Modern Jazz Quartet
Cool Jazz At Its Coolest By Stewart MasonThe MJQ took their cues from Bach as much as the blues, fusing the European classical and American improvisatory traditions.
The Modern Jazz Quartet's detractors often dismissed the nattily attired crew's music as "jazz in suits." Given the earlier sartorial splendor of, say, Duke Ellington, it can be understood that the unspoken dis was more along the lines of "Jazz that's not entirely black, you dig?" Leader and pianist John Lewis would most likely proclaim that was the entire point. Lewis, vibraphonist Milt "Bags" Jackson, bassist Percy Heath and drummer Connie Kay (who replaced original drummer Kenny Clarke in 1955, the sole lineup change in the group's history) took their cues from Bach as much as the blues, fusing the European classical and American improvisatory traditions. Their cool, restrained style deliberately eschewed bop's penchant for lengthy, showboating solos. Not that they couldn't show off, mind: Jackson in particular was a gifted improviser. Some of the group's more overt classical-jazz fusion efforts (what was then called "third-stream" music) now sound dated and stiff, but songs like "Django" and "Bags' Groove" are jazz standards. Though the group disbanded as a full-time unit in 1974, they played and recorded together sporadically until Kay's 1994 death.
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