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Birth of the Cool is a compilation album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1957 on Capitol Records. It compiles twelve tracks recorded by Davis's nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950.

Featuring unusual instrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consisted of innovative arrangements influenced by classical music techniques such as polyphony, and marked a major development in post-bebop jazz. As the title implies, these recordings are considered seminal in the history of cool jazz. Most of them were originally released in the 10-inch 78-rpm format and are all approximately three minutes long.

In 1947, Miles Davis was playing in Charlie Parker's quintet, replacing Dizzy Gillespie, who had left in 1945 due to Parker's growing alcohol and drug problems. Davis recorded several albums worth of material with Parker at this time, including Parker's Sessions for the Savoy and Dial labels. Davis' first records sold under his own name were recorded with Parker's band, in 1947, and were more arranged and rehearsed than Parker's usual approach to recording. By 1948, Davis had three years of bebop playing under his belt, but he struggled to match the speed and ranges of the likes of Gillespie and Parker, choosing instead to play in the mid range of his instrument. In 1948, Davis, becoming increasingly concerned about growing tensions within the Parker quintet, left the group and began looking for a new band to work with.

At the same time, arranger Gil Evans began hosting informal salons at his apartment, located on 55th Street in Manhattan, three blocks away from the jazz nightclubs of 52nd Street. Evans had gained a reputation in the jazz world for his orchestration of bebop tunes for the Claude Thornhill orchestra in the mid-1940s. Keeping an open door policy, Evans' apartment came to host many of the young jazz artists of late-1940s New York. The salon featured discussions about the future of jazz, including a proposed group with a new sound. According to jazz historian Ted Gioia:

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