(Wall Street Journal) - Half a century ago this year, jazz
experienced an annus mirabilis.

America's own musical art form — for whatever combination
of aesthetic, sociological and commercial reasons — saw a
12-month span that encompassed the recording or release of
a remarkable number of epochal long-playing albums, as well
as live concert and nightclub dates that would become a
part of jazz history.

In February, Thelonious Monk, a pianist-composer best known
then for solo and combo work, appeared in concert with a
big band at New York's Town Hall, an event preserved on
disc by Riverside Records (Amazon.com:
http://xrl.us/MonkLive ). In March, trumpeter Miles Davis
recorded his modal-based "Kind of Blue" LP, now the biggest-
selling traditional-jazz album of all time.

Tenor-saxophonist John Coltrane, one of Davis's "Kind of
Blue" colleagues, in May made his vigorous "Giant Steps,"
an LP that helped shape the course of jazz for the next 20
years. And also in May, bassist-composer Charles Mingus
delivered "Mingus Ah Um," a gospel-tinged album that many
consider a pinnacle of his work..

Continued: http://xrl.us/1959Jazz

What a strange thing to say. "Giant Steps" was Coltrane's
goodbye to be-bop, and he showed with this album that he
had mastered it and had taken it as far as it could go.
It was a summing up of the previous 15 years, not something
that would shape jazz for the next 20 years. It's one of
my favorite jazz performances, but Ornette Coleman, Mingus
and Davis/Coltrane's modal music affected the next 20
years, not "Giant Steps".

It sounds like one of those ready-made phrases you read
in newspapers, like when they talk about a physician
or scientist: "He is a leading physician...." How do
they know? Do they take a poll? Is there a physician-o-meter
you hold up to their chest that gives you a reading?

LA