The songs on The Birth of the Cool are like the ninja of old. They do what they need to, fast, and leave. But unlike ninja attacks, these songs (which include classics like "Jeru", "Venus de Milo" and "Boplicity") are not painful in the least. The arrangements are tight and the songs are melodic, slightly Hollywood-esque but quite beautiful and well-performed. The songs themselves are also quite brief, as I implied a few sentence back - nothing over five minutes, in fact. The nonet plays together quite well, complementing each other throughout. They all have the mellow sound down - the album kinda sounds alike, but with great songs like "Rogue", "Rocker" and "Israel" on hand, who can complain? Now the only song I don't really like is "Darn That Dream", which falls in my list of Ten Songs We've All Heard Too Many Times Before. As for the rest? Get it. Not before Kind of Blue, 'Round about Midnight or In a Silent Way, but still get it!

can't go wrong with this Miles Davis recording in your collection. With arrangements by Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans and John Lewis this is a compilation of 12 sides recorded by the Miles Davis nonet(nine musicians). This legendary recording is a jazz classic. The music moves away from bepop which tended to smaller groups of musicians and the music from this compilation led to the birth of the cool West Coast Sound of jazz though it originated on the East Coast. Beautiful arrangements and lively tunes. Gil Evans would meet with musicians in his apartment on the top of Chinese laundry and help compose the arrangements. The list of musicians on these recordings includes Miles Davis on trumpet, Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax, Lee Konitz alto sax, Max Roach on drums. A must for any jazz collection and jazz beginner. Gil Evans would later team with Miles on Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain.

These recordings are a must have for an understanding of the shear evolution of jazz, but not the best.

There a few good songs on the ablum but it isn't great

Having only recently jumped on the Jazz scene as a 24 year veteran of the drum, i don't know as if i am qualified to write a review for those into this boat, but i must say that as a neophyte, i am and will be for a long time to come, a Davis fan. And this, the birth of the cool is an album that i will treasure as one of my own. very smooth sounds, breathy on the horns and completely listenable, a must have for any burgeoning collection.

The auspicious title really does say it all for this collection of trumpeter Miles Davis' 1949 nonet dates. In these dozen performances a whole new school of jazz was created, as former beboppers Davis and drummer Max Roach joined forces with progressive composers, arrangers and players such as Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis to explore the subtler and moodier side of the genre from a vituoso's standpoint. Mellow as the results are for the most part, there's a world of complexity and detail to be found here which no self-respecting jazzhead (nor anyone else who really cares about music) can afford to miss.
As would often be the case throughout his long and varied career, Davis is featured on these sessions primarily as a player and crafter of atmosphere. Despite having brought the sizeable combo (which also featured such famed blowers as Lee Konitz on alto saxophone and Kai Winding on trombone) together and serving as its nominal head, the Maestro takes only one half-credit as a composer on these dates, with the bulk of the charts coming from Mulligan, Lewis and of course Evans, whose big band orchestrations had provided Miles with his initial inspiration. These other gentlemen would also incorporate the innovations realized on the BIRTH OF THE COOL sessions far more extensively into their respective subsequest careers than would the trumpeter himself, thus marking this classic set of recordings as not only a once-in-a-lifetime supergroup summit, but a truly pivotal moment in jazz history.

The Whole cd Is Great,But Boplicity Is By Far The best thing on the disc-the most innovative,swinging,cool,hip mid tempo blocked harmony track of it's era.Years ahead of it's time,i couldn't beleive it dates back to 1949.What a landmark- still hip as hell 56 years on,and written only 8 or so years after the much squarer(But still great in it's way)In The Mood.

Kind of Blue is an infinitely more appealing album for fans of jazz small-groups and improvisation. That's why I'd suggest that if you have to spend your money on ONE Miles album, you go buy "Kind of Blue".

But once you understand "Kind of Blue", and get the concept that Miles was aiming for with that album, go explore what he was doing before he got there. And start here.

This album is the sound of jazz that I fell in love with at age 14, after listening to the likes of Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra for years and years. I didn't even know "Kind of Blue" existed at that time, but I loved the soft sounds this album was throwing on my young ears.

What I didn't realize at the time was how harmonically complex and staggeringly innovative this album is/was. Miles plays with a nonet, uses a tuba for a few baselines, strips jazz of its aggressiveness, and STILL manages to make an album that Swings with genuine purpose.

This is a soft album that is not a soft album. This is a soft album that is accessible, sure. But it has got something underneat its softness: soul.

I was ordering some other stuff on Amazon, T.V. on in the background. I heard Lisa Simpson say something about Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool and ordered the CD to get the order over $25 for free shipping or some other impulsive reason. My third-grade students really enjoyed listening to this CD while they worked on their assignments. Very accessible jazz and should be in every collection.

Miles Davis is awesome - Birth of the Cool deserves 50 stars.

This is one those records that on hearing the first time, one might wonder "What is going on here?" Even now, it has a unique , fresh sound, with some very interesting harmonics and solos, not to mention rhythms that don't swing, but may be like a mellow bop. You can tell all the players are right on target thruout. It may seem a bit dissonent on first hearing, but no doubt this CD deserves its reputation as innovative and timeless.Some very nice listening once you've gotten the feel for it!

I really like miles davis but this cd I listen to the least it's just to structured for miles and simple awesome jazz it's just I'am more of a fan of kind of blue and [...]brew songs like spanish key and so what are my favorites

This is one of the most unique jazz albums ever produced and is an essential. Miles's first essential album has him with a nonet (Two saxes (an alto and bari), one trombone, one french horn, one tuba, a rythymn section, and of course Miles himself). There are three different nonets on this cd with that instrumentation, and he is joined by such greats as John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan, Max Roach, Lee Konitz, J.J. Johnson, and Kai Winding. Each of the twelve tracks is unique in its own way, even though the same mood is sustained throughout the remainder of the album. Even though all of the tracks are good, some highlights are: "Move", "Jeru", "Boplicity", and "Israel". So if you're a fan of Miles's quintet/sextet stuff of the fifties and sixties, and want to hear him in a different setting than "Birth of the Cool" is for you!

The music on this CD was recorded in 1949/50, but acquired its famous album title only retrospectively, in 1957. As a jazz term, `cool' means something more specific than the vague, all-purpose adjective-noun it has since become. It came to particular prominence in the 1950s to describe a more cerebral, less impassioned way of playing jazz. It's generally supposed that these sessions were part of the inspiration for the `cool school' of jazz.which flourished especially on the West Coast in the 1950s. That's possibly the main reason for the historical importance of the `Birth of the Cool' sessions and the album may therefore be of more appeal to those interested in the historical development of jazz than to listeners who merely enjoy Miles's own playing.

The historical interest centres primarily on these pieces as examples of jazz composition and arrangement. Along with the work of composer-arranger Tadd Dameron and some of Gil Evans's arranging for the Claude Thornhill Band, these scores were innovative in adapting the procedures of `Be-Bop' to orchestrated jazz and in the ways in which they deployed the instruments of the nine-piece band, which included, unusually, French horn and tuba alongside trumpet, trombone and alto and baritone saxes. They skilfully exploit the variety of timbres and tone colours to create a sound suggestive of a larger band. This is especially true of Evans's pieces, which show his interest in rich, unusual and shifting chord voicings, although Mulligan's more ingenious arrangements also create some full-sounding, inventive passages. There's a brilliant moment in Evans's arrangement of `Boplicity' when, within the space of just a few bars, a thematic figure spreads through the instrumentation with a kind of `rippling' effect as a bridging section between Mulligan's and Miles's solos. It is inspired scoring in its own right, but it also seems to anticipate in miniature some of what Evans was later to do with larger jazz orchestras. His slow ballad arrangement, `Moondreams', makes use of a favourite Evans technique of varying the chord voicings for different sections of a composition, to give the piece a sense of variety and continuous development. In the final bars he also employs a kind of `impressionist' technique when the music seems to dissolve into little asymmetrical fragments of melody and rhythm before resolving itself in a brief, quiet coda.

Some of the other tracks - like John Lewis's arrangement of the up-tempo, `Move' - are entertaining as scaled-down `big-band' performances without being as strikingly original as Evans's scores. John Carisi's contribution, `Israel', is one of the most adventurous themes on the album, seeming to point a way forward from `Be-Bop' to a more advanced harmonic style, but doing so by means of a skilful variation on one of jazz's most `traditional' forms, the 12-bar blues. It may be that Gerry Mulligan's arrangements tend to be underrated by comparison with Evans's - perhaps because they sound more influenced by the styles and procedures of mainstream jazz. But his scores have their innovative touches, like the rhythmic and harmonic `dislocation' he gives to the middle-eight section of `Jeru'. In their own right they are characterful, enjoyable pieces, and since he contributed most of the arrangements he was a major factor in the success of the album and its subsequent influence. He contributes an interesting reminiscence of the sessions as an addition to the liner notes.

Another interesting `historical' dimension of Birth of the Cool is the collaboration of three composer-musicians who in the 1950s went on to make major contributions to modern jazz through their subsequent individual projects: Lewis with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Mulligan with his pianoless quartets and Concert Jazz Band, and Evans with his later collaborations with Miles and others.

This was, I believe, Miles's first album under his own name; but it's his early-fifties small-group sessions that best document his progress as a jazz improviser, particularly those which produced such classics as "Walkin", "Bemsha Swing" and "Bags' Groove" - as well as a series of fine ballad performances (there is little ballad playing on this album). Arguably, Miles had been a `cool' musician from the start of his career with Charlie Parker. If so, these sessions can be seen as part of a process (begun during his time with Parker) of his adapting the `hot' medium of Be-Bop to his own stylistic purposes. However, the liner note argues a contrary view: that Miles could not really be categorised as a `cool' player. For me, Miles's improvised solos here are less interesting than his later work was to become, when the overt expression of feeling had became more prominent in his music. He was some way from developing that individual sound, with its brooding `flat' tonality and emotive colouring, which from the late 1950s was to make him one of the most immediately identifiable soloists in jazz. An additional limitation is that the soloists were restricted to very short solos, so that one of the strengths in Miles's later music - his ability to `build' an improvisation over two or more choruses - was not possible in these sessions. Nevertheless, there are some well-constructed solos from Miles, especially on "Jeru", "Godchild" and "Rocker", suggesting that the need for brevity encouraged him to make short solos as structured and `eventful' as he could.

So, historically significant though it is, Birth of the Cool won't necessarily appeal to those who have discovered Miles's music via Kind of Blue, Milestones, Sketches of Spain, etc. Less immediate in its appeal than that later work, it is perhaps music that you have to `learn to like' - though maybe that's generally true of modern jazz.

Nine musicians. Twelve songs. One of the most influential records in jazz.

The year was 1948. Miles Davis had moved away from Charlie Parker's band and struck out on his own. Neither a virtuoso like Parker, nor a genius theoretician like Dizzy Gillespie, nor a showman like Louis Armstrong, Davis sought a way to define his own "voice," to make it substantially different from those who had come before him. He became intrigued by the arranging work of Gil Evans, who had developed a laid-back, low-vibrato "cool" style, using unique instruments like the tuba and the French horn. To Davis, the Evans style seemed an interesting alternative to the standard modes of large- and small-band jazz, and a sensible step away from the manic, frenzied music of bebop, while at the same time incorporating the best elements of that sound.

Davis gathered a revolving collection of nine musicians around him to explore the possibilities of the Evans sound, including drummers Max Roach and Al Haig, pianist John Lewis, trombonist J.J. Johnson, and Evans protege Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax. The series of sides they produced between January of 1949 and March of 1950 touched off the West Coast "cool jazz" movement, inspired dozens if not hundreds of musicians, and are still acclaimed today, over fifty years after their release, as some of the greatest jazz recordings ever made, in a field that has no shortage of great moments. The singles were not collected and released as an album until the late `50's, by which time Davis had moved on to other things-several times, in fact-but the music sounded just as good, and Birth of the Cool is just as acclaimed today as it was then.

It's not hard to see why. The music swings gorgeously, effortlessly. The musicians are a true ensemble; they form a fluidly functioning unit, using elements of big band and bebop but fully embracing neither. Davis, Mulligan, and alto sax player Lee Konitz in particular found excellent ways to use this, especially on "Move," "Rouge," "Jeru," "Israel," "Rocker" and "Boplicity." This new style was especially beneficial for Davis, who had to learn how to work within his technical limitations as a trumpeter. He starts to develop his style here, a slower mode of playing, exploiting the lower registers of the instrument, using just a few notes to suggest the flurry of bebop virtuosity without actually having to play it. This was an important step for Davis, and for jazz in general, for it reminded people that one did not necessarily have to play like Paganini (or, more to the point, Parker) to play well.

Birth of the Cool is a lot of things-a transition between what came before and what came after, a strong musical statement by a group of musicians that had a lot to say, a strong beginning to the solo career of one of the most influential jazz musicians-but above all it is a timeless collection of great tunes, played ably by a collection of great musicians. Davis would go on to explore jazz from a variety of angles-modal, hard bop, orchestral, and fusion (unfairly maligned by purists, who resisted it much as big band aficionados resisted bebop)-but it was this album that started his journey, and it's this album that shows the rough promise of all that is to come. If it was important for no other reason, it's important for that. The fact that it's important for so many other reasons makes it a must have for anyone who loves jazz music. Simply put: if you don't have it, you should. And if you don't like jazz, this may be the one recording to change your mind. How do I know? Because that's what it did for me. It turned me around and made me receptive to a music I didn't understand or even particularly care for, and not only made me like it, but made me want to hear more things like it. I think it's safe to say that if it wasn't for Miles Davis and his nonet, I wouldn't love jazz the way I do today.

Pretty impressive, for just nine musicians, for just twelve songs, for just one record.

This cd is one of the COOLEST jams around this is the kind of music everyone should listen to.I love this cd.Miles Davis is the coolest cat ever.GO BUY THIS CD TODAY!!!

In his professional life, Miles Davis was an agent of change and a permanent self critic. Also, he would always surround himself of the best possible musicians (he said, "I'm hiring a [musician] to play, not for what color he is") to help in materializing his musical vision. Leaving behind the enviable position of musical director of Charlie Parker's group, Miles assembled a nonet (several of its members coming from the ranks of Claude Thornhill's Orchestra), Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis among them, and with their help gave birth to the new sound in jazz at the time: the Cool, an attempt to sound like a big band with a significantly smaller ensemble (a nonet, in this case), by means of a collective writing approach.

The album, recorded throughout three sessions between January of 1949 and March of 1950, marked the beginning of a series of outstanding works of Miles along with musical mentor and genius arranger Gil Evans. Its slower and softer sound resonated throughout the jazz world, taking jazz to a new level and influencing musicians all over the place, mostly in California it would help give shape to a mellow sound that would later be called West Coast Jazz (Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, etc.)

It is hard to pick favorite tracks in such a brilliant production. Four different arrangers and a rich assortment of composers, from Davis and Evans, to Mulligan, Lewis, Bud Powell and several others, along with the assorted lineup of musicians (only Davis in trumpet and lead, Mulligan in baritone, Lee Konitz in alto, and John Barber in Tuba were part of all three recording sessions) allow the careful listener to see tunes from a number of different points of view. For example, how does a pianoless Gerry Muligan tune sounds like ("Rocker"), how does a song arranged by John Lewis sound like when it's also a composition of his ("Rouge") as opposed to when it's someone else's ("Move") or how does Max Roach sound on drums with a bunch of other musicians vs. how does Kenny Clarke sound with the same (well, almost) bunch of guys.

There are so many possibilities to the album that the best favor you can do to yourself is to get it and incorporate it into your musical collection and language from now on. If you are a bit more serious about it, then get a copy of the COMPLETE Birth of the Cool. It's a bit more expensive, but it carries live versions of a number of the tracks, something of a rarity, considering the nonet did a very small number of live dates.

Miles changed the music world completely when these recordings came out, for the first time in his life (he would do it many more times afterwards). Unfortunately, he didn't receive credit at the time. The music on this album is much cooler and more laid-back than the rip-roaring bebop music of the 1940's. Miles plays cool here too, taking very few technical risks and using a beautiful rich sound (although it became a much more amazing sound later on). The musicians who join Miles on this effort are the same people who became movers and shakers later on in the 1950's. Gerry Mulligan on baritone saxophone, Lee Konitz on alto saxophone, Al Haig on piano, Junior Collins on french horn, Bill Barber on tuba, Kai Winding on trombone, Al McKibbon on bass and Max Roach on drums. This was the original Miles group from this era, although on this album the personnel switches fairly frequently. Gil Evans arranged and conducted on this effort, and it was their first of many great collaborations. Gil had worked with a white orchestra called the Claude Thornhill Orchestra and the nonet tried to sound like the Thornhill group on these sessions. "Move" is a stunning cooled out version of Denzil Best's bebop tune that was usually played by the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy or Fats Navarro. Miles sounds great on it and the arrangement is very innovative. Same with Gerry Mulligan's old school "Jeru", which has become a modern classic, and Lee Konitz plays beautifully on it as well. Ballads like the unspeakably beautiful "Moon Dreams" (which has very little "real" soloing, simply brilliant ensemble work) and the Kenny Hagood vocal feature on the standard "Darn That Dream" are also impeccably played. Other great, innovative musicians showed up for the later sessions, including pianist John Lewis, trombonist J.J. Johnson, french hornist and arranger/conducter Gunther Schuller, and others. The experiment with an Americanized Western European sound ("Venus De Milo"), take more bebop tunes and play them cool (the classic "Budo"), inter-mix orchestral music, bebop and cool music with "Boplicity" (one of the Gil Evans/Miles compositions that would become an extremely popular standard today), and then there are some compositions that are just plain and simple unabashed fun like John Lewis's energetic "Rouge" and Gerry Mulligan's entertaining "Godchild". Pretty much every song on this disc is a classic, with the exception of maybe Johnny Carisi's "Israel", which was an extremely innovative track for its time but not especially great today (in my opinion) and "Rocker", another Mulligan composition that gets a bit lost in the shuffle. Other than that, this is a definite jazz classic and a must-have in any music lover's collection. There's no excuse for not having it. No doubt about it.

You know the story, lost on a desert island, with just ten records to listen too. This would be #1 on my list.

Perhaps I am impartial because I really don't think anything Miles Davis has done has not been without obvious genius and hasn't sounded good. Though I don't think Birth of Cool was as good as say Porgy and Bess or Kind of Blue but this is a definite cd you want in your Davis collection.

This was certainly a very original recording, and has had heaps of praise lavished upon it ever since people became aware of its importance. It is to my mind especially remarkable for its orchestration, which was ground-breaking, and hugely accomplished as well as new in invention. But even at this level the music, excellent though it is, fills me with intellectual respect rather than that I genuinely LIKE it, which sounds almost like blasphemy to utter, and especially because I so much admire Davis, Mulligan, Evans and Lewis in other contexts. Outside the arrangements for the group, there are good but somewhat unexciting - and very short - solos. In the end one's emotional judgement really becomes a matter of subjectivity. I must confess that this is an impeccable work, and for those whose taste it is it cannot easily be over-recommended. If I fail to respond with true ardour, the fault may well be mine. - Joost Daalder

Even more than John Coltrane, Miles Davis' cultural icon status has overshadowed his music. So it's worth mentioning that he was a masterful trumpet player who explored the instrument's lower register and tended to play slower, more lyrical lines, often deeply melancholy, rather than the showers of high notes of Dizzy Gillespie and his imitators. If you're new to Miles it's easy to get confused, as he released a multitude of records during a 45-year career, in a bewildering array of different styles. Davis was at the center of almost every movement in modern jazz (except he skipped "free jazz"): early be-bop (he played with Charlie Parker in 1945); the "cool" sound; hard bop; orchestral experimentation; the "modal revolution"; fusion. He also played with most of the key jazz artists of the post-war period, and is probably the single artist who best represents the winding course jazz has taken.

I recently got this collection of sides originally released in 1949 and 1950 by the Miles Davis Nonet, not released on LP until 1957. The unusual instrumentation (with French horn and tuba) is carefully used by the arrangers (including Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis) to create an incredibly full sound, with a remarkable range of tonal colors. The tunes are also incredibly beautiful. The famous "cool" sound is a bit too reserved for my taste, and the arrangements have a certain Hollywood aroma, but there's no denying the power and originality of the work here. Fans may find this jarring because of its transitional nature, with obvious big band elements such as Kenny Hagood's dated-sounding vocal on "Darn That Dream." Some of the arrangements display the breathtaking complexity of later records, though.

This album not only put Miles Davis on the map, it started a whole new style of jazz music. Miles worked with Gil Evans on this 1949 project and the results were pure magic. The supporting cast of musicians are a nice group too. He even had french horn players (Junior Collins on one session, Sandy Goldstein on another and Gunther Schuller). Most of the musicians Miles worked with on this album were white, because those were the only people he could get hired at the time. Of these musicians, Gerry Mulligan (baritone saxophone), Lee Konitz (alto saxophone) and Kai Winding (trombone) all shine the most. Tracks like "Move" showcase the band's chemistry and innovative, playful harmonies. This song was originally recorded as a bebop tune, but Miles and company give it a little bit more of a cool, swinging style. "Jeru" is the ultimate definition of cool jazz. This Gerry Mulligan composition shows off Miles and Gerry's soloing abilities. It also has a nice theme and some good ensemble playing. "Moon Dreams" is kind of like a musical "still life", this ballad is played with a slow seriousness that makes it a classic. The ensemble playing here is beautiful. "Venus De Milo" is another Mulligan composition and has a somewhat laid-back latin feel. I like this tune because it just sounds nice to sit back and listen to. "Budo" is a classic Bud Powell tune, while this track only lasts about two and a half minutes, it's a classic instantly. The ensemble playing is very energetic and Miles, Lee Konitz and Kai Winding all take great solos. This tune was also recorded by Miles around the time of the 'Round About Midnight sessions. "Deception" is a track that Miles is given credit for writing but it's really another track called "Conception", that Miles recorded later on in the Dig session of 1951. It's a nice tune, with a kind of tension-building theme sequence, along with a nice solo from Miles. "Godchild" has a great theme because all the lower instruments play it making it a fun, playful track. Once again, Miles plays a nice solo and Kai Winding takes a good trombone solo as well. "Boplicity" has credit given to Miles Davis's mom, although she didn't actually write the piece, Miles and Gil Evans did. "Boplicity" is a masterful cool composition and has been recorded many times by other musicians. Gerry Mulligan starts it off with a great sax solo and Miles leads in with the group and then playing a good solo. Other tracks like "Rocker" and "Israel" were very influential in structure and composition, along with John Lewis's "Rouge", which has string bass played and is a very fun and amusing piece. The album ends with the Kenny Hagood vocal feature "Darn That Dream", which is a slow piece that wasn't recorded until 1950 (along with a couple other tracks from the "late" sessions). Hagood's vocal is cool, and Miles plays an outstanding solo in the middle of the piece. The band backs the vocal very well ending the album nicely.

This is a classic album, as everyone else has previously stated. Not much left to say.

I must start by saying that it is impossible to dare not to rate this with five stars.To give a small instance of the impact of this work, as a brazilian, I recognize in this album the strong influence that it had over brazilian music. I am also certain that Miles extended his influence all over the world. So if you are an american, be proud of it, and tell all the world: "America is the birthplace of The Cool".

This band only played for a couple of weeks, and just a few tracks were recorded. Almost 10 years elapsed before these tracks were compiled in an LP for the first time. Neverthless, the music from those sessions is one of the greatest achievements in jazz. For Miles hardcore fans, every album is genious and essential and a cornerstone, but this one really is. And a good place to start a jazz or a Miles collection. The story of how the original master tapes were discovered almost 50 years after they were recorded only adds to the magic aurea surronding this CD. The other version available, `the complete birth of the cool' did not use the original master tapes, and therefore is inferior in sound quality, and its only for completists.

This album was a great bridge between the bebop that Miles played with Gillespie/Parker and Duke Ellington/Claude Thornhill big band style music. This became cool jazz, with Gerry Mulligan at the helm, who was a large part of this disc. Mulligan helped arrange much of this material, along with Gil Evans. This was the beginning of a great period between Miles Davis and Gil Evans. The remastered version makes for an even clearer look at great art.

Late in the 1940s a group of jazz musicians -- Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, Kai Winding, Lee Konitz, just to drop a few names -- took to hanging out between gigs at a certain lower Manhattan coldwater flat. That the renter of this flat happened to be arranger/composer/theoretician Gil Lewis gives, for jazz afficionados everywhere, whole new meaning to the term 'fortuosity.'

Evans was the spark; Davis (even then ever-restless, ever-questing) was the lightning rod. "Birth Of The Cool," ultimately, is the result. (I use the term "ultimately" because the initial releases -- as with the "Davis Nontet's" live appearances -- debuted to less-than-lukewarm critical reviews. All of which, for me, defines the value of jazz criticism as a whole.)

The collaborations of those coldwater flat sessions -- and this album -- were instrumental in the resulting careers of their participants. Mulligan, particularly, would in this album give the lie to latter-day critics who tend to downplay his contributions as a composer/theoretician. His comps/arrangements (listen closely to both "Jeru" and "Venus de Milo), while obviously influenced by Evans' tutelage, demonstrate a deep study of -- and abiding respect for -- the musical idiom in which he chose to work. The close-ensemble arrangements each of the album's various compositions, amplified by the sheer musicianship of all personnel involved, furthermore, herald the movement of today's "back-off-of-bebop" movement.

This is an album which cannot be fully appreciated -- nowhere near so -- at first-listen; what happens upon further listenings, however, is likely to be sheer magic. Even the (at-first) seeming incongruity of Kenny Harwood's vocal in "Darn That Dream," upon subsequent listenings, shows a sure hand in its instrumentation.

An album for any serious jazz student's (or musician's) collection.

For any fan of Jazz, Classical or Miles... you must buy this album. The new RVG remastering shines clearer light on this revolutionary masterpiece (it single-handedly sparked the entire "cool" west-coast Jazz movement, bringing to bear artists such as Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz and Dave Brubeck). Never harsh, always swinging, this magnificent blend of improvisation and composition (the voicings are simply ecstatic!) is truly unique - no other album or band in the history of music has sounded quite like the group put together for this recording. The lines are intricate, harkening back to the Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie Be-Bop recordings of the early 40's (which preceded this album, more-or-less), but are taken with a swinging, sing-song, sensual, casual mood and style that is guaranteed to take the edge off. And to imagine, it was Miles' first REAL debut as a leader!

Like many newcomers to Jazz, the first recording that I really connected with was "Kind of Blue". (At the time, I thought I was special. Only later did I realize how stereotypical I was.) Until I listened to that disc, to my ears, Jazz was Jazz...it all kinda sounded the same.

The more I listened, the more I realized that the cool sounds of Miles and Mulligan were what I enjoyed the most.

As I sought out more information and more music from Davis, everything pointed me towards Birth of the Cool. I even went to a "Jazz store" to buy it. I remember being prepared to be blown away on the first listen. It didn't happen. It's not that kind of disc.

Only after listening to it over time do you get the true appreciation for how excellent it is. But now, it's one of the few disks that stays in the CD changer while the other flavors of the week come and go.

It was during the 1940s that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were responsible for the bebop evolution/revolution that changed jazz forever. As that decade ended, Miles Davis (formerly from Parker's band) founded one of the two distinct styles that resulted from the "splitting" of bebop - the other, of course, was hard-bop. With this recording, Miles showed the world what "cool" jazz was supposed to be. The contributions of Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan were absolutely essential to that, and the final result was this album filled with astounding compositions and marvelous arrangements. (Kenny Hagwood's singing in "Darn That Dream" sounds pretty odd, though. I guess Johnny Hartman wasn't in town. A pity.) The fact that Miles Davis, who "created" cool jazz, also became a major hard-bop star is not ironic at all: that's just how complete his talent was.

An album that has earned it's place as one of the cornerstones of modern jazz is "Birth Of The Cool". Recorded right after his stint playing and recording with Charlie Parker, Miles assembled an incredible group of musicians including Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, John Lewis, Kai Winding and Max Roach. The interplay between these guys is amazing!! The standout tracks include "Venus De Milo", "Jeru"(both penned by Gerry Mulligan), and "Rouge"(by John Lewis). These twelve songs originally released on 78's in 1949 and 1950 were eventually released as an album by Capitol in 1957. Upon picking up this reissue I was surprised to find out that the original first generation master tapes had not been used since Rudy Van Gelder cut the 78 lacquers all those years ago. For recordings that were cut in mono over fifty years ago the sound is so open and clear that it's incredible. This one comes highly recommended. Not only a major highlight in Miles Davis' career, but for jazz music too.

About two years ago, Capitol Jazz released The Complete Birth of the Cool. At that time, it was the definitive version of an album that has been hailed as one of the true greats in the jazz pantheon. The sound quality was better than any previous release, and the booklet was chock full of informative essays, photos, etc. What no one knew at the time was that the original master tapes had been sitting in the vault, untouched.

When Rudy Van Gelder went to prepare a new edition of the album for Japanese release, he discovered the original session reels. As you can imagine, the difference in sound quality is astonishing. As producer Michael Cuscuna explains, "This was the first time that Rudy had worked on these particular recordings, and he was surprised to find that every version subsequent to the original LP had used the 1957 12-inch master. But the original master tapes of each performance still existed, and they revealed significant improvements in sound."

Blue Note's Tom Evered added, "To set the record straight, we would not have issued the Birth of the Cool RVG if Rudy had not found the session tapes. We were not eager to issue a third edition of the BOTC but we felt we had to given the improved sound." Anyone familiar with the album prior to this new release will notice the difference in sound immediately. It's much more vivid and full, allowing you to fully appreciate the complexity of the nonet's arrangements. It's like you're hearing the music for the first time.

This brings us to the all-important question: which one do you buy? The answer is simple--both. The booklets in both are excellent (with different material in each). The sound quality on The Complete Birth of the Cool isn't as good (although it's definitely not bad), but it contains all of the available live tracks from the group's performances at The Royal Roost. The RVG version doesn't have the live tracks, but it has better sound. The choice is yours. Whichever you decide, The Complete Birth of the Cool is an essential part of any jazz collection.

Miles Davis deserves to be called the greatest trumpeter in the world. It's amazing how he created his own brand of COOL JAZZ and in such an early time of recording history. From here on he continues to offer us great performances for the next 40 year!

this Disc is a Classic that just gets better with time.i enjoyed this as much as Kind OF Blue.the Playing here is really Crisp&Cool.Why this set doesn't get as much Love I don't know?this is a Must Have.Miles Shines on this always Challenging Himself.a must have.

"Birth of the Cool" was where Miles Davis made his first mark in jazz. Possibly the most influential jazz artist of all-time, Miles was on the forefront of the music for several decades, essentially steering its path during that time, and with the landmark recordings that make up this CD, Miles Davis (as well as Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans, who deserve just as much credit) gives birth to "cool" jazz. Though it has had a few detractors who've dismissed it as 'boring' and 'bland,' a majority of listeners are really taken by what Davis & Co. have accomplished here. That nonet only recorded 12 pieces in the studio, and the whole dozen have been collected in this remarkable compilation.

Davis's lyrical, anti-virtuoso trumpet finds a beautiful soulmate in Gerry Mulligan's baritone sax (who also had a huge hand in writing much of the material as well). The recordings are most famous for the arrangements Evans, Mulligan, and a few others have given the music; elegant and sophisticated, it charts new territory in "big band" music, something that would ultimately lead to the quasi-orchestral music produced by Davis and Evans in the late 50's and early 60's.

A few years ago, it was thought that the definitive version of "Birth of the Cool" was released on a CD titled "The Complete Birth of the Cool," a remastered disc that also contained live radio performances of the music. However, recently, famed recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder discovered the original master tapes that were used for the original 78's (all 12 tracks were initially released as 78's; they weren't compiled on to an album until several years later). As it turned out, every Lp and CD of the album since then were made from Lp masters that were essentially safety copies. Capitol was reluctant to remaster this material after just doing so, but supposedly Van Gelder convinced them to do so due to the quality of the masters. Now remastered and reissued under Blue Note's RVG Series, this latest edition is simply incredible to listen to. Far better than older editions of this CD, it even outstrips the "Complete Birth of Cool" disc.

If you haven't bought this music yet, this new RVG edition is definitely the one to get on the basis of sound. "The Complete" does have those radio performances, but while they are of obvious interest to lifelong jazz enthusiasts, I wouldn't call them essential.