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West Coast jazz is a form of jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
 music that developed around Los Angeles
Los Ángeles

Los ?ngeles is the Capital of the Biob?o Province, in the municipality of the same name, in Regions of Chile VIII , in the center-south of Chile....
 and San Francisco at about the same time as hard bop
Hard bop

Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Hard bop incorporates influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano playing....
 jazz was developing in New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
, in the 1950s and 1960s. West Coast jazz was generally seen as a sub-genre of cool jazz
Cool jazz

During the Second World War, there was an influx of Californian jazz musicians to New York. Once there, these musicians mixed with the mostly black bebop musicians, but were also strongly influenced by the "smooth" sound of saxophonist Lester Young....
. West Coast jazz also often contains elements of bossa nova
Bossa nova

Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music popularized by Ant?nio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes and Jo?o Gilberto. Bossa nova acquired a large following, initially by young musicians and college students....
.

It featured a less frenetic, calmer style than hard bop. The music tended to be more heavily arranged, and more often compositionally based.






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West Coast jazz is a form of jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
 music that developed around Los Angeles
Los Ángeles

Los ?ngeles is the Capital of the Biob?o Province, in the municipality of the same name, in Regions of Chile VIII , in the center-south of Chile....
 and San Francisco at about the same time as hard bop
Hard bop

Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Hard bop incorporates influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano playing....
 jazz was developing in New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
, in the 1950s and 1960s. West Coast jazz was generally seen as a sub-genre of cool jazz
Cool jazz

During the Second World War, there was an influx of Californian jazz musicians to New York. Once there, these musicians mixed with the mostly black bebop musicians, but were also strongly influenced by the "smooth" sound of saxophonist Lester Young....
. West Coast jazz also often contains elements of bossa nova
Bossa nova

Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music popularized by Ant?nio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes and Jo?o Gilberto. Bossa nova acquired a large following, initially by young musicians and college students....
.

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
Pacific Jazz Records

Pacific Jazz Records was a Los Angeles based record label best known for releasing cool jazz or West coast jazz. It was founded by Richard Bock and drummer Roy Harte in 1952 in music....
 and Contemporary
Contemporary Records

Contemporary Records was a jazz record label founded by Lester Koenig in 1951 in music in Los Angeles. Contemporary concentrated on the West Coast jazz, recording such artists as Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, the Curtis Counce Group , Ben Webster, Art Pepper, Shelly Manne, Hampton Hawes, Barney Kessel and Leroy Vinnegar....
 record label
Record label

In the music industry, a record label can be a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of recorded sound and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the Record producer, manufacturing, distribution , marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protec...
s were two of the best known that carried West Coast jazz, just as Blue Note
Blue note

In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower Pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres....
 was the biggest hard-bop label. Some of the major pioneers of West Coast jazz were Shorty Rogers
Shorty Rogers

Milton ?Shorty? Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an Arrangement....
, Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan

Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an United States jazz saxophonist, composer and arrangement.Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophone in jazz history - playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz - he was also a notable arranger, working with Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis,...
, Chet Baker
Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. was an United States jazz trumpeter, flugelhorn player and singer.Specializing in relaxed, even melancholy music, Baker rose to prominence as a leading name in cool jazz in the 1950s....
, Stan Getz
Stan Getz

Stanley Gayetzky or Stanley Gayetsky , usually known by his stage name Stan Getz, was an American jazz saxophone player. Known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, Getz's prime influence was the wispy, mellow tone of his idol, Lester Young....
, Bud Shank
Bud Shank

Clifford Everett "Bud" Shank, Jr. is an United States alto saxophone and flautist. He played flute in Stan Kenton's Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra, on various recording sessions including The Zodiac : Cosmic Sounds, and occasionally in live performances until he gave it up later in his career to focus exclusively on the alto saxophon...
, Bob Cooper
Bob Cooper (musician)

Bob Cooper was a West Coast jazz musician known primarily for playing tenor saxophone, but also for being one of the first to play solos on oboe....
, Jimmy Giuffre
Jimmy Giuffre

James Peter Giuffre was an United States jazz composer, arranger and saxophone and clarinet player. He is notable for his development of forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating forms of free improvisation....
, Shelly Manne
Shelly Manne

Shelly Manne , born Sheldon Manne in New York City, was an American Jazz drumming. Most frequently associated with West coast jazz, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland, Swing music, bebop, avant-garde jazz and Jazz fusion, as well as contributing to the musical background of...
, Bill Holman
Bill Holman (musician)

Willis Leonard Holman , known also as Bill Holman, is an United States songwriter, conducting, composer/arranger, and saxophonist working primarily in the jazz idiom....
, Manny Albam
Manny Albam

Manny Albam was a jazz baritone saxophone player who eventually put the instrument down in favour of a long and respected career as an arranger, writer, and teacher....
, André Previn
André Previn

Andr? Previn Order of the British Empire is a German-born American Academy Award and Grammy Award winning pianist, conducting, and composer. He first came to prominence by arranging and composing Hollywood film scores in 1948....
, and Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck

David Warren Brubeck , better known as Dave Brubeck, is an United States Jazz piano. Regarded as a jazz icon, he has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke"....
 with Paul Desmond
Paul Desmond

Paul Desmond , born Paul Emil Breitenfeld, was a jazz alto saxophone and composer born in San Francisco, best known for the work he did in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for penning that group's greatest hit, "Take Five"....
.

Some jazz critics, such as French critic Hugues Panassié
Hugues Panassié

Hugues Panassi? was a France jazz critic and Record producer. His most famous works were Hot Jazz: The Guide to Swing Music and The Real Jazz, published in 1936 and 1942, respectively....
, looked down upon West Coast jazz as inauthentic, due to most musicians in the style being white. However, there were a sizable number of African American
African American

African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the Black people populations of Africa....
 musicians who played in the style, such as Curtis Counce
Curtis Counce

Curtis Counce was an United States hard bop and West Coast jazz double bassist. The fruit of his 1956 Contemporary Records studio collaboration with tenor great Harold Land, trumpeters Jack Sheldon and Gerald Wilson, pianist Carl Perkins and drummer Frank Butler was issued in 2007 on a double CD by Gambit Records....
, Chico Hamilton
Chico Hamilton

Chico Hamilton is a Jazz drumming and band leader....
, Buddy Collette
Buddy Collette

Buddy Collette is an American Saxophonist, flautist, and clarinetist. He was highly influential in the West coast jazz and West Coast blues mediums, also collaborating with saxophonist Dexter Gordon, drummer Chico Hamilton, and his lifelong friend, bassist Charles Mingus....
 and Hampton Hawes
Hampton Hawes

Hampton Hawes was an African American jazz pianist....
. 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.

See also

  • List of cool jazz and West Coast jazz musicians
    List of cool jazz and West Coast jazz musicians

    For the main articles, please see Cool jazz or' West Coast jazz...
  • Third Stream
    Third stream

    Third stream is a term coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller to describe a musical genre which is a synthesis of European classical music and jazz....
  • Chamber jazz
    Chamber jazz

    Chamber jazz is a genre of jazz based around small, acoustic-based ensembles where group interplay is important. It is noted that the first experimentation with this genre is with Karel and Terry Lidral of Maine....
  • Lighthouse Cafe
    Lighthouse Café

    The Lighthouse Caf? is a nightclub located at 30 Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach, California. It has been active since 1949 and was one of the central West Coast jazz clubs from the 1950s throughout the late 1970s....


External links