Mike Zwerin, a trombonist who became a jazz journalist and shot to fame with miles Davis on the seminal album, “Birth of the Cool”, has died at age 79. The musician died in Paris in the early hours of Friday after a long illness, his family said.

Zwerin’s entry into the world of jazz began in 1949 in New York City when Miles Davis spotted him playing in a club and asked him to join him for a session. In a 1998 Culture Kiosque article, Zwerin wrote that going to that recording session, he “felt like a batboy who had been offered a tryout with the team.”

“When I came to rehearsal, it was the band called Birth of Cool,” Zwerin recalled in a Bloomberg interview in 2005.

The legendary album — which marked the coming-out party of cool jazz, which is also known as West Coast jazz — also featured Gerry Mulligan, Max Roach, John Lewis, Lee Konitz, Junior Collins, Bill Barber and Al McKibbon.

“[Davis said] I like your sound … That was the biggest compliment I ever got.”

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