There was a time, from 1933–1947, when teenagers and young adults danced to jazz-orientated bands. When jazz orchestras dominated pop charts and when influential clarinettists were household names. This was the swing era.
100-471: Scott Yanow , Du Noyer, Paul (2003). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (1st ed.). Fulham, London: Flame Tree Publishing. p. 128. ISBN 1-904041-96-5 . The swing era (also frequently referred to as the big band era ) was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States , especially for teenagers. Though this
200-616: 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
300-466: A Harlem-oriented flavor and selling it via a white band for a white musical/commercial audience.[3] In Benny Goodman's band, the most diversified styles flowed together: the ensemble style developed by Fletcher Henderson , who arranged for Goodman; the riff technique of Kansas City ; and the precision and training of many white musicians. On the other hand, the easy melodic quality and clean intonation of Goodman's band made it possible to "sell" jazz to
400-832: 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
500-571: 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
600-411: A few choice choruses, leaving the remainder of the arrangement open for solos accompanied by discreet, long-held chords or short riffs. As each piece headed toward its climax, the band erupted in an ecstatic wail. The swing era produced many classic recordings. Some of those are: Scott Yanow Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author. Yanow
700-403: A foretaste of the coming deluge. "Rhythm is our business/ Rhythm is what we sell," Lunceford's singer declared: "Rhythm is our business / Business sure is swell."[7] If rhythm defined the swing bands, its foundation lay in the rhythm section: piano, guitar, bass, and drums. In big bands, rhythm sections fused into a unified rhythmic front: supplying the beat and marking the harmonies. Each of
800-405: 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
900-491: A mass audience.[4] The swing era brought to swing music Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday , and by 1938 Ella Fitzgerald . Armstrong, who had heavily influenced jazz as its greatest soloist in the 1920s when working with both small bands and larger ones, now appeared only with big swing bands. Other musicians who rose during this time include Jimmy Dorsey , his brother Tommy Dorsey , Glenn Miller , Count Basie , Goodman's future rival Artie Shaw , and Woody Herman , who departed
1000-520: A number of records under the Allegro record label. He also hosted a regular radio show called Jazz After Hours, which was broadcast on KCSB-FM . He has also served as a jazz listings editor for the Los Angeles Times . Books Contributions to magazines Contributions to record labels Bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in
1100-416: 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
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#17327802360821200-580: A resurgence starting in the mid-1950s, but it would never attain the same popularity as it had during the swing era. During the 1920s the older two-beat style of jazz was superseded by four-beat jazz, facilitated by replacement of the sousaphone with the string bass. Four beat rhythm was the foundation of the Chicago style jazz developed by Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines, and of the swing era rhythmic styles. The change in rhythm started first with solo pianists and small ensembles, then larger ensembles towards
1300-681: 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
1400-960: 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
1500-667: 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
1600-425: 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
1700-479: A sonic force that pushed through cavernous dance halls. "If you were on the first floor, and the dance hall was upstairs," Count Basie remembered, "that was what you would hear, that steady rump, rump, rump, rump in that medium tempo." As often noted by commentators on jazz history, the Swing era saw the saxophone supersede in many ways the trumpet as the dominant jazz solo instrument. Swing arrangements often emphasized
1800-504: 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 ,
1900-458: 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
2000-446: 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
2100-510: 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
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#17327802360822200-454: 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
2300-545: 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
2400-454: 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
2500-542: The Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935 , bringing the music to the rest of the country. The 1930s also became the era of other great soloists: the tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins , Ben Webster and Lester Young ; the alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges ; the drummers Chick Webb , Gene Krupa , Jo Jones and Sid Catlett ; the pianists Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson ;
2600-437: The "cabaret tax", which was as high as 30%, the rise of vocalist-centered pop and R&B as the dominant forms of popular music, and the rising interest in bebop among jazz musicians. Though some big bands survived through the late 1940s (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton , Boyd Raeburn , Woody Herman ), most of their competitors were forced to disband, bringing the swing era to a close. Big-band jazz would experience
2700-448: The 1930s, cited Trumbauer's linear, melodic approach to improvisation as his main inspiration for his own style. The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in 1927 consisted of two trumpets, two trombones, three reeds, piano, banjo, tuba, and drums. The Goodman band in 1935 had three trumpets, two trombones, the leader's clarinet, two alto saxes, two tenor saxes, piano, guitar, bass, and drums, fourteen pieces in all, compared to Henderson's eleven in
2800-437: The 1930s. Arrangers learned to write elaborate lines for an entire section, harmonized in block chords, called soli. They were conversant with chromatic (complex) harmony and knew how to make the most of their flexible orchestra. Arrangements could also arise spontaneously out of oral practice. But even in New York, where bands prided themselves on their musical literacy, musicians could take improvised riffs and harmonize them on
2900-597: 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
3000-698: 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
3100-529: 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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3200-655: The Eyes of a Jazz Journalist ), more than 900 liner notes for CDs, and more than 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings. Yanow contributed to the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz , serving as co-editor. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz , the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, Syncopated Times, Jazz Artistry Now , the Jazz Rag, and New York City Jazz Record . Yanow has produced
3300-530: The Isham Jones band in 1936 to start his own band. Several factors led to the demise of the swing era: the 1942–1944 musicians' strike from August 1942 to November 1944 (The union that most jazz musicians belong to told its members not to record until the record companies agreed to pay them each time their music was played on the radio), the earlier ban of ASCAP songs from radio stations, World War II which made it harder for bands to travel around as well as
3400-501: 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
3500-438: 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
3600-534: The Swing era employed a beat that was simultaneously 2/4 and 4/4. The Bob Crosby Orchestra and the Lionel Hampton Orchestra also featured two-beat rhythms long after four-beat rhythm became the standard. In May 1935, the No. 1 record in the country was Jimmie Lunceford's "Rhythm Is Our Business". Released a few months before Benny Goodman triggered the national craze known as swing, the song offered
3700-482: 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 . Bebop developed as the younger generation of jazz musicians expanded
3800-433: 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
3900-475: 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,
4000-571: 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
4100-660: The bandstand. One was "Sugar Foot Stomp", derived in the early 1920s from the King Oliver tune "Dippermouth Blues" and still in the repertory. By the 1930s, it had evolved into a thoroughly up-to-date dance tune, with a faster tempo to match the tastes of the dancers. Another hit was "King Porter Stomp", a ragtime piece by Jelly Roll Morton that became radically simplified, shedding its two-beat clumsiness and march/ragtime form as it went. Many of these pieces were ultimately written down by Henderson, who became his band's chief arranger. His genius for rhythmic swing and melodic simplicity
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4200-427: 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
4300-405: The barrier to early acceptance of the saxophone as a jazz instrument but it was the style of Frankie Trumbauer on C melody sax, showcased in the recordings he did with Bix Beiderbecke in 1927, that laid the groundwork for the style of saxophone playing that would make it a dominant influence on soloing styles. Lester Young , whose influence on saxophone playing became dominant towards the end of
4400-621: 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
4500-417: The bass drum continued to play a rock-solid four beat pulse, the tuba, commonly used in large dance bands of the 1920s, was replaced by the string bass. During the early years of recording, the tuba was able to project a clear, huffing sound. But the string bass had been replacing the tuba over the rhythmic devices available with it and many players, including Wellman Braud with Duke Ellington's band, showed that
4600-472: 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
4700-431: 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
4800-679: 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
4900-497: 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
5000-479: 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
5100-579: 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
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#17327802360825200-407: 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
5300-415: 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;
5400-479: The earlier days. The piano-guitar-bass-drums rhythm section had become standard and kept a steady and uncluttered beat that was very easy to follow. Goodman was quite skilled at setting the perfect dance tempo for each song while alternating wild "killer dillers" with slower ballads. In addition to Henderson and his younger brother Horace, Goodman employed top arrangers such as Fletcher Henderson , Jimmy Mundy , Deane Kincaide , Edgar Sampson , and Spud Murphy who put
5500-518: The end of the decade. Toward the end of the twenties the two-beat styles seemed all but exhausted. First in Chicago, then in Harlem and Kansas City, a new way of playing developed around 1928–29. Chicago musicians migrating to Harlem brought their rhythmic ideas with them. As is so often the case in jazz, there are confusing exceptions to this general outline. Jimmie Lunceford's big band at the height of
5600-571: 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
5700-501: 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
5800-443: The foreground of jazz. In the process, they helped set the stage for bebop. In 1939, Duke Ellington discovered virtuoso young bassist Jimmie Blanton and hired him into his Orchestra. Blanton revolutionized the bass as a featured instrument in the band, until he left the band in late 1941 due to terminal tuberculosis. Towards the end of the 1930s the roles of the piano, bass, and drums in the rhythm section changed significantly under
5900-579: 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
6000-469: 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
6100-432: 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 ,
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#17327802360826200-410: The importance of the bass and guitar in timekeeping, ably held by Walter Page and Freddie Green . The lighter and sparser, yet more dynamic, sense of rhythm expressed by the Basie rhythm section lent greater freedom for the band's soloists and set a trend that would culminate in the rhythmic ideas of bebop . To help bands adjust to the new groove, major changes were made in the rhythm section. While
6300-526: The influence of the Count Basie Orchestra. Early swing drumming relied heavily on the bass and snare drums, with a secondary role for the high hat cymbal in timekeeping. Jo Jones inverted that relationship, making the high hat the primary timekeeper and using the bass and snare drums for accents and lead-ins. Basie introduced a rhythmically sparse style of piano playing emphasizing accents, lead-ins, and fills. Both of those changes increased
6400-464: The instrument had a special percussive flavor when the strings were given a pizzicato "slap" (plucked rather than bowed). Change came gradually in the late 1920s, once word had gotten around about how well the string bass worked; many tuba players realized that they'd better switch instruments or lose their jobs. With Walter Page 's bass replacing the tuba in Bennie Moten 's Kansas City Orchestra,
6500-444: The leading bands presented a distinct, well-designed rhythmic attack that complemented its particular style. The rhythm sections of Ellington, Basie, and Lunceford, for example, sounded nothing alike. Just as the soloists were champing at the bit of big-band constraints, rhythm players were developing techniques and ideas that demanded more attention than they usually received. In the 1930s, rhythm instruments made dramatic advances toward
6600-519: 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
6700-440: The melody first but included rhythmic figures in their charts and wrote arrangements that built to a logical climax. Mundy and Sampson had previously done arranging for Earl Hines and Chick Webb , respectively. In 1935, Goodman did not have many major soloists in his band. Unlike Duke Ellington, who went out of his way to hire unique individualists, and Count Basie, who came from a Kansas City tradition emphasizing soloists, Goodman
6800-725: 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"
6900-680: 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
7000-472: 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
7100-475: 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
7200-626: 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
7300-425: 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
7400-419: 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
7500-455: 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
7600-411: 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
7700-420: 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
7800-459: The reed section to carry the melody, with trumpets providing accents and highlights. For this reason the types of solo improvisations would change dramatically during the thirties. Trumpeter Roy Eldridge deviated from the more common Armstrong-influenced styles towards a style of improvisation resembling that of reed players, and in turn would be an early influence on bebop trumpet pioneer Dizzy Gillespie . Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter broke
7900-451: 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
8000-467: 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
8100-503: The spot. The result, known as a head arrangement, was a flexible, unwritten arrangement created by the entire band. One musician compared it to child's play—"a lot of kids playing in the mud, having a big time." Both kinds of arrangements, written and unwritten, could be heard in the hundreds of recordings made in the 1930s by Fletcher Henderson. For flashy pieces, Henderson relied on experienced arrangers, from his brother Horace to Don Redman and Benny Carter. But his biggest hits emerged from
8200-436: 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
8300-406: 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,
8400-555: 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
8500-425: 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
8600-420: The trumpeters Louis Armstrong , Roy Eldridge , Bunny Berigan , and Rex Stewart . Developments in dance orchestras and jazz music culminated in swing music during the early 1930s. It brought to fruition ideas originated with Louis Armstrong , Earl Hines , Fletcher Henderson , Duke Ellington , and Jean Goldkette . The swing era also was precipitated by spicing up familiar commercial, popular material with
8700-410: The way was laid clear for the band to develop the kinetic style of swing it would show under the leadership of Count Basie. The banjo, with its loud and raucous tone, was replaced with the guitar, which provided a more subtle and secure pulsation (chunk-chunk) in the foundation rhythm. As the saying went, the guitar was more felt than heard. Listeners felt the combined sound of bass, guitar, and drums as
8800-406: 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
8900-414: 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
9000-426: 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
9100-427: 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
9200-693: Was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles . Beginning in 1974, Yanow was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He wrote for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes , Jazziz , Down Beat , Cadence , CODA , and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene . In September 2002, Yanow was interviewed on-camera by CNN about the Monterey Jazz Festival and wrote an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic .com. He authored 12 books on jazz (including 2022's Life Through
9300-479: 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
9400-401: 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
9500-832: 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
9600-507: Was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington , Jimmie Lunceford , Bennie Moten , Cab Calloway , Earl Hines , and Fletcher Henderson , and white bands from the 1920s led by the likes of Jean Goldkette , Russ Morgan and Isham Jones . An early milestone in the era was from "the King of Swing" Benny Goodman's performance at
9700-411: 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
9800-506: Was most concerned that his musicians read music perfectly, blended together naturally, and did not mind being subservient to the leader. It was the sound of the ensembles, the swinging rhythm section, and the leader's fluent clarinet that proved to be irresistible to his young and eager listeners. To fit the new groove, dance-band arranging became more inventive. To some extent, this was a belated influence of Louis Armstrong, whose rhythms continued to be absorbed by soloists and arrangers through
9900-428: Was so effective that his music became the standard for numerous swing arrangers. Henderson was fond of short, memorable riffs—simple, bluesy phrases—in call and response: saxophones responding to trumpets, for example. In some passages, he distorted the melody into ingenious new rhythmic shapes, often in staccato (detached) bursts that opened up space for the rhythm section. Henderson was shrewd and efficient. He wrote only
10000-477: 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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