West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 Paperback – October 1, 1998

One of the best books I've read in the last 10 years, it opened doors for me not only for an appreciation of jazz in general, but an understanding of what jazz was, meant and felt throughout the 1940s-60s, especially on the West Coast. This book has increased my jazz cd collection from 50 to over 200, it's that good of an incentive. Gioia brings his characters to life. I feel as if I personally know everyone from Charlie Parker to Sonny Criss to Shorty Rogers to Hampton Hawes to Howard McGhee to Dave Brubeck to Chet Baker to Jimmie Giuffre to Wardell Gray to Dexter Gordon to Chico Hamilton and so on. This book surges with life, a time capsule, frozen and now forgotten, vividly presented and well documented.
If you love jazz, this book is invaluable, West Coast, East Coast, whatever...an excellent history of what was going on jazz-wise during it's crucial years, 1945-65. Super Highly Recommended.

Just simply right on the topic. Gioia gets it, and explains even more. Yes, West Coast Jazz was an idiom of the times, and is constantly reinventing itself for those who weren't listening then, because of being much younger.....and who, like me, needed to learn about it now. Cool Jazz had a feel unlike any other, and the people had a different take on melody and harmony. Thanks Mr. "G" for going the extra mile down the western slopes of Jazz. Chet will live forever !

This is not an easy book to come by. Kinda pricey, but a very good read. Here's the negativity of my review. Originally i got the book from the library to check it out, and loved the photos. It was the 1998 edition with a bunch of claxton's photos. really great one of harry babison with chet and bird at the trade winds. (1952). But the book i received, even though was pictured on amazon like the one i knew, had a different cover (the photo of the lighthouse all stars at the beach - great album cover btw.) and no pics inside. it's a larger hardback, and maybe a first printing. I would order another but there is no way to tell. For example, if it says 1998 pp reprint, is it the one with the photos? or not? So that's my take. But the stories are great.

good read very informative

Finally, a book that takes the West Coast jazz movement seriously, instead of as a footnote to the New York Cool school. Gioia has compiled a wealth of information destined to be forgotten about a style that is considered unworthy of being taken seriously by the East Coast-centric, anti-white jazz critics. Mostly white people playing jazz by the beaches of California made no sense to them and still doesn't. Open any history of jazz. Try finding any mention of Bud Shank, Pete Jolly, Jack Sheldon, etc. One of the great movements in jazz was rejected because it did not fit into the steroetype of gritty, dark, and Black-made (compare Blue Note album covers with Contemporary Records album covers). The only one given any attention was Chet Baker, and this was due to his romantic James Dean-like image rather than his brilliant trumpet playing. Don't get me wrong, there were many excellent black participants in the movement, such as Hampton Hawes and Buddy Collette but I do truly believe that there is a racial bias against West Coast jazz. Okay, I am stepping down off my soapbox. This book belongs in the cannon of great jazz history books. It is a well-researched, fascinating journey through the jazz world of Los Angeles primarily, but also the San Francisco Bay Area, starting with a wonderful foray into the the life of Central Avenue, Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray (who probably would have been ignored too had they not left LA). Any fan of the music needs to own it and every jazz critic should be tied to a chair and have it read to him. Then he should be untied and played Art Pepper records all night. Should also be required reading in whatever California public school music and arts programs are left as an essential expresion of the distinct California aesthetic, as important as the architecture of Frank Gehry and the photography of Ansel Adams.

Ted Gioia is an excellent writer and provides a wealth of information on jazz in post WWII California. I really appreciated the detailed information and anecdotes regarding some of the musicians with whose music I'd had a positive but passing acquaintance, such as Jimmy Giuffre and Bob Cooper. But I ended up feeling like Gioia's strong opinions left me with the feeling that he'd damned west coast jazz with faint praise. One certainly doesn't expect a historian or critic to pull any punches but a lot of Gioia's opinions seemed at odds with what I view as major contributions to the evolution of jazz. I may just be one of those dullards that "likes it all" but I don't see enjoying Bob Cooper and Bud Shank's oboe and flute work as mutually exclusive to enjoying Art Blakey or Albert Ayler. In particular Gioia's attack on the flute as a viable jazz instrument really stuck under my craw and his account of Bud Shank in his later years as even virtually repenting for having used it (and implying that saxophone is the only legitimate woodwind for use in jazz) doesn't seem consistent with what I know about Shank (though he may well have made some passing remark to Gioia that inspired that passage). Also his attack on the Chico Hamilton's quintet recordings seemed geared to find, in my opinion, an undeserved scapegoat for the criticisms of west coast jazz. It just seems outright wrong to imply that a group containing Chico, Buddy Collette and Jim Hall didn't swing because they used a more chamber music oriented approach than the hard boppers. This seems more an intellectual construct than actually having listened very carefully to the music. And in fact it seemed to contradict other sections of the book that implied that Shelly Manne could swing hard despite using a subtler approach than many of his contemporaries (which I agree with). I realize that I'm betraying very personal feelings here, but as a kid, Chico's quintets and some of Cooper and Shank's work, e.g. their flute and oboe version of Sweet Georgia Brown had a serious and lasting influence on me. And to hint that Giuffre was one of the fathers of new age music really seemed to come out of left field. If anyone can name a new age musician who has anything remotely close to the compositional or improvisational abilities of Giuffre, I'm all ears. That seemed a classic case of damning with faint praise.

It seems that Gioia had a strong agenda, i.e. to make a clear separation between what was good about west coast jazz (in his somewhat idiosyncratic view) from that that deserved to be criticized and ignored, e.g. uses of flute and cello, Giuffre's more radical works,... thereby saving it's place in history while at the same time placating it's more closed minded critics.

Overall I found the book valuable but felt that many of the targets of Gioia's scorn were undeserved and a product of what I perceived as his agenda. E.g. as much as I love saxophone I think there's an important place in jazz for instruments like the flute and I think one would be hard pressed to listen to, e.g., some of Frank Wess's solos and say that the instrument isn't a legitimate vehicle for jazz (not to mention the great work by a number of more contemporary players). While jazz certainly has clear and distinct roots that are important to acknowledge I think it has opened up into a much wider tent than Gioia allows. To judge the value of works based on whether they're in or out of one's version of the tent seems to me misplaced. I prefer Duke's 2 categories of music (exercise for the reader - not too unreasonable in the Google age - if this reference doesn't make sense find the appropriate quote by Duke).