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That was the first few minutes of "Red Car" by Pepper Adams. We'll hear the rest of the song at the end of the show. Welcome to the last of our three-part series on modern jazz, focusing on cool jazz here on "Roots of Jazz and Blues" with King Henry on W-A-Y-O-L-P Rochester. Cool jazz grew out of bebop after World War II. It was characterized by more relaxed tempos and a lighter tone than hard bop. Our first artist, Miles Davis, could have appeared in either of the previous episodes, as he was seminal for all genres of modern jazz, and indeed, modern music in general. Miles made his professional debut as part of Charlie Parker's quintet from 1944 to 1948. In 1957, he shifted his focus from hard bop to cool jazz, marking the transition with the album "Birth of the Cool." Let's listen to "Boplicity" from that album.
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Unlike many of the artists on this show, Miles was born to an upper middle class family. His mother was a music teacher and his father a dentist. He began the trumpet at age 12. As a teenager, he played gigs. And by his 20s, he was playing with Gary Mulligan and helped lead an avant garde nine piece jazz orchestra that included the French horn and tuba. This was, as mentioned, followed by the Charlie Parker years and Birth of the Blue sessions. And the rest, as they say, is history. In 1959, he recorded Kind of Blue, considered by many, including myself, as the greatest jazz album of all time. The song we will hear, named So What, is what is called modal jazz, meaning based not on chord progressions, but improvisations on scales called mode. Each mode is defined by its starting note, the root or tonic note, and the pattern of whole steps and half steps from that starting note. Let's listen, 1958, Miles Davis, So What.
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If I had to name only one group that defined modern jazz, it would be the Modern Jazz Quartet. Established in 1952, it pioneered cool and modal jazz and brought the use of counterpoint into jazz. MJQ changed personnel over its 40 years, but for most of its history featured John Lewis on piano, Milt Jackson on vibraphone, Percy Heath on double bass, and Connie Kay on drums. MJQ was unusual in that it preferred playing concert halls rather than nightclubs because they wanted people to really listen and not be distracted by conversation or eating and drinking. Let's listen to John Lewis's composition "Django" from 1956. It was named after the early French jazz artist Django Reinhardt.
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Although Miles Davis was never a member of MJQ, he often interacted with the band and shared musical ideas. The song "Bag's Groove" was written by Milt Jackson in 1952, but the most famous version of the song was recorded by Miles Davis in 1954 and released on the Miles Davis album "Bag's Groove." It features Miles on trumpet and Thelonious Monk on piano.
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You're listening to Roots of Jazz and Blues with King Henry here on W-A-Y-O-L-P Rochester. Gary Mulligan played baritone sax on the Miles Davis album, "Birth of the Cool." He played with and arranged and composed for many other bands, and in 1952 joined trumpeter Chet Baker to form one of the decade's most important cool jazz groups. The quartet included bass and drums, but no piano. In fact, the lack of piano gave greater freedom in a non-chord-based improvisation. Let's listen to the Gary Mulligan Quartet, 1952, "Walking Shoes," followed by "Jeru".
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That was the Gary Mulligan Quartet, "Walking Shoes," from 1952, followed by "Jeru," from 1953. Our next artist, Bill Evans, studied classical, piano, and composition at college. For two years, he was part of the Miles Davis Sextet and played on the album "Kind of Blue." In 1959, he formed his great jazz trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. In 1961, the group recorded five sets at the Village Vanguard. These were issued as the albums "Sundays at the Village Vanguard" and "Waltz for Debbie." And more recently, all the sessions were released as the complete "Village Vanguard" recordings. Let's listen now to two tracks from those sessions, "Alice in Wonderland" and "Waltz for Debbie."
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David Brubeck exemplified cool jazz with a relaxed and approachable sound and nonetheless demonstrated the use of complex superimposed rhythms and unusual tonalities. He grew up in California and was drafted into the army during World War II, but after playing a hit show for the Red Cross was spared combat and instead toured with a military band named the Wolfpack. After the war, he formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet with himself on piano. In 1954, he released the hit album Jazz Goes to College, a documentary of his group's tour of a number of colleges and universities. Let's listen to Balcony Rock from Jazz Goes to College.
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Dave Brubeck's most important album artistically was "Time Out," recorded in 1958. Early critics panned it because of its use of unusual rhythm, such as the time signature nine-eight in "Blue Rondo a la Turk." Let's listen.
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Our next artist, Henry Mancini, is not a jazz professional. Instead, he was a composer, conductor, and arranger for film and television, and worked in a wide variety of genres. I'm including him because the soundtrack he created for the television detective show "Peter Gunn" was my first introduction as a child to the sound of jazz. The same can be said for many other boomers. The show "Peter Gunn" is about a hard-boiled private eye in the style of Raymond Chandler, who often visits a smoky wharfside jazz club named "Mother's." It ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961. I was too young to watch the show, but my parents had the album, and I listened to it hundreds of times. So here is the theme from "Peter Gunn."
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I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. So back now to real jazz, here on "Roots of Jazz and Blues with King Henry" on W-A-Y-O-L-P, Rochester. Stan Getz was an all-time great tenor jazz saxophonist. He started his professional career at age 16 and played with many jazz greats, including Nat King Cole, Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach. In the early 1960s, Getz headlined his own band and became deeply influenced by Brazilian music, what is also known as Bossa Nova music. In 1962, he won a Grammy for the recording he made with guitarist Charlie Bird named "Desafinado." Let's listen.
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Two years later, Goetz teamed with Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto for the album Goetz Gilberto, which features the achingly beautiful song "The Girl from Ipanema" with vocals by Estrada Gilberto, the wife of João.
(acoustic guitar music) ♪ Tall and tan and young and lovely ♪ ♪ The girl from Ipanema goes walking ♪ ♪ And when she passes, each one she passes goes ♪ ♪ Ah ♪ ♪ When she walks, she's like a samba ♪ ♪ That swings so cool and sways so gently ♪ ♪ That when she passes, each one she passes goes ♪ ♪ Ah ♪ ♪ Oh, but he watches her so sadly ♪ ♪ How can he tell her he loves her ♪ ♪ Yes, he would give his heart gladly ♪ ♪ But each time when she walks to the sea ♪ ♪ She looks straight ahead, not at him ♪ (acoustic guitar music) ♪ ♪ (trumpet solo) (piano solo) ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh, but he sees her so sadly ♪ ♪ How can he tell her he loves her ♪ ♪ Yes, he would give his heart gladly ♪ ♪ But each time when she walks to the sea ♪ ♪ She looks straight ahead, not at him ♪ ♪ Oh, and Dan and Jan ♪ ♪ In love with a gal from Ypres ♪ ♪ Her name I was walking ♪ ♪ And when she passes, she smiles ♪ ♪ But she doesn't see ♪ ♪ She just doesn't see ♪ ♪ No, she doesn't see ♪ ♪ But she doesn't see ♪
Our last artist, Art Pepper, was, like many cool jazz players, from the West Coast. He started his career playing big band swing music, but soon became known as one of the best bop alto sax players, tying with Charlie Parker in a poll for greatest sax player run by Downbeat magazine in 1952. He teamed with trumpet player Chet Baker in 1965 on the album Playboys. The album, by the way, was reissued under the name Picture of Heath because of complaints from Playboy magazine. Let's listen to that song, Picture of Heath.
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Well, we're now nearly at the end of our 50-year journey through the history of jazz and blues here on W-A-Y-O-L-P Rochester. We will lead out with a long piece from a later album by Art Pepper, from 1981, Art Pepper's tune "Red Car" from Neon Art, Volume 1.
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