'Birth of the Cool,' an album that changed jazz, turns 75. The Nash is celebrating with a show

It’s been 75 years since an all-star group of jazz musicians gathered to record a series of songs that some argue changed the face of the genre. But, it took a little while for the album that would later become “Birth of the Cool” to make its real presence felt.

In honor of the anniversary, trumpet player Louise Baranger has put together a band to play the songs from the album at The Nash in Phoenix on Friday night.

Baranger joined The Show to talk more about the album.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: Louise, what appeals to you about these songs?

LOUISE BARANGER: Well, this music has the most interesting sound. It was recorded in 1949 and 1950, and it was very avant-garde for its day. It was inspired by Gil Evans and his writing for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, which was a big band in the 1940s, which included tuba and French horn.

So Miles decided he wanted to do a smaller group version of this and in conjunction with Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz and some of the other great players of the day, they were just kids then, they weren't famous then.

They decided to do a nine piece version rather than the big 15, 16 big piece big band type version of music, and they wanted to do a nine piece version of this music that had a jazz, be boppy flavor. But still had one foot in the big band sound.

BRODIE: Yeah, what do you think the thinking was behind that? Because as you say, if you listen to these songs, you can hear big band sort of swings, but it, you can also hear that it's kind of moving away from that.

BARANGER: Well, these guys were trying to be very forward thinking and they were all students of impressionistic classical music like … Ravel, Sati, those composers. And they were very intellectual thinkers, these musicians, and so they would get together and talk about how they could get those sort of impressionistic influences into music in 1949.

And so they had a French horn in the band and a tuba as well as saxophone, trombone, trumpet, and then a rhythm section. So it became this really unique sounding group that was sort of half bebop and half big band but with an impressionistic sound.

BRODIE: And am I right that this never actually came out as an album?

BARANGER: Well, it did eventually, but in 1949, there were no albums, so it came out on 78 records. And the first recordings were released very sparsely. I think there were three records, which means six sides, and they ended up recording a total of 14 songs.

So this music sort of was coolly received by the public. They were performing it live at the the Royal Roost in New York, which is where Charlie Parker and Miles had been playing in 1947 and 1948. So they released these sides. They weren't a big success. Everyone went on to do other things.

And Pete Rugolo, who produced them around 1957, decided to release it as an album and call it “Birth of the Cool.” And it became a huge success. The music was never performed live again because all of those musicians had gone on to other things in their career.

BRODIE: Big things.

BARANGER: They all became famous and well known and, and if not, they were working in the studios making a good living, so. So the album was released and it became known as a landmark album that sort of changed the sound of jazz, this cool sound, which is why it was obviously called “Birth of the Cool.”

BRODIE: How significant is it to you that the band you've put together for this performance is roughly split equally between men and women?

BARANGER: Well, I've always tried to hire, how can I say this? I, I hire my favorite players, and I hire my friends as long as they're my favorite players. And, and being a woman in music, I have a lot of women friends in the music business, so I think that there aren't enough women in the music business.

It's tough for women to be in the music business. There's still a lot of discrimination. You wouldn't believe what people come up with. What are you gonna wear? You know, well, are you gonna get along with the guys? I mean, it's amazing what people say, right, even now. So I think that having a mixed band is an example of what the world should look like, what the music world should look like anyway. And you know, I have a rehearsal, nobody says anything about oh look at the women in the band, everybody just plays. Either you can play or you can't. That's what it boils down to in the music world.

BRODIE: It's so interesting because I think for a lot of people you think of music as kind of like sports, the ultimate meritocracy, like if you can play, you can, you can do it regardless of who you are or what gender or race or ethnicity or anything you are, but it sounds like that's not necessarily the case.

BARANGER: Well, I've been really lucky. I mean, I've probably gotten as many gigs because I'm a woman as I've lost because I'm a woman. I've had some amazingly stupid things said to me by people, you know, because they don't know how to deal with having a woman in the band. I was kicked off a movie set because the star of the movie said, “I don't want people looking at her. I want them looking at me.” Yeah, I was actually sent home and they had to pay me anyway, so big deal.

But, but I think the, the what it boils down to is when you're a man, they assume you can play unless you prove otherwise. When you're a woman, they assume you can't play until you prove otherwise. And, and I'm not saying that this is always the case, but it's often the case.

BRODIE: So let me ask you about some of your other work because you have a couple of albums out, including one that is basically trumpet playing Motown music?

BARANGER: Right. Yeah, I decided that well my first album was sort of swing big band. It was a great album. Arturo Sandoval, Carl Fontana, all these wonderful players played on it. Frank Sinatra Jr. sang a couple tunes, and, and it was really sort of big bandy swing type of music, a nine piece band.

Then I decided what's popular right now? I mean, what's really to an older audience that buys tickets, concert tickets, Motown, you know, big band music is sort of now sort of faded into the past, unfortunately. But that's what happens in music. It evolves.

So I did an album, my friend Tim Wamette, who's a wonderful arranger, used to write for Ray Charles. He wrote all the arrangements for me and I recorded this in New York and it's just all kind of Motown type of music and it's really fun. It's again, lots of horns and it's just fun. People put it on and say they dance to it at home and that's the biggest compliment I can get.

BRODIE: Ah, that’s cool. So if you are just sitting around listening to music, what are you gonna listen to?

BARANGER: Oh boy, that's a good question. I don't listen to music as much as I should probably. When I was younger I did a lot, but I like to listen to classical music a lot. I like to listen to, Joshua Redman's my favorite saxophone player. We just saw him at the MIM. He was amazing. But I, I, a mix of things, I think whatever makes me feel good at that moment. I like all styles of music, anything that's well done, I like to listen to.

BRODIE: Is there a type of music or maybe a particular piece that you have wanted to transcribe for, for trumpet or play on the trumpet that you haven't yet had a chance to?

BARANGER: Well, that's interesting. I always loved Ennio Morricone, and for years I thought I really want to play some of his music, you know, the, the great film composer, Italian film composer, and I think he's just the most wonderful composer. And Chris Botti beat me to it. I thought about it for too many years. And then he went and did it. But there's a particularly some pieces from “Cinema Paradiso,” from “The Mission” that, that Chris has recorded beautifully, of course.

Yeah, but every once in a while I hear some piece of music, particularly film music. Growing up in, in LA I was really partial to that. My grandpa was in the film business and, and I, I listened to some film music and say, I just really want to record that, and then I think, who's gonna buy it, you know, I mean, I have to think about an audience like where do you play film music, right?

BRODIE: It's interesting because that kind of brings us back to the “Birth of the Cool,” right, where Miles Davis and the other players were trying to sort of nudge the audience to something different, but didn't want to do it too much. And it's probably not too much of a stretch to say that they were thinking if we go too far away from what people are listening to now and like, they might not listen to what we're doing.

BARANGER: I think that's true. I think those guys were, they, they were building their careers and they didn't want to lose their audience. They wanted to gain an audience, but at the same time, they wanted to express themselves in this new way. And so they had to kind of split the difference and I'm, I'm sure they considered that.