Birth Of The Cool
by Miles Davis
Listen & Collect
Complete your collection or upgrade your listening experience.
Miles Davis bestography
Birth Of The Cool is ranked 5th best out of 126 albums by Miles Davis on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Miles Davis is Kind Of Blue which is ranked number 36 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 20,946.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to Birth Of The Cool on YouTube
Birth Of The Cool track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 78 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Birth Of The Cool rankings
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 8 hours ago).
Patman360
Tamthebam
paladisiac
junodog4
Robert Anton Wilson
RockyRaccoon
AAL2014Birth Of The Cool collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 252 members
Birth Of The Cool ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 476 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 07/18/2026 00:02 | xhitmanx | 1,449 | 79/100 |
| ! | 07/12/2026 18:45 | liquidbottle | 775 | 82/100 |
| ! | 06/16/2026 15:21 |  PauloFernandes | 1,036 | 92/100 |
| ! | 06/08/2026 20:07 | duelek | 2,080 | 75/100 |
| ! | 04/30/2026 20:13 |  VictorVale | 3,868 | 81/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 1% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 80.4/100, a mean average of 79.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 80.5/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.8.
Birth Of The Cool favourites
Showing latest 20 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 65 members
Birth Of The Cool comments
Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 17 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First |
Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)
I think this is the earliest released album in my record collection. As stated by many others, cool and smooth. Not surprisingly, it does sound a little outdated, even in relation to his 60's work.
Fascinating, unique arrangements both in instrumentation and composition.
A relaxing listen that flows beautifully and is led by the trumpet of the great Miles Davis. His playing is phenomenal and the way he exchanges with other members of the ensemble is genius. One of the best examples of this is on Jeru which is my favourite cut on the record. There are more great songs as well such as Move, Moon Dreams and Boplicity. However, it is lacking a little bit of flare we get on later releases and some of the instrumentals aren't fantastic. This is a great starting point for Davis and for people who are just starting to listen to him but he will go on to do far better things. Overall, this is such a chill album and really lives up to the brand of being cool.
When I was a budding Sax player in High School, I was handed sheet music to Boplicity and it opened my world musically to so many things I wasn't ready for at the time. Not Miles' best work, by a mile, but still a necessary listen when following the history of Jazz.
yeah well I'm the second coming
2nd-Impressions 09/23/2020 20:55 | #258603
'Move' and 'Moon Dreams' are some favorites here, but this record is far from his best. Still a good album, but much of his other work is deserving of more praise.
teague 07/25/2020 05:41 | #256180
Miles Davis's cool jazz pinnacle. Everything feels so slick and groovy.
Fischman 04/14/2019 15:15 | #234974
Sure it's cool... maybe a little too cool... as in sedate. Miles was always good at bringing out his unique voice in defiance of tradition, but I dont find this voice as interesting as others he would bring out.
Not enough o's in smooth....
A solid compilation of cool jazz, love the short briefness of each track and is very easy to listen to. However, at its time it already kinda sounded outdated compared to the hard bop and modal jazz he was working on and definitely doesn't have that edge that his later work does.
Your feedback for Birth Of The Cool
The top-voted comments get featured on our charts, Album of the Day, and the site newsletter.
