Cool jazz is a style and genre of modern jazz music inspired by bebop and big band that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and a lighter tone than that used in the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-war jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that of contemporaneous jazz idioms.

Ted Gioia and Lee Konitz have each identified cornetist Bix Beiderbecke and saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer as early progenitors of the cool aesthetic in jazz.

thumb|upright|[[Chet Baker, known as the "Prince of Cool," 1983]]

In 1947, Woody Herman formed a band that included tenor saxophonists Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Herbie Steward, and baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff.

The Miles Davis Nonet's existence was brief, consisting only of a two-week September 1948 engagement at the Manhattan's Royal Roost and the three recording dates that make up Birth of the Cool.

Further reading

  • MacAdams, Lewis, Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant-Garde, Simon and Schuster, 2001.
  • A History of Cool Jazz in 100 Tracks , edited by Ted Gioia (Jazz.com)
  • Forever Cool: Cool and West Coast Jazz on the Internet
  • The Birth of the Cool 1927, by Len Weinstock.
  • Origins of Cool Jazz (Pacific Jazz) - Mosaic Records