Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key , instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure , the use of scales and occasional references to the melody .
126-624: The Sun Ra Arkestra is an American jazz group formed in the mid-1950s and led by keyboardist/composer Sun Ra until his death in 1993. The group is considered a pioneer of afrofuturism . Since 1995 the Arkestra has been led by saxophonist Marshall Allen , an Arkestra member since 1958, who is supported by more than a dozen other musicians. The band is headquartered in a rowhouse in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood . Saxophonist and current leader Marshall Allen has lived and worked in
252-616: A Roy Eldridge -influenced trumpet player who, like Parker, was exploring ideas based on upper chord intervals, beyond the seventh chords that had traditionally defined jazz harmony. While Gillespie was with Cab Calloway , he practiced with bassist Milt Hinton 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 while with McShann's group. Guitarist Charlie Christian , who had arrived in New York in 1939 was, like Parker, an innovator extending
378-518: A "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror
504-832: 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 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
630-571: 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
756-526: A coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues , a form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around
882-473: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when
1008-405: A jazz guitarist who played with Charlie Parker , describes how Parker would listen to the music of Béla Bartók , a leading 20th century classical composer. Raney describes Parker's knowledge of Bartók and Arnold Schoenberg , 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 . Bebop grew out of
1134-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in
1260-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,
1386-660: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key
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#17327874868411512-416: A recorded jam session hosted by Billy Eckstine 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
1638-439: A repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on
1764-681: A rhythm section consisting of Clyde Hart (piano), Oscar Pettiford (bass) and Max Roach (drums) that recorded " Woody'n You " ( Apollo 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 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 on drums ( On
1890-960: 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 label, with Don Byas on tenor, Trummy Young 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
2016-667: 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
2142-492: A single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near
2268-425: 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. By 1950, bebop musicians such as Clifford Brown and Sonny Stitt began to smooth out
2394-416: A soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement the soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since
2520-504: 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. 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 ,
2646-458: 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
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#17327874868412772-446: 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 . Sometimes improvisation included references to
2898-510: 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
3024-454: A way that expanded their role. Whereas the key ensemble of the swing music era was the big band of up to fourteen pieces playing in an ensemble-based style, the classic bebop group was a small combo that consisted of saxophone (alto or tenor), trumpet , piano , guitar , double bass , and drums playing music in which the ensemble played a supportive role for soloists. Rather than play heavily arranged music, bebop musicians typically played
3150-500: 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 , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since the 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz
3276-529: Is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were the first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of
3402-693: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo
3528-545: Is also documented in informal live recordings. By 1946 bebop was established as a broad-based movement among New York jazz musicians, including trumpeters Fats Navarro and Kenny Dorham , trombonists J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding , alto saxophonist Sonny Stitt , tenor saxophonist James Moody , baritone saxophonists Leo Parker and Serge Chaloff , vibraphonist Milt Jackson , pianists Erroll Garner and Al Haig , bassist Slam Stewart , and others who would contribute to what would become known as "modern jazz". The new music
3654-469: Is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as
3780-454: 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. It appears again in a 1936 recording of "I'se a Muggin'" by Jack Teagarden . A variation, "rebop", appears in several 1939 recordings. The first known print appearance also occurred in 1939, but the term
3906-493: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In
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4032-400: Is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there
4158-476: Is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described a pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context
4284-625: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and
4410-471: The swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which the melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz,
4536-948: The 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in the U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in
4662-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from
4788-597: The African legacy in [Parker's] life, reconfirmed by the experience of the blues tonal system, a sound world at odds with the Western diatonic chord 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 states that blues were both the bedrock and propelling force of bebop, bringing about three main developments: Some of
4914-698: 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 , which were broadcast over the Armed Forces Radio Network and gained popularity for
5040-509: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to
5166-529: 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 on tenor, Leo Parker on baritone, Tommy Potter on bass, Art Blakey on drums, and Sarah Vaughan on vocals. Blowing the Blues Away featured a tenor saxophone duel between Gordon and Ammons. On January 4, 1945, Clyde Hart led
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5292-464: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo
5418-501: 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
5544-438: The Savoy label on October 30, 1945, with Sadik Hakim (Argonne Thornton) on piano, Gene Ramey on bass, and Eddie Nicholson 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 on bass and Max Roach on drums ( Warming Up
5670-665: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and
5796-472: The album at Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Soundworks and was released on Strut Records . The album features the first-ever recording of Sun Ra's song "Darkness." The Arkestra draws from a range of musical genres: swing , rock 'n' roll , Chicago blues , improvisation and electronic . When the Arkestra performs, the band members wear flashy capes and sequined headdresses. Studio Albums See also Sun Ra discography Live Albums Jazz Jazz
5922-433: 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
6048-475: 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,
6174-571: 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
6300-427: 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 , where Max Roach was in the house band. Part of the atmosphere created at jams like the ones found at Minton's Playhouse
6426-621: 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 , which came to national prominence in 1937. Bebop wasn't developed in any deliberate way. — Thelonious Monk One young admirer of the Basie orchestra in Kansas City was a teenage alto saxophone player named Charlie Parker . He
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#17327874868416552-472: The bebop movement itself. " Progressive jazz " was a broad category of music that included bebop-influenced "art music" arrangements used by big bands such as those led by Boyd Raeburn , 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 . Voicing experiments based on bebop harmonic devices were used by Miles Davis and Gil Evans for
6678-431: 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
6804-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized
6930-679: 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 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 and Sabu Martinez , and arrangers Gil Fuller and George Russell ( Manteca, Cubana Be, Cubana Bop, Guarache Guaro ) would be among his most popular, giving rise to
7056-497: 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
7182-473: The contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members, the performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In
7308-579: The culmination of trends that had been occurring within swing music 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
7434-555: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within
7560-407: The development of post-bop . Around that same time, a move towards structural simplification of bebop occurred among musicians such as Horace Silver and Art Blakey , 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. The musical devices developed with bebop were influential far beyond
7686-415: 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 . 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 of the 1960s. Fans of bebop were not restricted to the United States;
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#17327874868417812-509: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in
7938-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as
8064-593: The emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding the Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view
8190-525: The end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in
8316-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",
8442-571: 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 band, and a young trumpet player attending the Juilliard School of Music , Miles Davis . Bebop originated as "musicians' music," played by musicians with other money-making gigs who did not care about
8568-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired
8694-501: 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 " at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, New York, in early 1942. As described by Parker: 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
8820-579: The free jazz and fusion eras. Bebop style also influenced the Beat Generation whose spoken-word style drew on African-American "jive" dialog, jazz rhythms, and whose poets often employed jazz musicians to accompany them. Jack Kerouac would describe his writing in On the Road as a literary translation of the improvisations of Charlie Parker and Lester Young. The "beatnik" stereotype borrowed heavily from
8946-469: The groundbreaking " Birth of the Cool " sessions in 1949 and 1950. Musicians who followed the stylistic doors opened by Davis, Evans, Tristano, and Brubeck formed the core of the cool jazz and " west coast jazz " 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
9072-673: The group's history and artistry. In 2012 Tara Middleton, a violinist and vocalist joined the group. In 2017, the Arkestra opened for Solange on her tour supporting her 2016 album, A Seat at the Table . In 2019, the Arkestra had a major performance at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon . In October 2020, the Sun Ra Arkestra released Swirling , the first album the band released in 20 years. The band recorded
9198-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In
9324-432: The harmonic innovations in bebop appear similar to innovations in Western "serious" music, from Claude Debussy to Arnold Schoenberg , 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 ,
9450-453: The house since 1968. In 1976, Vincent Chancey , an American jazz hornist joined the group. In 1993, John Gilmore became the leader of the Arkestra after Sun Ra died. In 1995, Allen became the leader of the Arkestra after Gilmore's death. In 1999, the Arkestra released the studio album, A Song for the Sun. In 2009, Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art hosted an exhibition of
9576-512: The individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of
9702-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,
9828-460: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in
9954-578: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to
10080-455: The late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in the 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history
10206-519: The leading intervals that defined the tonality of the chord. That opened up creative possibilities for harmonic improvisation such as tritone substitutions and use of diminished scale 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
10332-955: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville
10458-725: 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 ; tenor sax players Dexter Gordon , Sonny Rollins , and James Moody ; clarinet player Buddy DeFranco ; trumpeters Fats Navarro , Clifford Brown , Miles Davis , and Dizzy Gillespie ; pianists Bud Powell , Barry Harris and Thelonious Monk ; electric guitarist Charlie Christian ; and drummers Kenny Clarke , Max Roach , and Art Blakey . The term "bebop"
10584-680: The music also gained cult status in France and Japan. More recently, hip-hop artists ( A Tribe Called Quest , Guru ) 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 ". Bassist Ron Carter collaborated with A Tribe Called Quest on 1991's The Low End Theory , and vibraphonist Roy Ayers and trumpeter Donald Byrd 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
10710-697: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in
10836-583: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for
10962-472: 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
11088-475: 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 , piano players striving to imitate Basie, and trumpet players striving to imitate Buck Clayton . Parker played along with
11214-626: 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 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
11340-425: 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
11466-419: 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 . 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
11592-467: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides
11718-618: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of
11844-455: 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
11970-411: 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
12096-500: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of
12222-494: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman
12348-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed
12474-420: The post-bop movement that later incorporated modal jazz into its musical language. Hard bop was a simplified derivative of bebop introduced by Horace Silver and Art Blakey in the mid-1950s. It became a major influence until the late 1960s when free jazz and fusion jazz gained ascendancy. The neo-bop movement of the 1980s and 1990s revived the influence of bebop, post-bop, and hard bop styles after
12600-676: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became
12726-511: 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
12852-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by
12978-467: 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
13104-436: The swing era. 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 during
13230-406: The swing era. Instead, bebop appeared to sound racing, nervous, erratic and often fragmented. "Bebop" was a label that certain journalists later gave it, but we never labeled the music. It was just modern music, we would call it. We wouldn't call it anything, really, just music. While swing music tended to feature orchestrated big band arrangements, bebop music highlighted improvisation. Typically,
13356-555: The terms "bebop" and "rebop" were used interchangeably. (Although rebop differed from bebop with its more impressionist use of discordant chords.) By 1945, the use of "bebop"/"rebop" as nonsense syllables was widespread in R&B music, for instance Lionel Hampton 's " Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop ". The bebop musician or bopper became a stock character in jokes of the 1950s, overlapping with the beatnik . The classic bebop combo consisted of saxophone, trumpet, double bass, drums and piano. This
13482-425: 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 , 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
13608-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were
13734-575: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing
13860-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take
13986-500: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from
14112-529: The younger generation of jazz musicians expanded the creative possibilities of jazz beyond the popular, dance-oriented swing music -style with a new "musician's music" that was not as danceable and demanded close listening. As bebop was not intended for dancing, it enabled the musicians to play at faster tempos. Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex syncopation , altered chords , extended chords , chord substitutions, asymmetrical phrasing, and intricate melodies. Bebop groups used rhythm sections in
14238-406: 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. This was in stark contrast to the large ensembles favoured during
14364-467: 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
14490-426: 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
14616-427: Was blazed by the territory bands of the southwest with Kansas City 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
14742-497: Was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It
14868-479: 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
14994-401: 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
15120-832: 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 , alto players Sonny Criss and Frank Morgan , tenor players Teddy Edwards and Lucky Thompson , trombonist Melba Liston , pianists Dodo Marmarosa , Jimmy Bunn and Hampton Hawes , guitarist Barney Kessel , bassists Charles Mingus and Red Callender , and drummers Roy Porter and Connie Kay . 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 on drums) started an engagement in Los Angeles in December 1945. Parker and Thompson remained in Los Angeles after
15246-411: Was little used subsequently until applied to the music now associated with it in the mid-1940s. Thelonious Monk claims that the original title "Bip Bop" for his composition " 52nd Street Theme ", 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 stated that
15372-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in
15498-405: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Bebop Bebop developed as
15624-651: Was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as
15750-536: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and
15876-477: 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 postulates that the harmonic development in bebop sprang from the blues , and other African-related tonal sensibilities, rather than twentieth century Western art music, as some have suggested. Kubik states: "Auditory inclinations were
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