Miles Davis, after having recorded with various jazz greats from the bebop era throughout the 1940's and 50's, realised later that he faced difficulties competing with other more technically fluent trumpeters such as Clifford Brown, Dizzy Gillespie. Then 1949, for the first time as a leader, he formed an essemble and recorded 'The Birth of the Cool', which incorporated cool brush-drumming and a relaxed and modal style, which contrasted greatly to the exotic rhythms and tempos of bebop.With cool jazz, Miles Davies experimented extensively with an Harmon mute and developed his own distinctly sentimental sound. Many other west coast musicians later also followed his lead and thus is cool jazz sometimes refered to as West Coast jazz. Miles Davis' album 'Kind of Blue', which is a collection of modal blues, became the best selling jazz album in history and is a miles stone in the development of cool jazz. Various cool jazz groups did not use a piano but relied on counterpoint and harmonization among the horns, to outline chord progression. In various cases, elements from classical music was incorporated into cool jazz and this type of music often called 'The Third Stream'.
Famous musician from this era:
