Cool jazz fills the room as guests sit on couches and at tables enjoying the dim atmosphere.

BBC: New York City's classic hotel bars

His face is arresting, a long, narrow brow over almond eyes lit by youth and restless ambition, high cheekbones and a cool jazz man's trimmed mustache.

WSJ: The Night Wilt Chamberlain Made History

Musically, his career blazed a long and brilliant trail from bebop with Charlie Parker to epoch-making cool jazz, orchestral suites with arranger Gil Evans and landmark quintets which launched such young stars as John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock.

ECONOMIST: Jazz books: Swing that music | The

I'm a bright enough guy, but all the great books I'll ever read I read in college and graduate school, and my musical tastes are straight down the middle: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Mostly Mozart, the Brandenburgs, a little cool jazz, a few show tunes.

NPR: Excerpt: 'The Practice of Deceit'

Add the magic of Hollywood and later the sound of the Beach Boys' pop and cool West Coast jazz: no wonder the world thought California to be especially blessed.

ECONOMIST: The California dream

The Miles Davis Nonet's subtle harmonic shadings marked the beginnings of what came to be known as the "cool sound" in jazz.

NPR: Joe Lovano, Returning to 'The Birth of the Cool'

Long-time bands like the Jazz Vipers play at a cool little bar called the Spotted Cat.

NPR: New Orleans Waits for Your Business

Krall took the jazz world by the horns back in the mid-1990s, when her cool, understated approach to singing combined with her femme fatale looks and manner to make her the darling of audiences too young to remember names like Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald.

NPR: Diana Krall: 'From This Moment On'

Brubeck took California's "West Coast Cool" school and with mathematical intellection removed it even further from the sweaty dance rhythms of jazz gone by: The album's compositions were in tricky, decidedly dance-averse time signatures.

WSJ: Mercurial Charles Mingus | Mingus Ah Um | Masterpiece by Eric Felten