BIRTH OF THE COOL © Don Read 1.4.05
“Man, I’m so cool it hurts !” That’s the kind of expression you might associate with any streetwise teenager in today’s society. If you think that COOL, in the context acceptance, euphoria, restrained or relaxed is the exclusive property of youth you would be wrong. The phrase I quoted emanated from a musician as he stepped down from the band bus in Kirkcaldy on a wet Tuesday lunchtime in 1955. Even then COOL had already been around for several years. The above utterance was, of course, facetious. The situation was anything but cool.
The word like so many catch phrases came from the American jazz fraternity. The emergence in the late forties of a new generation of young musicians eager to embrace the more harmonically complex style pioneered by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk et al was described by musicians, critics. and fans as cool as distinct from the hot jazz of the twenties and thirties.
The raucous exhibitionism of Louis Armstrong Fats Waller and Cab Calloway was an embarrassment to the young protagonists of the new genre who wanted to prove that black jazz musicians could behave seriously. Some adopted an almost blank mien. It became unfashionable to clown about on stage and the epitome of cool was Miles Davis who, partially due to a throat condition, confined his performances to playing and rarely made announcements. His music was ultra cool. Musicians wore shades to keep the real world out. How cool is that ?
If you saw the show/film “Sweet Charity” you may recall the wonderful example of coolness in the dance sequence with Sammy Davis Jn.and a chorus performing the most “laid back” routine ever. They were so cool they almost fell over. By the way, ‘man’ was a general term aimed at both sexes as is “guys” today.
So cool has been with us certainly since 1947 when Charlie Parker recorded his tune, “Cool Blues”.In 1955 ITV started a weekly pop record programme called “Cool For Cats” with a nod to the emerging teenage audience. Oddly it wasn’t until 1957 that Miles Davis had an album of compositions recorded some years earlier called “The Birth Of The Cool”. Eventually the pop music world adopted the phrase.
But some expressions have a shorter life. That favourite of trade unions, “At this point in time” is rarely heard these days and references to ‘level playing fields’, ‘clear blue water’ and ‘take a rain check’ have slid quietly out of public consciousness. “Pants” is decidedly uncool and virtually disappeared after the onetime Home Secretary, Jack Straw, started to use it . It was replaced by “sucks” (lousy). Youth will always have its own vocabulary which will inevitably change with the years. Cool seems to have a determined longevity. There is a new John Travolta movie out called “Be Cool” and I am willing to bet that some elderly jazzers, come next December, will be sending Christmas cards inviting the recipients to “Have A Cool Yule”.
“Man, I’m so cool it hurts !” That’s the kind of expression you might associate with any streetwise teenager in today’s society. If you think that COOL, in the context acceptance, euphoria, restrained or relaxed is the exclusive property of youth you would be wrong. The phrase I quoted emanated from a musician as he stepped down from the band bus in Kirkcaldy on a wet Tuesday lunchtime in 1955. Even then COOL had already been around for several years. The above utterance was, of course, facetious. The situation was anything but cool.
The word like so many catch phrases came from the American jazz fraternity. The emergence in the late forties of a new generation of young musicians eager to embrace the more harmonically complex style pioneered by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk et al was described by musicians, critics. and fans as cool as distinct from the hot jazz of the twenties and thirties.
The raucous exhibitionism of Louis Armstrong Fats Waller and Cab Calloway was an embarrassment to the young protagonists of the new genre who wanted to prove that black jazz musicians could behave seriously. Some adopted an almost blank mien. It became unfashionable to clown about on stage and the epitome of cool was Miles Davis who, partially due to a throat condition, confined his performances to playing and rarely made announcements. His music was ultra cool. Musicians wore shades to keep the real world out. How cool is that ?
If you saw the show/film “Sweet Charity” you may recall the wonderful example of coolness in the dance sequence with Sammy Davis Jn.and a chorus performing the most “laid back” routine ever. They were so cool they almost fell over. By the way, ‘man’ was a general term aimed at both sexes as is “guys” today.
So cool has been with us certainly since 1947 when Charlie Parker recorded his tune, “Cool Blues”.In 1955 ITV started a weekly pop record programme called “Cool For Cats” with a nod to the emerging teenage audience. Oddly it wasn’t until 1957 that Miles Davis had an album of compositions recorded some years earlier called “The Birth Of The Cool”. Eventually the pop music world adopted the phrase.
But some expressions have a shorter life. That favourite of trade unions, “At this point in time” is rarely heard these days and references to ‘level playing fields’, ‘clear blue water’ and ‘take a rain check’ have slid quietly out of public consciousness. “Pants” is decidedly uncool and virtually disappeared after the onetime Home Secretary, Jack Straw, started to use it . It was replaced by “sucks” (lousy). Youth will always have its own vocabulary which will inevitably change with the years. Cool seems to have a determined longevity. There is a new John Travolta movie out called “Be Cool” and I am willing to bet that some elderly jazzers, come next December, will be sending Christmas cards inviting the recipients to “Have A Cool Yule”.
