The cool factor- who has it?

Miles Davis was not a cool guy in real life, many, many issues. And some of the others mentioned here also not cool in real life. Harming oneself is one thing, harming others is quite another. 

I also saw Miles live towards the end, the audience treated him as a god, basically all he could do at this point was blast out a single note from time to time. Really one the worst displays of trumpet playing I've ever seen, band carried the show, he was missing in action. 

Giving the women their due. Julie London, Peggy Lee, Lana Del Rey. 

Mose Allison so cool and clever.

Louis Prima and Keely Smith, "just A Gigolo", their whole act was the epitome of cool. 

Dave Cousins of Strawbs, do people equate sensitive with cool, or is cool about being aloof? I do love the entire Brit folk/rock/traditional movement of early 70's. Brit music in general way cool, they've invented so many genres.

For some reason I never forget this moment when I was perhaps 12 or 13, listening to the Monkees, really tthought them great, and one of my older sisters puts them down stating session musicians did all the playing, I was kind of hurt, but I continued to like them. My continuing admiration of them turned out to be well founded, Nesmith and Tork both could have played on any of those albums and held their own, and voice is an instrument in any case. Mickey went on to become a decent drummer and did some interesting things over his lifetime, same as Michael and Peter, even Davey, teenybopper heart throb wasn't half bad. Nesmith was always the coolest one for me, he wrote, did some fine solo stuff, produced, plus a very intelligent guy. Bet you didn't know his mother invented Liquid Paper aka White Out.

I believe Michael was a very serious guy, especially when it came to his music, he and Don Kirshner had major issues what with his insistence on studio musicians. Kirshner was a control freak, always claimed the Monkees were nothing without him. 

Complete serendipity, watching a Harry Nillson doc last night, who should come up but Mickey, seems like I see Mickey in every musical documentary, that guy knew everyone! And he was the "Circus Boy" prior to all this. 

And Peter Tork lived out in the valley Charles Manson days, he hung out with all the cool cats. And what about "Head" with the Nicholson. These guys got around, some think of them only as teenybopper idols, so much more, come to think of it they are kind of cool.

Meant to say Laurel Canyon, Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Byrds, Morrison, etc.

When i envision cool its always 50's jazz artists that first come to mind, Thelonius Monk is the epitome of cool for me. Walking around on stage, humming, and that unique, sort of disjointed piano style, and the hip clothing, one suave dude! And I could go on and on with so many jazz and blues guys from 40's-70's.

John Lee Hooker, the voice alone makes him cool as hell!

Roy Orbison certainly cool, the shades man. Early Elvis.

Mick Fleetwood with the balls. Mick Jagger and James Brown had the moves. Just at top of mind Tony Joe White, Polk Salad Annie song, he was one of those swamp dogs, speaking of Swamp Dog, he's been going a long time. I could go on and on.