- West Coast jazz
West Coast jazz is a form of
jazz music that developed aroundLos Angeles andSan Francisco at about the same time ashard bop jazz was developing inNew York City , in the 1950s and 1960s. West Coast jazz was generally seen as a sub-genre ofcool jazz . West Coast jazz also often contains elements ofbossa nova .It featured a less frenetic, calmer style than hard bop. The music tended to be more heavily arranged, and more often compositionally based. While this style was prominent for a while, it was by no means the only style of jazz played on the West Coast, which exhibited more variety than could be conveyed by a simple name.
The
Pacific Jazz Records and Contemporaryrecord label s were two of the best known that carried West Coast jazz, just asBlue Note was the biggest hard-bop label. Some of the major pioneers of West Coast jazz wereShorty Rogers ,Gerry Mulligan ,Chet Baker ,Bud Shank ,Bob Cooper ,Jimmy Giuffre ,Shelly Manne ,Bill Holman ,Manny Albam ,André Previn , andDave Brubeck withPaul Desmond .Some jazz critics, such as French critic
Hugues Panassié , looked down upon West Coast jazz as inauthentic, due to most musicians in the style being white. However, there were a sizable number ofAfrican American musicians who played in the style, such asCurtis Counce ,Chico Hamilton ,Buddy Collette andHampton Hawes . Regardless of the race of the musicians who played it, much of the music has withstood the test of time, as shown by numerous reissues on CD of West Coast jazz recordings dating back many decades.ee also
*
List of cool jazz and West Coast jazz musicians
*Third Stream
*Chamber jazz
*Lighthouse Cafe References
*Gioia, Ted. "West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960" (Oxford University Press, 1992)
*Gordon, Robert. "Jazz West Coast: The Los Angeles Jazz Scene of the 1950s" (Quartet Books, 1986)External links
* [http://members.tripod.com/vermontreview/CD%20Reviews/pacificjazz.htm West coast jazz and the Pacific Jazz Label]
* [http://www.live365.com/stations/gersch?play/ Forever Cool: Cool and West Coast Jazz on the Internet]
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