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Cool is considered by several notable professors to be a complex, black African philosophical construct that encompasses certain fundamental elements which permeate indigenous, or traditional, African cultures. Cool crosses ethnic and tribal divisions and is integral to African spirituality, notions of proper comportment, standards of physical grace and beauty, and myriad forms of artistic expression—including the design and execution of functional art, in textiles, everyday implements, sculpture and masks, and in music and dance. An authoritative dictionary is yet to include this definition of cool. Image File history File links Stop_hand. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... World map showing location of Africa A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second_largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. ...

Ontological framework

Apparent opposites, or countervailing constructs, not only meet— as with the Kalunga line, a sacred, underwater line of demarcation where the worlds of the living and of those passed on reconnect and interact— but can and often do inhabit the same space, conceptually or literally. Sometimes, one element inhabits the interstices of another in time and space. This latter principle is evident in the syncopation, polyphony and polyrhythmic complexity of West African music and some Afro-Cuban music (and, to some extent, in African American music), and is an essential characteristic of an element of jazz: swing . This is in marked contrast to the traditional European approach to music, which is structurally linear and rhythmically regimented ^[1]. In this sense, the traditional African ontological approach is the opposite of that of, for example, Zoroastrianism, where Light and Darkness are warring concepts ^[2]. In the African understanding, there is no struggle, no antagonism; there is cohabitation, balance and communion. In music, syncopation is the stressing of a normally unstressed beat in a bar or the failure to sound a tone on an accented beat. ... Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ... Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms. ... The Caribbean island of Cuba has been influential in the development of multiple musical styles in the 19th and 20th centuries. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the early 1920s in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... In music, a swung note or shuffle note is the rhythmic device in which the duration of the initial note in a pair is augmented and that of the second is diminished. ... Zoroastrianism (Persian: زرتشتی, Zartoshti) was once the imperial religion of Sassanid (Sassanian) Iran, and played an important role in the Achaemenid as well as Parthian empires in Persia or more properly Iran. ...

Mystical coolness and the "mask of the cool"

In his work African Art in Motion ^[3], scholar Robert Farris Thompson (1974) divides the philosophy of cool into five distinct elements: visibility, luminosity (of motion), smoothness, rebirth and reincarnation and composure of the face (the "mask of the cool").

Thompson explains the cool aesthetic in African and African American movement in African Art in Motion:

The mind of an elder within the body of the young is suggested by the striking African custom of dancing "hot" with a "cool" unsmiling face. This quality seems to have haunted Ten Rhyne at the Cape in 1673 and it struck the imagination of an early observer of strongly African-influenced dancing in Louisiana in the early nineteenth century, who noted "thumping ecstasy" and "intense solemnity of mien." The mask of the cool, or facial serenity, has been noted at many points in Afro-American history. The Cape of Good Hope; looking towards the west, from the coastal cliffs above Cape Point. ... Official language(s) English and French Capital Baton Rouge Largest city New Orleans at last census; probably Baton Rouge since Hurricane Katrina Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 31st 134,382 km² 210 km 610 km 16 29°N to 33°N 89°W to 94°W Population...

It is interesting that what remains a spiritual principle in some parts of Africa and the rare African-influenced portions of the modern U.S.A., such as tidewater Georgia, becomes in the mainline Afro-American urban culture an element of contemporary street behavior: In the United States: Tidewater is a name used to refer to an area in Virginia, in the region around Hampton Roads, Newport News, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach: see Tidewater region of Virginia. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ...

Negro boys…have a 'cool' way of walking in which the upper trunk and pelvis rock fore and aft while the head remains stable with the eyes looking straight ahead. The…walk is quite slow, and the Negroes take it as a way of 'strutting' or 'showing off'.... Negro means black in Spanish, Portuguese and ancient Italian languages, being derived from the Latin word niger of the same meaning. ...

The…cool style of male walking in the United States is called bopping…. Mystical coolness in Africa has changed in urban Afro-American assertions of independent power. But the functions, to heal and gather strength, partially remain. And the name cool [kule], remains. And the body is still played in two patterns, one stable, the other active, part energy and part mind.

The cool aesthetic in African American culture

Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis is an icon of cool.

Thompson's elucidation of cool helps explain cool in other aspects of African American culture. Cool in the African American context finds expression largely as an aesthetic. For decades, African American jazz musicians and, later, black-power activists in the 1970s were known for wearing sunglasses, even indoors and at night ^[4]. The dark, impenetrable lenses of a pair of "shades" help to mask emotion and, thus, "cool" the face. Further, the African custom of moving "hot" with a coolness of mien remains in evidence in African American dance today. Another example of cool in African American culture is the intensely emotional vocal style of soulful crooner Jerry Butler, delivered with trademark, inscrutable composure, which earned him the moniker "The Ice Man" ^[5]. Image File history File links CD art for a posthumous release (2003) of Miles Davis ballads, Miles Davis Plays Classic Ballads. ... Image File history File links CD art for a posthumous release (2003) of Miles Davis ballads, Miles Davis Plays Classic Ballads. ... Davis 1959 album Kind of Blue, likely the best-selling jazz album ever. ... Aesthetics (or esthetics) (from the Greek word αισθητική) is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Soul Music is the sixteenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1994. ... Jerry Butler Jerry Butler, Jr. ...

African American use of 'cool' has evolved to include related meanings. In addition to indicating an absence of conflict, 'cool' also is used to communicate agreement or compliance and to describe something 'hip' (from the Wolof word "hipi," meaning to open one's eyes, to be aware ) ^[6], meaning fashionable and current; as well as something desirable, aesthetically appealing, or something of sublime or understated elegance. Over time, the African-American uses of the word have become incorporated into mainstream American English. Just as jazz began to change and influence popular music in the 1920s, the language of jazzmen began to appear in the American lexicon. Mainstream slang usage of 'cool' to mean “excellent" or "superlative” was first recorded in written English in the early 1930s. In the 1940s and 1950s, 'cool' became an integral part of the vocabulary of beatniks and some mainstream youth eager to embrace the language of their jazz-musician idols. Since then, the word has become ubiquitous in world popular culture. Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, the Gambia, and Mauritania, and it is the native language of the ethnic group of the Wolof people. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the early 1920s in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... It has been suggested that Roaring Twenties be merged into this article or section. ... // Events and trends A public speech by Benito Mussolini, founder of the Fascist movement The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the global depression. ... // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ... // Events and No. ... Beatnik can refer to two different things: A member of the Beat Generation An esoteric programming language This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in any given society. ...

References

Footnotes

General

• Lewis MacAdams, Birth of the Cool. Beat, Bebop and the American Avant-Garde, Free Press, 2001. The title of the book comes from Miles Davis's 1949-1950 jazz recording sessions. This is not intended as a scholarly work, and is reported to have many (relatively minor) inaccuracies.

• Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America. Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0195042654

• Robert Farris Thompson, African Art in Motion. Exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (University of California Press, 1974), trade paperback, ISBN 0520027035; University of California (November, 1979), ISBN 0520038444; University of California (November, 1979), paperback, ISBN 0520038436

• Robert Farris Thompson, "Dance and Culture, An Aesthetic of the Cool: West Africa Dance" in African Forum 2, no. 2; Fall 1996: pp 85-102

Davis 1959 album Kind of Blue, likely the best-selling jazz album ever. ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) is a common year starting on Saturday. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the early 1920s in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ...

External links

• Online Dictionary
• "Epistemological Dualism and the Primal Other: Traversing the Countours of the Encounter -- Again," Tony Balcom