12. Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool (1957)

1. Move
2. Jeru
3. Moon Dreams
4. Venus De Milo
5. Budo
6. Deception
7. Godchild
8. Boplicity
9. Rocker
10. Israel
11. Rouge
12. Darn That Dream

Jazz Week continues on Bass Odyssey! Seriously, it sure was nice of them to stick all these jazz albums in a row like this! Now I'm twice as insufferable as I once was!

In a shocking twist, I was actually pretty disappointed by this album. I had listened to Miles' jazz fusion records and much enjoyed them, so I was looking forward to this album. After I enjoyed the complexity of Brilliant Corners and was intrigued by the weirdness of Palo Congo, I was hoping for another peculiar, innovative masterpiece. However, this album felt very plain to me. It was an enjoyable listen, sure, but apart from a few moments nothing really commanded my attention the way the last couple of albums did. Upon further research, the reason for this is that the songs were recorded in 1949 and 1950, and then released years later. So, in a manner of speaking, this is a compilation album. Come on now,. you can't go around sticking compilation albums in this list! I'd expect this from Rolling Stone, but not from this book! Buckets of shame all around.

This album, in apparently yet another stunningly literal title, heralded the dawn of 'cool jazz', which is sort of like bebop but with more structured arrangements. And true to its name, it is a remarkably cool album. Sunglasses, smoke filled rooms, all that junk. The careful, more classical inspired arrangements make the tracks nice to listen to, but this honestly seemed a lot more like background music. All of the songs are relatively short, bite-sized jazz pieces and while they all sounded good, none of them really made a significant impression on me. This is the sort of album I suspect I'd have to listen to multiple times to truly 'get'. This is made even more annoying by the typical lavish praise thrust upon this album from all sides. Much like Elvis, I just don't really get what the fuss is all about! It's a bit better than that album, fortunately. That is, except for 'Darn That Dream', a vocal number that they decided to tack on the end of an instrumental jazz album for some stupid reason.

Well, they can't all be zingers, I guess. 6.5/10