Talk:West Coast jazz

A huge part of jazz

This or [cool jazz] definitely need an article. They are huge parts of jazz history to not have one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.32.33.5 (talk) 16:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The Sound

I wanted to add a description of what West coast Jazz sounds like and how it differs from other styles within Jazz. I also think its worth noteing that the West coast sound was influenced by players on the east coast as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ESalveson (talk • contribs) 22:55, 21 March 2012‎

I say go for it. I had tried to give a general idea of what the style involved - I found it difficult to describe the sound in writing, while still sticking to reliable sources. Also keeping in mind that there was no single "West Coast sound"; for example see California Hard section, and Tanner Gerow & Megill's suggestion that "West Coast" merely becomes synonymous with "cool". Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. In fact it wasn't really West Coast. I think there is a lot left out of this as a description of real West Coast jazz and we're seeing a history that is becoming forgotten. And that there is more to the West Coast as a jazz source as a jazz movement this than simply referring to cool jazz. Wasn't cool jazz actually something that Miles Davis tried to make well known with The Birth of Cool and tried to bring to the West Coast but basically didn't do that well with audiences? He wasn't exactly West Coast. (There is in fact a sentence entry under Gerry Mulligan in wikipedia that refer to dumping the cool jazz on 'west coast jazz' noting 'despite its East Coast origins.') Rather than that, I think describing West Coast Jazz we could refer to the jazz venues like the Lighthouse and the Black Hawk and eventually Keystone and the players on the West Coast like Shelley Mann, Shorty Rogers, Chet Baker, Art Pepper and bebop itself. And the radio stations like KJAZ in San Francisco and its DJs like Bob Parlocha. Two decades ago, if someone wanted to listen to Jazz on the Internet there were few people broadcasting, but listeners could tune to recorded KJAZ programming. Important aspects of KJAZ are now unfortunately nearly wiped out of Wikipedia. And even recordings that Parlocha worked on now have become largely unavailable. This is becoming a lost memory. The venues were a scene for many jazz players: Cannon Ball Adderley made one of the best recordings in jazz history at the Lighthouse. John Coltrane, and Miles Davis played at the Black Hawk. It seems to me that more research could be done on what the West Coast really produced. My sense is that a lot started with the end of WW II and Americans coming home to San Diego, LA, SF, and Seattle. To start, the Black Hawk does have a wikipedia entry that borrows heavily from this reference. [1]. Cheers Richard Katz (talk) 19:19, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

University of California book

I was trying to make a change to the article because though I think there was definitely a lot of creation coming out of Los Angeles, I think there was also quite a bit coming out of San Francisco. Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, etc. come to mind. I have some links from a University of California book on West Coast Jazz, that has two entire chapters about San Francisco.

http://books.google.com/books/ucpress?id=O-b1Qmta2wsC&pg=PA60&vq=San+Francisco&sig=Sd7F_SBDfYqjZjajvS9rSikkFMI#PPA60,M1

What you call "a University of California book" (for what it's worth, it was originally published by the Oxford University Press, but that doesn't matter now) is the same book by Ted Gioia I added to the References a while back. But you make a good point. Though there was far more jazz activity of the kind associated with "West Coast jazz" in Los Angeles, we can't leave San Francisco out of the picture entirely. Alan W 23:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Panassié

Was Panassié specifically critical of West Coast jazz, or of post-swing jazz in general? If it's the latter, then I don't think Panassié's opinion belongs here. I don't have access to the cited book, but I did notice that it dates from 1946, which largely precedes the West Coast style. If we can be more specific than "some jazz critics" then perhaps there's a better citation to use. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:49, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I've removed the part citing Panassié, although this leaves unsourced weasel words. If Panassié actually said this about West Coast jazz then the citation needs to specify the page number where he did so. As it happens, a Google Books search for the string "west coast" did not return any results (link). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:42, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I rewrote the remaining portion and added a couple of citations. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:19, 15 February 2017 (UTC)