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Fairly lengthy article in today's Arizona Republic, by way of the Baltimore Sun, on the popularity of the word "cool" and its shifts in meaning through the years..
Article here:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0116cool16.html

..r

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Fairly lengthy article in today's Arizona Republic, by way of the Baltimore Sun, on the popularity of the word "cool" and its shifts in meaning through the years.. Article here: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0116cool16.html[/nq]
I doubt that Birth of the Cool is the "best-selling jazz album of all time". I'd've thought another Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue (1958), might be, and some references on the Web suggest that this is so. In both cases it might just be that they're historically important album recordings that happen to still be in print. Kind of Blue *is* the most influential jazz album ever recorded, certainly.
Anyway, the use of "cool" in the Birth of the Cool title (imposed retroactively in the mid-'50s) was a specific reference to the ephemeral early '50s jazz style called "cool jazz" rather than a general use of slang "cool".The article quotes something called the Online Etymology Dictionary as saying that cool meaning "fashionable" is "said to have been popularized in jazz circles by tenor saxophonist Lester Young". Oy! This almost certainly represents a misunderstanding either by the article writer or whoever's responsible for that Online Etymology Dictionary, which seems to be yet another dubious-value shoddy-scholarship sort of online resource (NTTAWWT). Lester "Pres" Young, one of the most important swing-era musicians, popularized, in a musician sense, the "cool" style of playing saxophone (minimal vibrato, emotionally restrained), which was later taken up in particular in the '50s by two saxophonists closely associated with the "cool jazz" style, Stan Getz and Lee Konitz (Konitz's playing was so "cool" that it was said to approximate a sine wave).

I guess it's possible that Pres was the first to link the slang use of "cool" to this style of playing saxophone, but where's the evidence?

Somehow "cool" went from meaning "admirably nonchalant" (a meaning it still has) to also meaning "admirably hip". I don't know when that occurred, but I would guess that it post-dates (though probably resulting from) the use of "cool" in jazz during the 1940s. IOW, when Pres was playing saxophone in the 1930s and 1940s, "cool" wasn't used to mean "fashionable".
The OED seems to get this right (except that they fail to acknowledge the post-1974 importance of Fonzie (hi Jesse!)). For "Applied to jazz music: restrained or relaxed in style", their first reference is Charlie (Bird) Parker's recording of a tune called "Cool Blues" in 1947 (so it's nice to see that the OED uses titles of recordings). For "Hence, characteristic of those who favor 'cool' music; relaxed; unemotional; also used loosely as a general term of approval", their earliest cite is 1948 (referring to bebop people using "Cool" as an expression of approval). I'd quarrel with that definition at least originally it was "characteristic of those who play* 'cool' music", since this was first and foremost a reference to a style of musical performance, and not to a style of *listener.
I'm familiar with the tune "Cool Blues". The melody is simpler, less angular and show-offy than typical bebop originals, including other blues tunes by Bird; that could be the reason he picked that title. Ira Gitler says that a faster-tempo recording of it was released under the title "Hot Blues".

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[nq:2]Fairly lengthy article in today's Arizona Republic, by way of ... its shifts in meaning through the years.. Article here: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0116cool16.html[/nq]
(snip)
[nq:1]The article quotes something called the Online Etymology Dictionary as saying that cool meaning "fashionable" is "said to have been ... was the first to link the slang use of "cool" to this style of playing saxophone, but where's the evidence?[/nq]
In the documentary Song of the Spirit , a Young
biographer, Douglas H. Daniels, claims that Young
coined the phrase "that's cool." Jackie McLean, the great bop alto player, agrees: "Anyone who tells you otherwise is ***ting," he warned me. "Lester Young was the first."
MacAdams also mentions an early use of "cool" in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men (1935), her account of gathering folklore in Florida and New Orleans. Fortunately, it's now available online:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapters/Chapter1.html "Got yo' guitar wid you, Johnnie?"
"Man, you know Ah don't go nowhere unless Ah take my box wid me," said Johnnie in his starched blue shirt, collar pin with heart bangles hanging on each end and his cream pants with the black stripe. "And what make it so cool, Ah don't go nowhere unless I play it."

The expression "what make it so cool" pops up in a few other places in non-musical contexts (all in the Florida section of the book):

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:xroads.virginia.edu+make-it-so-cool

So it looks like "cool" was developing as a term of approval in the '30s beyond the jazz scene, at least in black communities of Florida.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]In the documentary Song of the Spirit , a Young biographer, Douglas H. Daniels, claims that Young coined the ... developing as a term of approval in the '30s beyond the jazz scene, at least in black communities of Florida.[/nq]
Checking Google Groups, I see that Donna once noted a 1933 citation for "cool" in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which as it turns out is from another of Hurston's works:

And whut make it so cool, he got money 'cumulated. "The Gilded Six-Bits" (Story Magazine, 1933), online at: http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/hurston.htm

And on Amazon I found this from Hurston's first novel:

De best in de State, and whut make it so cool, he's de bes' lookin'.
Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934)
It's striking that Hurston's mid-'30s usage of "cool" in its modern sense is (AFAIK) limited to the pseudo-cleft construction "what/whut make it so cool..." (appearing once in '33, once in '34, and four times in '35). Could this fixed expression have been modern "cool"'s only common AAVE usage before Lester Young et al.?

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[nq:2]In the documentary Song of the Spirit , a ... is ***ting," he warned me. "Lester Young was the first."[/nq]
A comment on this: even though Jackie was hanging out with Bud Powell and other older jazz musicians while he was still in high school, in the late '40s, I suspect that he was too young to be reporting this firsthand (Jackie McLean was born in 1932; the high point in Lester Young's career was the late '30s).
[nq:2]The expression "what make it so cool" pops up in ... the jazz scene, at least in black communities of Florida.[/nq]
[nq:1]Checking Google Groups, I see that Donna once noted a 1933 citation for "cool" in the Random House Historical Dictionary ... times in '35). Could this fixed expression have been modern "cool"'s only common AAVE usage before Lester Young et al.?[/nq]
I wonder whether this is really the modern sense of "cool". Granted, it seems to be used to suggest "approval".

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[nq:2]Checking Google Groups, I see that Donna once noted a ... "cool"'s only common AAVE usage before Lester Young et al.?[/nq]
[nq:1]I wonder whether this is really the modern sense of "cool". Granted, it seems to be used to suggest "approval".[/nq]
Actually, thinking about it again, it seems that there are only two possibilities:
(a) "Cool" = "worthy of approval" was around in AAVE in the mid-'30s and therefore the OED is wrong about "cool" deriving from the jazz usage (which originally had nothing to do with approval).

(b) The OED is right, and therefore this Hurston usage ("what make it so cool") (say, how does Ray Wise feel about the "whut"?) is unrelated to the modern usage of "cool".

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I wonder whether this is really the modern sense of "cool". Granted, it seems to be used to suggest "approval".[/nq]
[nq:1]Actually, thinking about it again, it seems that there are only two possibilities: (a) "Cool" = "worthy of approval" was ... it so cool") (say, how does Ray Wise feel about the "whut"?) is unrelated to the modern usage of "cool".[/nq]
I would need more information about the speech of the person in question to be able to say whether "whut" was being used here as eye dialect or simply as phonetic spelling.

Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I would need more information about the speech of the person in question to be able to say whether "whut" was being used here as eye dialect or simply as phonetic spelling.[/nq]
Very good point. Obviously, as a BrE/AusE speaker, my pronunciation is 'wot'. The 'whut' spelling presumably indicates the vowel sound, but it is not clear whether it also indicates an 'hw' initial consonant - I have seen 'phwut' used to represent this.

Rob Bannister

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