Das Jahr der Innovationen im Jazz

The year 1959 saw the release of Dave Brubeck's "Time Out", John Coltrane's "Giant Steps", Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue", Bill Evans' "Portrait in Jazz" and Ornette Coleman's "The Shape of Jazz to Come", all style-defining albums that were groundbreaking in the development of jazz. They contain metrical and harmonic-melodic concepts as well as fundamental innovations in the organisation of ensemble playing and the handling of improvised music, which are an integral part of jazz today. The author traces the origins and antecedents of these concepts, examines the protagonists' biographical references to the concepts and the zeitgeist, and looks at the reception history of the albums.