Progressive Jazz

Progressive Jazz is a putative jazz style of the late 1940s and early 1950s. This label has first used Stan Kenton to describe aspects of his own creation. He could draw this particular Pete Rugolo, Robert Graettinger, Chico O'Farrill or Franklyn Marks with their large orchestral compositions and arrangements " with a massed wealth mighty chords and superimposed geschichter sound masses " for the Kenton band.

The label of Progressive Jazz was later by critics and fans partly to the music of Dave Brubeck, the Modern Jazz Quartet and applied developments of Cool jazz and Third Stream. Progressive in this context meant an understanding of music, which built on specific achievements of classical music, and in particular of the late Romantic and their harmonic extensions.