Between bebop in the mid- and late-1940s and hard bop in the mid-1950s and beyond, an exciting but short-lived jazz style surfaced known as cool. The movement was a product of formally educated jazz musicians who, at the tail end of the '40s, integrated classical and jazz. The artists had started out in bop but chose to create a form that was independent of the blues. Cool-jazz saxophonists played without vibrato and in the upper register of their instruments for a drier sound.
In 1949, Miles Davis co-formed a cool-jazz nonet with songs arranged by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis and Johnny Carisi. This group would become known later as the Birth of the Cool band. That same year, pianist Lennie Tristano pioneered a cool approach with a sextet. The group consisted of Lee Konitz (as), Warne Marsh (ts), Lennie Tristano (p), Billy Bauer (g), Arnold Fishkin (b) and Harold Granowsky (d).
Interestingly, Konitz was a member of both the Davis nonet and the Tristano sextet, and led his own quintet.
Recorded in March 1949, Wow was written by Tristano, ostensibly for his sextet recording session for Capitol, produced by Pete Rugolo. Wow is a nifty piece that features Konitz and Marsh playing portions in unison, like fluttering birds. Konitz solos, then Marsh and Bauer, followed by an extended liquid solo by Tristano before Konitz, Marsh and Bauer solo again —all in 3:26, the duration of one side of a 78.
Here's the Lennie Tristano Sextette playing Wow in 1949...
Other Perfection tracks in this ongoing series...
- Paul Desmond and Jim Hall: Any Other Time, go here.
- John Coltrane: You Say You Care, go here.
- Quincy Jones: Funk Junction, go here.
- Art Farmer's Work of Art, go here.
- Miles Davis: A Gal in Calico, go here.
- Gene Krupa: Mulligan Stew, go here.
- Dave Brubeck: The Duke, go here.
- Horace Silver: The Back Beat, go here.
- Horace Parlan: Up & Down, go here.
- Dexter Gordon: Society Red, go here.
- Barney Kessel: You Go to My Head, go here.
- Count Basie: Corner Pocket, go here.
- Herbie Mann: Manteca, go here.
- Donald Byrd: Bronze Dance, go here.
- George Shearing: I'll Be Around, go here.
- Ammons & Stitt: You Talk That Talk, go here.
- Count Basie: Blues in My Heart, go here.
- Moonlight in Vermont, go here.
- Johnny Griffin / Matthew Gee, Here, go here.
- Jimmy Smith / Stanely Turrentine: When I'I Grow Too Old to Dream, go here.
- Chet Baker: Estate, go here.
- Jazz Studio 1: Tenderly, go here.
- Herb Pomeroy: Down Home Outing, go here.
- Frank Sinatra: There's a Small Hotel, go here.
- Bill Harris Herd: Blackstrap, go here.
- Gerry Mulligan: Westwood Walk, go here.
- Red Garland/Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis: We'll Be Together Again, go here.
- Bill Evans: Reflections in D, go here.
- Ted McNabb & Co.: Mountain Greenery, go here.
- Maynard Ferguson: Fox Hunt, go here.
- Serge Chaloff & the Herdsmen: The Most!, go here.
- Maynard Ferguson: Starfire, go here.
- Urbie Green, Please, go here.
- Machito, Conversation, go here.
- David Allyn, Love Is a Serious Thing, go here.
