SaNaTo Download & File: BBC Arena

"The classic cool combo consisted of 3, 4 or 5 musicians, a rhythm section with the voices supplied by horns and usually a piano. They'd begin with theme, improvise around it for several minutes and return to it. Young men with a studious air, in well cut suits and slim ties." Documentary exploring the meaning and history of cool through the American music of the 1940s and 50s that became known as cool jazz. Cool jazz was cool for a number of reasons. It was cool music - a relaxed and poised counterpoint to the agitation of Bebop - but it also had attitude and style. It was a precursor of 1960s mod culture with its sharp suits and button down collared shirts.
The film tells the story of a movement that started in the bars and clubs of New York and Los Angeles and swept across the world, introducing the key players and setting them in the context of the post-war world.
Featuring Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Art Farmer, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Jack Kerouac and original incidental music by George Taylor... This is the birth of the cool.

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