herbie Mann and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams. So it’s no wonder that the playing is absolutely top notch, the tempos relaxedly swinging, the grooves laid-back but solid.

In jazz slang an “out” tune is one that is unusually complex or challenging. Time Out was a sly title for an album that took adventurous liberties with rhythm, from the 9/8 time signature of “Blue Rondo à la Turk” to the famous 5/4 Paul Desmond composition “Take Five,” which remains one of the very few jazz standards that is recognized by millions of non-jazz fans. This album would end up overshadowing all of Dave Brubeck’s subsequent career, which is perhaps unfair but was also probably inevitable.

Subtitled Chet Baker Sings, this is the perfect companion album to the all-instrumental Chet. Here the celebrated trumpet player sings in a quiet, intimate style, delivering standards like “Do It the Hard Way” and “My Heart Stood Still” in a voice that drove young female jazz fans crazy just as surely as his similarly dry trumpet style was helping to shape the sound of jazz for a decade. Kenny Drew is the piano player on this date, and the tension between his bouncing, propulsive style and Baker’s resolutely laid-back delivery gives Chet Baker Sings a delicious tension.

Kind of Blue is one of the monuments of the cool jazz era. Recorded in 1959, it finds Miles Davis leading a sextet of like-minded musicians including pianist Bill Evans and saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. Here Davis begins exploring modal improvisation, and makes his definitive break with bebop conventions. The album’s lead track, “So What,” features a minimalist, two-chord progression and a horn line that seems to emerge out of silence; “Flamenco Sketches” is a ruminative, impressionistic tune that floats as much as it swings. Kind of Blue is classic in every sense.

As both a pianist and a composer, Lennie Tristano was something of an anomaly during the cool jazz period: a musician whose style sometimes tipped from “cool” over into “cold,” his music struck some as too calculated, too mathematical. But for those with ears to hear, his architectural approach to jazz could yield real beauty. On this live album from 1949, the recorded sound is terrible, but Tristano’s quintet plays beautifully, and his solo rendition of “Glad Am I” should put to rest any characterizations of him as a bloodless musical mathematician. (Less so his take on “This Is Called Love,” which finds him seemingly analyzing the tune from eight or nine different angles.)