"Birth of the Cool:" Bob Perkins Lectures and the Don Wilson Trio Performs

Victor L. Schermer

Interviewer since 2000

Former trombonist who now works as a psychologist.

Recent articles (211 total)

Published: November 19, 2009

The trio then played a number of tracks from Birth of the Cool: "Move," "Jeru," "Venus de Milo," "Deception," "Godchild," "Rocker," "Boplicity," and "Rouge." These were not done as transcriptions, but as powerful improvisations by the group. However, Wilson did tell me afterwards that he tried to capture some of the voicings of the original nonet, which is very difficult to do with piano and rhythm alone, but the effect was beautiful and remarkably faithful to the original. What struck me about Wilson's playing, in addition to his clear, truthful voicings, was his absolutely fine sense of timing, such that he caught the rhythmic style and nuancing that constituted part of what made the "cool" approach so intriguing. Each jazz epoch has been characterized by a change in the syncopation, easily heard in the shift from ragtime to blues and swing, and perhaps not so obvious but equally important in bebop, cool jazz, and hard bop. Wilson held back the tempo ever so slightly and highlighted the special "something" that was a trademark of cool jazz and is rarely recapped as well as did Wilson. Equipment geeks will be interested to know that Wilson used a Weil PSPZX keyboard and a Roland loudspeaker system, the combination of which had a remarkable resemblance to an acoustic piano, overall a better system than others the writer has heard around.

Inevitably, Perkins elaborated on Davis' subsequent (and some would say alternately exceptional and checkered) career, especially the breakthrough all-time best selling jazz album Kind of Blue, from which the group played "So What." They then played a series of Miles Davis originals from that album and others. McIver's trading fours with Wilson and Smith's extended solos showed the extraordinary competence of these two musicians, and Smith, as usual, got in a couple of his astonishing double-time staccato arpeggiating riffs that always make this writer do a double take. Lee Smith, in case you didn't know, is Christian McBride's father.

Perkins capped his talk with interesting observations about the impact (positive and negative) of the 1960s British music explosion (the Beatles, etc.) on jazz and the music scene in general.

Kudos are due both Perkins and Wilson Trio for bringing to life the Birth of the Cool and the particular jazz era which served as its fecund womb and midwife. This was not the first example in this writer's experience of jazz in an "artsy" setting, but certainly one of the best. And as jazz seeks its next leap forward during difficult economic times, one hopes that such inspirational venues will play a significant role in keeping the music alive, well, and available in the live, intimate settings where jazz, whether cool or otherwise, tends to be creatively re-born.

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