Bebop or bop is a style of
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex
chord progression
In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice ...
s with rapid chord changes and numerous
changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and
improvisation
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
based on a combination of
harmonic structure
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However, ...
, the use of scales and occasional references to the
melody
A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
.
Bebop developed as the younger generation of jazz musicians expanded the creative possibilities of jazz beyond the popular, dance-oriented
swing music
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...
-style with a new "musician's music" that was not as danceable and demanded close listening.
[Lott, Eric. Double V, Double-Time: Bebop's Politics of Style. Callaloo, No. 36 (Summer, 1988), pp. 597–605] As bebop was not intended for dancing, it enabled the musicians to play at faster tempos. Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex
syncopation
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...
,
altered chord
An altered chord is a chord that replaces one or more notes from the diatonic scale with a neighboring pitch from the chromatic scale. By the broadest definition, any chord with a non-diatonic chord tone is an altered chord. The simplest examp ...
s,
extended chord
In music, extended chords are certain chords (built from thirds) or triads with notes ''extended'', or added, beyond the seventh. Ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords are extended chords. The thirteenth is the farthest extension diatonical ...
s, chord substitutions, asymmetrical phrasing, and intricate melodies. Bebop groups used
rhythm section
A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band.
The rhythm sec ...
s in a way that expanded their role. Whereas the key ensemble of the swing music era was the
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...
of up to fourteen pieces playing in an ensemble-based style, the classic bebop group was a small combo that consisted of
saxophone
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...
(alto or tenor),
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
,
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
,
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
,
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
, and
drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
playing music in which the ensemble played a supportive role for soloists. Rather than play heavily arranged music, bebop musicians typically played the melody of a composition (called the "head") with the accompaniment of the rhythm section, followed by a section in which each of the performers improvised a solo, then returned to the melody at the end of the composition.
Some of the most influential bebop artists, who were typically composer-performers, are
alto sax player
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
;
tenor sax
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...
players
Dexter Gordon,
Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a ...
, and
James Moody;
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
player
Buddy DeFranco; trumpeters
Fats Navarro,
Clifford Brown
Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car accident, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring", an ...
,
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
, and
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...
; pianists
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Along with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a leading figure in the development of modern ...
and
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "B ...
;
electric guitarist
''Electric Guitarist'' is the fourth solo album by guitarist John McLaughlin (musician), John McLaughlin, released in 1978 through Columbia Records originally on gramophone record, vinyl; a remastered Compact Disc, CD was issued in 1990 as part ...
Charlie Christian; and drummers
Kenny Clarke,
Max Roach, and
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
.
Etymology
The term "bebop" is derived from nonsense syllables (vocables) used in
scat singing; the first known example of "bebop" being used was in
McKinney's Cotton Pickers' "Four or Five Times", recorded in 1928.
[Gleason, Ralph J. (15 February 1959]
"Jazz Fan Really Digs the Language – All the Way Back to Its Origin"
''Toledo Blade''. It appears again in a 1936 recording of "I'se a Muggin'" by
Jack Teagarden
Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden (August 20, 1905 – January 15, 1964) was an American jazz trombonist and singer. According to critic Scott Yannow of Allmusic, Teagarden was the preeminent American jazz trombone player before the bebop era of the 19 ...
.
A variation, "rebop", appears in several 1939 recordings.
The first, known print appearance also occurred in 1939, but the term was little-used subsequently until applied to the music now associated with it in the mid-1940s.
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "B ...
claims that the original title "Bip Bop" for his composition "
52nd Street Theme
This is a list of compositions by jazz musician Thelonious Monk.
0-9 52nd Street Theme
A contrafact based loosely on rhythm changes in C, and was copyrighted by Monk under the title "Nameless" in April 1944. The tune was also called "Bip Bop" b ...
", was the origin of the name bebop.
Some researchers speculate that it was a term used by
Charlie Christian because it sounded like something he hummed along with his playing.
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...
stated that the audiences coined the name after hearing him scat the then-nameless compositions to his players and the press ultimately picked it up, using it as an official term: "People, when they'd wanna ask for those numbers and didn't know the name, would ask for bebop." Another theory is that it derives from the cry of "Arriba! Arriba!" used by Latin American bandleaders of the period to encourage their bands. At times, the terms "bebop" and "rebop" were used interchangeably. By 1945, the use of "bebop"/"rebop" as nonsense syllables was widespread in
R&B music, for instance
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles M ...
's "
Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
"Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop" is a 1946 song by Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra. The song's lead vocals were performed by Lionel Hampton himself and the recording featured Herbie Fields on alto sax. The song went to number one on the R&B Juke Box chart ...
". The bebop musician or bopper became a
stock character
A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...
in jokes of the 1950s, overlapping with the
beatnik
Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle.
History
In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the undergr ...
.
Instrumentation
![52nd Street, New York, by Gottlieb, 1948](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/52nd_Street%2C_New_York%2C_by_Gottlieb%2C_1948.jpg)
The classic bebop combo consisted of saxophone, trumpet, double bass, drums and piano. This was a format used (and popularized) by both Parker (alto sax) and Gillespie (trumpet) in their 1940s groups and recordings, sometimes augmented by an extra saxophonist or guitar (electric or acoustic), occasionally adding other horns (often a trombone) or other strings (usually violin) or dropping an instrument and leaving only a quartet.
Musical style
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate
melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers. The music itself seemed jarringly different to the ears of the public, who were used to the bouncy, organized, danceable compositions of Benny Goodman and
Glenn Miller
Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Arm ...
during the swing era. Instead, bebop appeared to sound racing, nervous, erratic and often fragmented.
While swing music tended to feature orchestrated big band arrangements, bebop music highlighted improvisation. Typically, a theme (a "head," often the main melody of a pop or jazz standard of the swing era) would be presented together at the beginning and the end of each piece, with improvisational solos based on the chords of the compositions. Thus, the majority of a piece in bebop style would be improvisation, the only threads holding the work together being the underlying harmonies played by the
rhythm section
A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band.
The rhythm sec ...
. Sometimes improvisation included references to the original melody or to other well-known melodic lines ("quotes", "licks" or "riffs"). Sometimes they were entirely original, spontaneous melodies from start to finish.
Chord progressions for bebop compositions were often taken directly from popular swing-era compositions and reused with a new and more complex melody, forming new compositions (see
contrafact). This practice was already well-established in earlier jazz, but came to be central to the bebop style. The style made use of several relatively common chord progressions, such as blues (at base, I-IV-V, but infused with II-V motion) and 'rhythm changes' (I-VI-II-V, the chords to the 1930s pop standard "
I Got Rhythm"). Late bop also moved towards extended forms that represented a departure from pop and show compositions. Bebop chord voicings often dispensed with the root and fifth tones, instead basing them on the leading intervals that defined the tonality of the chord. That opened up creative possibilities for harmonic improvisation such as
tritone substitution
The tritone substitution is a common chord substitution found in both jazz and classical music. Where jazz is concerned, it was the precursor to more complex substitution patterns like Coltrane changes. Tritone substitutions are sometimes used in ...
s and use of
diminished scale
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), this symmetrical ...
based improvised lines that could resolve to the key center in numerous and surprising ways.
Bebop musicians also employed several harmonic devices not typical of previous jazz. Complicated harmonic substitutions for more basic chords became commonplace. These substitutions often emphasized certain dissonant intervals such as the flat ninth, sharp ninth or the sharp eleventh/
tritone. This unprecedented harmonic development which took place in bebop is often traced back to a transcendent moment experienced by Charlie Parker while performing "
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
" at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, New York, in early 1942. As described by Parker:
[Kubik, Gerhard. "Bebop: a case in point. The African Matrix in Jazz Harmonic Practices." (Critical essay) Black Music Research Journal 22 Mar 2005. Digital.]
I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used, ... and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes. I couldn't play it.... I was working over "Cherokee", and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. It came alive.
Gerhard Kubik
Gerhard Kubik (born 10 December 1934) is an Austrian music ethnologist from Vienna. He studied ethnology, musicology and African languages at the University of Vienna. He published his doctoral dissertation in 1971 and achieved habilitation in 1 ...
postulates that the harmonic development in bebop sprung from the
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
, and other African-related tonal sensibilities, rather than twentieth century Western art music, as some have suggested. Kubik states: "Auditory inclinations were the African legacy in
arker'slife, reconfirmed by the experience of the blues tonal system, a sound world at odds with the Western
diatonic chord
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...
categories. Bebop musicians eliminated Western-style functional harmony in their music while retaining the strong central tonality of the blues as a basis for drawing upon various African matrices."
Samuel Floyd
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...
states that blues were both the bedrock and propelling force of bebop, bringing about three main developments:
* A new harmonic conception, using extended chord structures that led to unprecedented harmonic and melodic variety.
* A developed and even more highly syncopated, linear rhythmic complexity and a melodic angularity in which the
blue note of the fifth degree was established as an important melodic-harmonic device.
* The reestablishment of the blues as the music's primary organizing and functional principle.
Some of the harmonic innovations in bebop appear similar to innovations in Western "serious" music, from
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...
to
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
, although bebop has few direct borrowings from classical music and appears to largely revive tonal-harmonic ideas taken from the blues in a basically non-Western approach rooted in African traditions.
However, bebop probably drew on many sources. An insightful YouTube video with
Jimmy Raney
James Elbert Raney (August 20, 1927 – May 10, 1995) was an American jazz guitarist, born in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, known for his work from 1951 to 1952 and then from 1953 to 1954 with the Red Norvo trio (replacing Tal Farlow) and ...
, a jazz guitarist who played with
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
, describes how Parker would listen to the music of
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
, a leading 20th century classical composer. Raney describes Parker's knowledge of Bartók and
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
, in particular Schoenberg's
Pierrot Lunaire, and says that a section from Bartók's Fifth Quartet sounded a lot like some of Parker's
jazz improvisation.
[Raney, Jimmy and Jamey Abersold. "Jimmy & Jamey Discuss Charlie Parker", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10guXUWGGB4]
History
Swing era influences
![Dizzy Gillespie at the Downbeat Club, ca 1947](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Dizzy_Gillespie_at_the_Downbeat_Club%2C_ca_1947.jpg)
Bebop grew out of the culmination of trends that had been occurring within
swing music
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...
since the mid-1930s: less explicit timekeeping by the drummer, with the primary rhythmic pulse moving from the bass drum to the ride cymbal; a changing role for the piano away from rhythmic density towards accents and fills; less ornate horn section arrangements, trending towards riffs and more support for the underlying rhythm; more emphasis on freedom for soloists; and increasing harmonic sophistication in arrangements used by some bands. The path towards rhythmically streamlined, solo-oriented swing was blazed by the
territory bands
Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, six or seven n ...
of the southwest with
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
as their musical capital; their music was based on blues and other simple chord changes, riff-based in its approach to melodic lines and solo accompaniment, and expressing an approach adding melody and harmony to swing rather than the other way around. Ability to play sustained, high energy, and creative solos was highly valued for this newer style and the basis of intense competition. Swing-era jam sessions and "cutting contests" in Kansas City became legendary. The
Kansas City approach to swing was epitomized by the
Count Basie Orchestra
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 195 ...
, which came to national prominence in 1937.
One young admirer of the Basie orchestra in Kansas City was a teenage alto saxophone player named
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
. He was especially enthralled by their tenor saxophone player
Lester Young, who played long flowing melodic lines that wove in and out of the chordal structure of the composition but somehow always made musical sense. Young was equally daring with his rhythm and phrasing as with his approach to harmonic structures in his solos. He would frequently repeat simple two or three note figures, with shifting rhythmic accents expressed by volume, articulation, or tone. His phrasing was far removed from the two or four bar phrases that horn players had used until then. They would often be extended to an odd number of measures, overlapping the musical stanzas suggested by the harmonic structure. He would take a breath in the middle of a phrase, using the pause, or "free space", as a creative device. The overall effect was that his solos were something floating above the rest of the music, rather than something springing from it at intervals suggested by the ensemble sound. When the Basie orchestra burst onto the national scene with its 1937 recordings and widely broadcast New York engagements, it gained a national following, with legions of saxophone players striving to imitate Young, drummers striving to imitate
Jo Jones
Jonathan David Samuel Jones (October 7, 1911 – September 3, 1985) was an American jazz drummer. A band leader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948. He was sometimes k ...
, piano players striving to imitate Basie, and trumpet players striving to imitate
Buck Clayton. Parker played along with the new Basie recordings on a
Victrola until he could play Young's solos note for note.
In the late 1930s the
Duke Ellington Orchestra and the
Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra were exposing the music world to harmonically sophisticated musical arrangements by
Billy Strayhorn
William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include "Take ...
and
Sy Oliver, respectively, which implied chords as much as they spelled them out. That understatement of harmonically sophisticated chords would soon be used by young musicians exploring the new musical language of bebop.
The brilliant technique and harmonic sophistication of pianist
Art Tatum inspired young musicians including Charlie Parker and
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Along with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a leading figure in the development of modern ...
. In his early days in New York, Parker held a job washing dishes at an establishment where Tatum had a regular gig.
One of the divergent trends of the swing era was a resurgence of small ensembles playing "head" arrangements, following the approach used with Basie's big band. The small band format lent itself to more impromptu experimentation and more extended solos than did the bigger, more highly arranged bands. The 1939 recording of "
Body and Soul" by
Coleman Hawkins with a small band featured an extended saxophone solo with minimal reference to the theme that was unique in recorded jazz, and which would become characteristic of bebop. That solo showed a sophisticated harmonic exploration of the composition, with implied passing chords. Hawkins would eventually go on to lead the first formal recording of the bebop style in early 1944.
Going beyond swing in New York
As the 1930s turned to the 1940s, Parker went to New York as a featured player in the
Jay McShann Orchestra. In New York he found other musicians who were exploring the harmonic and melodic limits of their music, including
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...
, a
Roy Eldridge-influenced trumpet player who, like Parker, was exploring ideas based on upper chord intervals, beyond the
seventh
Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven.
Seventh may refer to:
* Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
* A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts
Film and television
*"The Seventh", a second-season epi ...
chords that had traditionally defined jazz harmony. While Gillespie was with
Cab Calloway
Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, conductor and dancer. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalist ...
, he practiced with bassist
Milt Hinton
Milton John Hinton (June 23, 1910 – December 19, 2000) was an American double bassist and photographer.
Regarded as the Dean of American jazz bass players, his nicknames included "Sporty" from his years in Chicago, "Fump" from his time on the ...
and developed some of the key harmonic and chordal innovations that would be the cornerstones of the new music; Parker did the same with bassist
Gene Ramey
Gene Ramey (April 4, 1913 – December 8, 1984) was an American jazz double bassist.
Ramey was born in Austin, Texas, United States, and played trumpet in college, but switched to contrabass when playing with George Corley's Royal Aces, The Moo ...
while with McShann's group. Guitarist
Charlie Christian, who had arrived in New York in 1939 was, like Parker, an innovator extending a southwestern style. Christian's major influence was in the realm of rhythmic
phrasing. Christian commonly emphasized weak beats and off beats and often ended his phrases on the second half of the fourth beat. Christian experimented with asymmetrical phrasing, which was to become a core element of the new bop style.
Bud Powell was pushing forward with a rhythmically streamlined, harmonically sophisticated, virtuosic piano style and
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "B ...
was adapting the new harmonic ideas to his style that was rooted in Harlem
stride piano playing.
Drummers such as
Kenny Clarke and
Max Roach were extending the path set by Jo Jones, adding the ride cymbal to the high hat cymbal as a primary timekeeper and reserving the bass drum for accents. Bass drum accents were colloquially termed "bombs", which referenced events in the world outside of New York as the new music was being developed. The new style of drumming supported and responded to soloists with accents and fills, almost like a shifting
call and response. This change increased the importance of the string bass. Now, the bass not only maintained the music's harmonic foundation, but also became responsible for establishing a metronomic rhythmic foundation by playing a "walking" bass line of four quarter notes to the bar. While small swing ensembles commonly functioned without a bassist, the new bop style required a bass in every small ensemble.
The kindred spirits developing the new music gravitated to sessions at
Minton's Playhouse, where Monk and Clarke were in the house band, and
Monroe's Uptown House
Clark Monroe's Uptown House, sometimes shortened to Monroe's Uptown House or simply Monroe's, was a nightclub in New York City. Along with Minton's Playhouse, it was one of the two principal jazz clubs in the early history of bebop.
History
Cla ...
, where Max Roach was in the house band.
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
(1989) ''Autobiography'', chapter 3, pp. 43–5, 57–8, 61–2 Part of the atmosphere created at jams like the ones found at Minton's Playhouse was an air of exclusivity: the "regular" musicians would often reharmonize the standards, add complex rhythmic and phrasing devices into their melodies, or "heads", and play them at breakneck tempos in order to exclude those whom they considered outsiders or simply weaker players.
These pioneers of the new music (which would later be termed ''bebop'' or ''bop'', although Parker himself never used the term, feeling it demeaned the music) began exploring advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords and chord substitutions. The bop musicians advanced these techniques with a more freewheeling, intricate and often arcane approach. Bop improvisers built upon the phrasing ideas first brought to attention by Lester Young's soloing style. They would often deploy phrases over an odd number of bars and overlap their phrases across bar lines and across major harmonic cadences. Christian and the other early boppers would also begin stating a harmony in their improvised line before it appeared in the song form being outlined by the rhythm section. This momentary dissonance creates a strong sense of forward motion in the improvisation. The sessions also attracted top musicians in the swing idiom such as
Coleman Hawkins,
Lester Young,
Ben Webster,
Roy Eldridge, and
Don Byas. Byas became the first tenor saxophone player to fully assimilate the new bebop style in his playing. In 1944 the crew of innovators was joined by
Dexter Gordon, a tenor saxophone player from the west coast in New York with the
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...
band, and a young trumpet player attending the
Juilliard School of Music
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...
,
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
.
Early recordings
Bebop originated as "musicians' music", played by musicians with other money-making gigs who did not care about the commercial potential of the new music. It did not attract the attention of major record labels nor was it intended to. Some of the early bebop was recorded informally. Some sessions at Minton's in 1941 were recorded, with Thelonious Monk alongside an assortment of musicians including
Joe Guy,
Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldridge, Don Byas, and Charlie Christian. Christian is featured in recordings from May 12, 1941 (Esoteric ES 548). Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were both participants at a recorded jam session hosted by
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously ...
on February 15, 1943, and Parker at another Eckstine jam session on February 28, 1943 (Stash ST-260; ST-CD-535).
Formal recording of bebop was first performed for small specialty labels, who were less concerned with mass-market appeal than the major labels, in 1944. On February 16, 1944, Coleman Hawkins led a session including Dizzy Gillespie and Don Byas, with a rhythm section consisting of
Clyde Hart
Clyde Hart (born 1935) is the director of track and field at Baylor University. Hart retired as head coach for the Baylor track program on June 14, 2005 after 42 years with the program.
Hart is primarily known as the only coach to have instructed ...
(piano),
Oscar Pettiford (bass) and Max Roach (drums) that recorded "
Woody'n You" (
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
751), the first formal recording of bebop. Charlie Parker and Clyde Hart were recorded in a quintet led by guitarist
Tiny Grimes for the
Savoy
Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps.
Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south.
Savo ...
label on September 15, 1944 (''Tiny's Tempo, I'll Always Love You Just the Same, Romance Without Finance, Red Cross''). Hawkins led another bebop-influenced recording session on October 19, 1944, this time with Thelonious Monk on piano, Edward Robinson on bass, and
Denzil Best
Denzil DaCosta Best (April 27, 1917 – May 24, 1965) was an American jazz percussionist and composer born in New York City. He was a prominent bebop drummer in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Biography
Best was born in New York City, into a musi ...
on drums (''On the Bean, Recollections, Flyin' Hawk, Driftin' on a Reed''; reissue,
Prestige PRCD-24124-2).
Parker, Gillespie, and others working the bebop idiom joined the
Earl Hines Orchestra in 1943, then followed vocalist Billy Eckstine out of the band into the
Billy Eckstine Orchestra in 1944. The Eckstine band was recorded on
V-discs
V-Disc ( "V" for Victory) was a record label that was formed in 1943 to provide records for U.S. military personnel. Captain Robert Vincent supervised the label from the Special Services division.
Many popular singers, big bands, and orches ...
, which were broadcast over the Armed Forces Radio Network and gained popularity for the band showcasing the new bebop style. The format of the Eckstine band, featuring vocalists and entertaining banter, would later be emulated by Gillespie and others leading bebop-oriented big bands in a style that might be termed "popular bebop". Starting with the Eckstine band's session for the
De Luxe label on December 5, 1944 (''If That's the Way You Feel, I Want to Talk About You, Blowing the Blues Away, Opus X, I'll Wait and Pray, The Real Thing Happened to Me''), bebop recording sessions grew more frequent. Parker had left the band by that date, but it still included Gillespie along with Dexter Gordon and
Gene Ammons
Eugene "Jug" Ammons (April 14, 1925 – August 6, 1974), also known as "The Boss", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. The son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons, Gene Ammons is remembered for his accessible music, steeped in soul and ...
on tenor,
Leo Parker on baritone,
Tommy Potter on bass,
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
on drums, and
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer.
Nicknamed "Sassy" and "Jazz royalty, The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine ...
on vocals. ''Blowing the Blues Away'' featured a tenor saxophone duel between Gordon and Ammons.
On January 4, 1945, Clyde Hart led a session including Parker, Gillespie, and Don Byas recorded for the
Continental label (''What's the Matter Now, I Want Every Bit of It, That's the Blues, G.I. Blues, Dream of You, Seventh Avenue, Sorta Kinda, Ooh Ooh, My My, Ooh Ooh''). Gillespie recorded his first session as a leader on January 9, 1945, for the
Manor
Manor may refer to:
Land ownership
*Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England
*Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism
*Man ...
label, with Don Byas on tenor,
Trummy Young
James "Trummy" Young (January 12, 1912 – September 10, 1984) was an American trombonist in the swing era. He established himself as a star during his 12 years performing with Louis Armstrong in Armstrong's All Stars. He had one hit with his v ...
on trombone, Clyde Hart on Piano, Oscar Pettiford on bass, and
Irv Kluger on drums. The session recorded ''I Can't Get Started, Good Bait, Be-bop (Dizzy's Fingers)'', and ''Salt Peanuts'' (which Manor wrongly named "Salted Peanuts"). Thereafter, Gillespie would record bebop prolifically and gain recognition as one of its leading figures. Gillespie featured Gordon as a sideman in a session recorded on February 9, 1945 for the Guild label (''Groovin' High, Blue 'n' Boogie''). Parker appeared in Gillespie-led sessions dated February 28 (''Groovin' High, All the Things You Are, Dizzy Atmosphere'') and May 11, 1945 (''Salt Peanuts, Shaw 'Nuff, Lover Man, Hothouse'') for the Guild label. Parker and Gillespie were sidemen with Sarah Vaughan on May 25, 1945, for the Continental label (''What More Can a Woman Do, I'd Rather Have a Memory Than a Dream, Mean to Me''). Parker and Gillespie appeared in a session under vibraphonist Red Norvo dated June 6, 1945, later released under the
Dial label (''Hallelujah, Get Happy, Slam Slam Blues, Congo Blues'').
Sir Charles Thompson's all-star session of September 4, 1945 for the Apollo label (''Takin' Off, If I Had You, Twentieth Century Blues, The Street Beat'') featured Parker and Gordon. Gordon led his first session for the Savoy label on October 30, 1945, with
Sadik Hakim
Sadik Hakim (born Forrest Argonne Thornton; July 15, 1919 – June 20, 1983) was an American jazz pianist and composer.
Early life
Forrest Argonne Thornton was born on July 15, 1919 in Duluth, Minnesota. The name Argonne came from the World War ...
(Argonne Thornton) on piano, Gene Ramey on bass, and
Eddie Nicholson
Edward George Nicholson (September 9, 1923 – January 15, 1987) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who played in one National Hockey League game for the Detroit Red Wings during the 1947–48 season, on March 21, 1948 against ...
on drums (''Blow Mr Dexter, Dexter's Deck, Dexter's Cuttin' Out, Dexter's Minor Mad''). Parker's first session as a leader was on November 26, 1945, for the Savoy label, with Miles Davis and Gillespie on trumpet, Hakim/Thornton and Gillespie on piano,
Curley Russell
Dillon "Curley" Russell (19 March 1917 – 3 July 1986) was an American jazz musician, who played bass on many bebop recordings.
He was born in New York, United States. He was nicknamed "Curley" for his curly hair.
A member of the Tadd Damero ...
on bass and Max Roach on drums (''Warming Up a Riff, Now's the Time, Billie's Bounce, Thriving on a Riff, Ko-Ko, Meandering''). After appearing as a sideman in the R&B-oriented
Cootie Williams
Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams (July 10, 1911 – September 15, 1985) was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter.
Biography
Born in Mobile, Alabama, Williams began his professional career at the age of 14 with the Yo ...
Orchestra through 1944, Bud Powell was in bebop sessions led by Frankie Socolow on May 2, 1945 for the Duke label (''The Man I Love, Reverse the Charges, Blue Fantasy, September in the Rain''), then Dexter Gordon on January 29, 1946 for the Savoy label (''Long Tall Dexter, Dexter Rides Again, I Can't Escape From You, Dexter Digs In''). The growth of bebop through 1945 is also documented in informal live recordings.
Breakout
By 1946 bebop was established as a broad-based movement among New York jazz musicians, including trumpeters
Fats Navarro and
Kenny Dorham
McKinley Howard "Kenny" Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention or public ...
, trombonists
J. J. Johnson
J.J. Johnson (January 22, 1924 – February 4, 2001), born James Louis Johnson and also known as Jay Jay Johnson, was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.
Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop.
Biograph ...
and
Kai Winding
Kai Chresten Winding ( ; May 18, 1922 – May 6, 1983) was a Danish-born American trombonist and jazz composer. He is known for his collaborations with fellow trombonist J. J. Johnson. His version of "More", the theme from the movie ''Mondo Ca ...
, alto saxophonist
Sonny Stitt
Edward Hammond Boatner Jr. (February 2, 1924 – July 22, 1982), known professionally as Sonny Stitt, was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. Known for his warm tone, he was one of the best-documented saxophonists of his ...
, tenor saxophonist
James Moody, baritone saxophonists
Leo Parker and
Serge Chaloff, vibraphonist
Milt Jackson
Milton Jackson (January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999), nicknamed "Bags", was an American jazz vibraphonist, usually thought of as a bebop player, although he performed in several jazz idioms. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solo ...
, pianists
Erroll Garner
Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1921 – January 2, 1977) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad "Misty", his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard. It was first rec ...
and
Al Haig, bassist
Slam Stewart, and others who would contribute to what would become known as "modern jazz". The new music was gaining radio exposure with broadcasts such as those hosted by
"Symphony Sid" Torin. Bebop was taking root in Los Angeles as well, among such modernists as trumpeters
Howard McGhee and
Art Farmer
Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, double ...
, alto players
Sonny Criss and
Frank Morgan
Francis Phillip Wuppermann (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949), known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous soun ...
, tenor players
Teddy Edwards
Theodore Marcus Edwards (April 26, 1924 – April 20, 2003) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Biography
Edwards was born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. He learned to play at a very early age, first on alto saxophone and then ...
and
Lucky Thompson, trombonist
Melba Liston, pianists
Dodo Marmarosa, Jimmy Bunn and
Hampton Hawes
Hampton Barnett Hawes Jr. (November 13, 1928 – May 22, 1977) was an American jazz pianist. He was the author of the memoir ''Raise Up Off Me'', which won the Deems-Taylor Award for music writing in 1975.
Early life
Hampton Hawes was born on N ...
, guitarist
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel (October 17, 1923 – May 6, 2004) was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Known in particular for his knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies, he was a member of many prominent jazz groups a ...
, bassists
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and ...
and
Red Callender
George Sylvester "Red" Callender (March 6, 1916 – March 8, 1992) was an American string bass and tuba player. He is perhaps best known as a jazz musician, but worked with an array of pop, rock and vocal acts as a member of The Wrecking Cre ...
, and drummers
Roy Porter
Roy Sydney Porter, FBA (31 December 1946 – 3 March 2002) was a British historian known for his work on the history of medicine. He retired in 2001 from the director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College L ...
and
Connie Kay
Conrad Henry Kirnon (April 27, 1927 – November 30, 1994) known professionally as Connie Kay, was an American jazz and R&B drummer, who was a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Self-taught on drums, he began performing in Los Angeles in the mid ...
. Gillespie's "Rebop Six" (with Parker on alto, Lucky Thompson on tenor, Al Haig on piano, Milt Jackson on vibes,
Ray Brown on bass, and
Stan Levey
Adolph Stanley Levey known professionally as Stan Levey (April 5, 1926 – April 19, 2005) was an American jazz drummer. He was known for working with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the early development of bebop during the 1940s, and i ...
on drums) started an engagement in Los Angeles in December 1945. Parker and Thompson remained in Los Angeles after the rest of the band left, performing and recording together for six months before Parker suffered an addiction-related breakdown in July. Parker was again active in Los Angeles in early 1947. Parker and Thompson's tenures in Los Angeles, the arrival of Dexter Gordon and
Wardell Gray later in 1946, and the promotional efforts of
Ross Russell,
Norman Granz, and
Gene Norman helped solidify the city's status as a center of the new music.
Gillespie landed the first recording date with a major label for the new music, with the
RCA Bluebird
Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...
label recording Dizzy Gillespie And his Orchestra on February 22, 1946 (''52nd Street Theme, A Night in Tunisia, Ol' Man Rebop, Anthropology''). Later Afro-Cuban styled recordings for Bluebird in collaboration with Cuban ''rumberos''
Chano Pozo
Luciano Pozo González (January 7, 1915 – December 3, 1948), known professionally as Chano Pozo, was a Cuban jazz percussionist, singer, dancer, and composer. Despite only living to age 33, he played a major role in the founding of Latin jazz. ...
and
Sabu Martinez
Louis "Sabu" Martinez (July 14, 1930 – January 13, 1979) was an American conguero of Puerto Rican descent. A prominent player in the Cubop movement, Martinez appeared on many important recordings and live performances during that period. Martin ...
, and arrangers
Gil Fuller
Walter Gilbert "Gil" Fuller (April 14, 1920, Los Angeles, California – May 26, 1994, San Diego, California) was an American jazz arranger. He is no relation to the jazz trumpeter and vocalist Walter Fuller (musician), Walter "Rosetta" Fuller.
I ...
and
George Russell (''Manteca, Cubana Be, Cubana Bop, Guarache Guaro'') would be among his most popular, giving rise to the Latin dance music craze of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Gillespie, with his extroverted personality and humor, glasses, lip beard and beret, would become the most visible symbol of the new music and new jazz culture in popular consciousness. That of course slighted the contributions of others with whom he had developed the music over the preceding years. His show style, influenced by
black vaudeville circuit entertainers, seemed like a throwback to some and offended some purists ("too much grinning" according to Miles Davis), but it was laced with a subversive sense of humor that gave a glimpse of attitudes on racial matters that black musicians had previously kept away from the public at large. Before the Civil Rights Movement, Gillespie was confronting the
racial divide by lampooning it. The intellectual subculture that surrounded bebop made it something of a sociological movement as well as a musical one.
With the imminent demise of the big swing bands, bebop had become the dynamic focus of the jazz world, with a broad-based "progressive jazz" movement seeking to emulate and adapt its devices. It was to be the most influential foundation of jazz for a generation of jazz musicians.
Beyond
By 1950, bebop musicians such as
Clifford Brown
Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car accident, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring", an ...
and
Sonny Stitt
Edward Hammond Boatner Jr. (February 2, 1924 – July 22, 1982), known professionally as Sonny Stitt, was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. Known for his warm tone, he was one of the best-documented saxophonists of his ...
began to smooth out the rhythmic eccentricities of early bebop. Instead of using jagged phrasing to create rhythmic interest, as the early boppers had, these musicians constructed their improvised lines out of long strings of eighth notes and simply accented certain notes in the line to create rhythmic variety. The early 1950s also saw some smoothing in Charlie Parker's style.
During the early 1950s bebop remained at the top of awareness of jazz, while its harmonic devices were adapted to the new "cool" school of jazz led by Miles Davis and others. It continued to attract young musicians such as
Jackie McLean,
Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a ...
, and
John Coltrane. As musicians and composers began to work with expanded music theory during the mid-1950s, its adaptation by musicians who worked it into the basic dynamic approach of bebop would lead to the development of
post-bop
Post-bop is a genre of small-combo jazz that evolved in the early to mid 1960s in the United States. Pioneers of the genre, such as Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane and Jackie McLean, crafted syntheses of ...
. Around that same time, a move towards structural simplification of bebop occurred among musicians such as
Horace Silver and
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
, leading to the movement known as
hard bop. Development of jazz would occur through the interplay of bebop, cool, post-bop, and hard bop styles through the 1950s.
Influence
The musical devices developed with bebop were influential far beyond the bebop movement itself. "
Progressive jazz
Progressive music is music that attempts to expand existing stylistic boundaries associated with specific music genre, genres of music. The word comes from the basic concept of ":wiktionary:progress, progress", which refers to advancements thr ...
" was a broad category of music that included bebop-influenced "art music" arrangements used by big bands such as those led by
Boyd Raeburn
Boyd Albert Raeburn (October 27, 1913 – August 2, 1966) was an American jazz bandleader and bass saxophonist.
Career
He was born in Faith, South Dakota, United States. Raeburn attended the University of Chicago, where he led a campus band. H ...
,
Charlie Ventura,
Claude Thornhill, and
Stan Kenton, and the cerebral harmonic explorations of smaller groups such as those led by pianists
Lennie Tristano and
Dave Brubeck
David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...
. Voicing experiments based on bebop harmonic devices were used by
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
and
Gil Evans for the groundbreaking "
Birth of the Cool" sessions in 1949 and 1950. Musicians who followed the stylistic doors opened by Davis, Evans, Tristano, and Brubeck formedthe core of the
cool jazz and "
west coast jazz
West Coast jazz refers to styles of jazz that developed in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a subgenre of cool jazz, which consisted of a calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music relied rela ...
" movements of the early 1950s.
By the mid-1950s musicians began to be influenced by music theory proposed by
George Russell. Those who incorporated Russell's ideas into the bebop foundation defined the post-bop movement that later incorporated
modal jazz
Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Although precedents exist, modal jazz was crystallized as a theory by compose ...
into its musical language.
Hard bop was a simplified derivative of bebop introduced by
Horace Silver and
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
in the mid-1950s. It became a major influence until the late 1960s when
free jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...
and
fusion jazz
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyb ...
gained ascendancy.
The
neo-bop
Neo-bop (also called neotraditionalist) refers to a style of jazz that gained popularity in the 1980s among musicians who found greater aesthetic affinity for acoustically based, swinging, melodic forms of jazz than for free jazz and jazz fusion t ...
movement of the 1980s and 1990s revived the influence of bebop, post-bop, and hard bop styles after the free jazz and fusion eras.
Bebop style also influenced the
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
whose spoken-word style drew on African-American "jive" dialog, jazz rhythms, and whose poets often employed jazz musicians to accompany them.
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian a ...
would describe his writing in
On the Road
''On the Road'' is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonis ...
as a literary translation of the improvisations of Charlie Parker and Lester Young.
The "beatnik" stereotype borrowed heavily from the dress and mannerisms of bebop musicians and followers, in particular the beret and lip beard of Dizzy Gillespie and the patter and bongo drumming of guitarist
Slim Gaillard
Bulee "Slim" Gaillard (January 9, 1911 – February 26, 1991), also known as McVouty, was an American jazz singer and songwriter who played piano, guitar, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone.
Gaillard was noted for his comedic vocalese singing ...
. The bebop subculture, defined as a non-conformist group expressing its values through musical communion, would echo in the attitude of the psychedelia-era
hippies
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
of the 1960s. Fans of bebop were not restricted to the United States; the music also gained cult status in France and Japan.
More recently,
hip-hop artists (
A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest was an American hip hop group formed in Queens, New York City, in 1985,[Q-Tip](_blank)
,
Guru
Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverentia ...
) have cited bebop as an influence on their rapping and rhythmic style. As early as 1983, Shawn Brown rapped the phrase "Rebop, bebop, Scooby-Doo" toward the end of the hit "
Rappin' Duke
"Rappin' Duke" is a 1984 hip-hop novelty song by Shawn Brown performing as the Rappin' Duke. It is the sixth track on Brown's 1985 album ''¿Que Pasa?''. The premise of the song is that actor, John Wayne, nicknamed The Duke, is rapping.
Histor ...
". Bassist
Ron Carter
Ronald Levin Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history. He has won three Grammy awards, and is also a cellist who has recorded nu ...
collaborated with A Tribe Called Quest on 1991's ''
The Low End Theory
''The Low End Theory'' is the second studio album by American hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released on September 24, 1991, by Jive Records. Recording sessions for the album were held mostly at Battery Studios in New York City, from 1990 to ...
'', and vibraphonist
Roy Ayers
Roy Ayers (born September 10, 1940) is an American funk, soul, and jazz composer, vibraphone player, and music producer. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several albums with Atlantic Records, before his tenure at Pol ...
and trumpeter
Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop m ...
were featured on ''
Guru's Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1'' in 1993. Bebop samples, especially bass lines, ride cymbal swing clips, and horn and piano riffs are found throughout the hip-hop compendium.
Musicians
References
Further reading
* Berendt, Joachim E. ''The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond''. Trans. Bredigkeit, H. and B. with Dan Morgenstern. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1975.
* Deveaux, Scott. ''The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
* Giddins, Gary. ''Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker''. New York City: Morrow, 1987.
* Gioia, Ted. ''The History of Jazz''. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
* Gitler, Ira. ''Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940s''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
* Rosenthal, David. ''Hard bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955–1965''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
* Tirro, Frank. "The Silent Theme Tradition in Jazz". ''The Musical Quarterly'' 53, no. 3 (July 1967): 313–34.
External links
Verve History of Jazz page on BebopCharlie Parker bebop solo licks
Bebop for Guitar – Scales, Vocabulary, and Chromaticism
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African-American music
Jazz genres
Jazz terminology