Customer Reviews

Birth Of The Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant Garde

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There is a new commercial on the air right now for, of all things, the new domain .tv. It is simply a procession of images: a dog, a skier, a fat guy in a swimming pool. The voice-over is simply a guys saying "cool," ot "not "cool" whenever a new image is revealed. as I watched it, I couldn't help but think, "what the hell happened to cool." When pretty much everything is cool, nothing is.

Lewis MacAdams' book is thus pretty timely. He takes us back to the guys who really were cool. They were outlaws, outside the mainstream. Most people thought they were freak, but they didn't care because they were cool.

Anyone who has read Macadams' poetry or journalism is awaere of his talents. It is about time he put them to something larger.

Lewis MacAdams does an adequate job of detailing the "birth of the cool" providing biographical sketches of many of the coolest people to have lived. The list includes Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Lester Young, Jackson Pollock, and the Holy Trinity of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs, among others. MacAdams book is a great introduction to all these figures, although I suggest after reading this book you will seek to delve deeper into the lives, art, music, and writing of everyone detailed in the book.

Reviews of this book on this site have characterized it as sloppy, uninformed, and even erroneous in certain historical details. I would have to agree that the book is breezy at times, and at its worst is slapdash in its treatment of what is probably one of the most important cultural phenomena of the past fifty to sixty years, i.e., the development and growth of the idea of "cool" as a form of cultural currency. Despite the misgivings, though, I think this book's themes are right on the money. Read in conjunction with other more attentive books about the phenomenon in question (and/or the historical period), this book can be a door-opener or a good supplement, depending on your point of view.

I was hoping for some kind of in-depth discussion of cool and its history in the 20th century, but this is more a high-school textbook treatment of cool.

So-and-so was cool and this is why he was cool. And then so-and-so was cool and this why she was cool. On and on. A few interesting spots, and a quick introduction to some of the major figures in jazz and art, but little more.

I was hoping for some kind of in-depth discussion of cool and its history in the 20th century, but this is more a high-school textbook treatment of cool.

So-and-so was cool and this is why he was cool. And then so-and-so was cool and this why she was cool. On and on. A few interesting spots, and a quick introduction to some of the major figures in jazz and art, but little more.

This is a pretty engrossing book - if you think you know about "cool" check it out. Lewis puts together stuff in a
very original manner and helps one to get a perspective
on what cool is.
The section on DT Suzuki and cool caught my attention.
The chapter was called "The Bodhisattvas of Cool." Did you know that Siddartha means , "He who accomplishes his goals."
The layout of the book is cool and the type changes so things stay cool.