BEBOP 1940S - MID 1950S

Bebop Characteristics

Performance aspects differing from swing

Small combos (3 - 6 members)

Faster tempos than swing band tempos

Clarinet and rhythm guitar rarely used in bebop

Higher instrumental proficiency

Bebop became the 1st style of jazz that was not used for dancing

Bebop musicians

Disassociated from their own audience, their own employers, non-jazz

musicians, and even from other jazz musicians

Trying to raise the level of jazz from dance music to a chamber art

form

Status of jazz performer - from entertainer to artist

Drugs effect on bebop musicians

Bebop Characteristics

The shift to bebop

Mintons playhouse - the hippest jazz club in NY

The first jazz style that was not used for dancing

Bebop was not enthusiastically accepted by the jazz community at

the time of its emergence

The origins of bebop - hard to determine

The word "bebop" is usually stated to be nonsense syllables

Bebop did not have the same large audience enjoyed by the swing

bands

Jazz, in general, despite of its popularity was not viewed as an art

form by the general public

Bebop was the era from which the majority of our jazz giants

emerged

Bebop Characteristics

Bebop Compositional Aspects

Complex melodies

Large melodic intervals

Abrupt changes in melodic direction

Highly syncopated, rhythmically quick and unpredictable

Original melodies commonly based on popular song chord progressions

Blues form used often

Bebop arranging

Melodies in unison (trumpet and sax together)

Usually improvised lines

Standard format

1 chorus melody, improvisations, and 1 chorus melody again for end of the tune

Faster tempos not danceable

Charlie Parker

Alto saxophonist

Called Yardbird or simply Bird

Credited as THE originator of bebop

1943 - NY, central figure of group of musicians including Dizzy, Monk and Clark

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Parker's sound - dry with slow vibrato, the opposite of all favorite that time

Improvising concept

constructed solos on upper structure chords

syncopated accents on particular notes

double time feel even in ballads

influenced all the great players from then on: Coltrane, Powell, Stitt

and Gillespie

Parker also became an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat generation, personifying the conception of the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual, rather than just a popular entertainer.

Suggested Viewing Bird

Dizzy Gillespie

Trumpet player

Called Dizzy

Together with Charlie

Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.

He was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz

Manteca the first Latin Jazz tune

Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted

improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz.

In addition to his instrumental skills, Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop, which was originally regarded as threatening and frightening music by many listeners raised on older styles of jazz.

He had an enormous impact on virtually every subsequent trumpeter, both by the example of his playing and as a mentor to younger musicians.

Influenced: M. Davis, R. Rodney, F Navarro, K. Dorham, T. Jones

Dizzy Gillespie on The Muppet Show

Dizzy Gillespie & Louis Armstrong - Umbrella Man

Bebop Pianists

Bud Powell

Classically trained pianist

Created the model of bebop piano

Approach derived from Tatum with bop phrasing of Parker and

Gillespie

Modern comping--two or three note chords

Thelonious Monk

Piano-composer, co-founder of bebop, approach derived from Waller-stride piano playing and Ellington's percussive comping

Improvisation style: avoided the difficulties of finger dexterity

Technical virtuosity (rapid scales, arpeggios) was not characteristic

Compositions--difficult chords, symmetry, unique logic, shifting

accents

Bebop Musicians

Kenny Clarke - drums

House-drummer at Mintons Playhouse w/ Gillespie, Monk, C. Christian, B. Powell

4/4 pulse from bass drums to ride cymbal

Bass drum and snare--independent background accents

Oscar Pettiford - bass

Bass-cello-bandleader, first bassist to apply virtuosity of Blanton within bebop context

Co-leader with Dizzy, worked with Ellington

Bebop Musicians

Oscar Peterson piano

Style derived from Tatum and Powell

Extraordinary technique

Max Roach drums

House-band at Monroes Uptown House with Bird & Diz

Developed K. Clarke's style into bebop

Modern Jazz Quartet

John Lewis-piano-arranger-composer

Milt Jackson-vibraphone; warm bluesy melodic lines w/ slow vibrato

Bebop Musicians

J.J. Johnson - Trombonist-composer

Paved the path for trombonist in the bop style

Active composer, particularly for TV and movies in the 70s

Sonny Stitt - alto-tenor sax, "Lone Wolf

Recording over 100 records

The greatest disciple of Charlie Parker

Sonny Rollins - tenor sax

One of the last still living legends of jazz;

Still performs very actively throughout the world

Clifford Brown trumpet

An influential and highly rated musician

Considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players

Cool Jazz & Third Stream

Cool Jazz

Cool Jazz markedly different from the complexities of

bebop

Relaxed tempos, subtle instrumental colors

Expanded ensembles

Chamber ensembles-performing in more intimate setting

Intricate arrangements and innovative forms

Little or no vibrato

New meters were added like 5/4, 9/4 (Odd, Irregular meters)

Typical symphonic instruments

String instruments -violin, viola, cello

Woodwinds - flute, oboe, French horn

Flugelhorn - like trumpet, a darker, more mellow sound

Miles Davis

Trumpet player, Composer/arranger

Innovative band leader

Leading personality among the giants of jazz

He was not destined to be known only for his contribution to the development of cool jazz but rather he was an innovative force in the evolution of jazz

Posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006.

Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century

Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s.

He played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jazz records.

He was partially responsible for the development of modal jazz, and jazz fusion arose from his work with other musicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Belongs to the great tradition of jazz trumpeters that started with Buddy Bolden and ran through Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie

He was never considered to have the highest level of technical ability.

His greatest achievement as a musician, however, was to move beyond being regarded as a distinctive and influential stylist on his own instrument and to shape whole styles and ways of making music through the work of his bands, in which many of the most important jazz musicians of the second half of the Twentieth Century made their names.

Miles Davis

Important in the development of improvisational techniques incorporating modes

rather than the standard chord changes

Daviss tone is straight with very little vibrato, long tonesepitomized the cool attitude

Many critics consider his album Birth of the Cool as the beginning of the Cool Jazz

Always searching for new, fresh, exciting ways to play his music

Befriended Jimi Hendrix and were going to record an album together Hendrix died

Of all the stylistic periods contributed to or initiated by Davis, it was the cool period which he is most connected

Gil Evans

Arranger, composer, pianist, and

bandleader

His arrangements made use of string instrument as as well as nontraditional jazz instruments

Influenced by Duke Ellington

The music of Cool Jazz was much associated with Gil Evans

His contribution to Cool Jazz was as important as Davis's.

Gil Evans

Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond

Dave Brubeck piano

Much of his music employs unusual time signatures (Odd meters).

His long-time musical partner, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, wrote the Dave Brubeck Quartet's most famous piece, "Take Five", which is in 5/4 time and has endured as a jazz classic. Brubeck experimented with time signatures through much of his career, recording "Pick Up Sticks" in 6/4, "Unsquare Dance" in 7/4, and "Blue Rondo la Turk" in 9/8.

In 1954 he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, the second jazz musician to be so honored (the first was Louis Armstrong).

Paul Desmond alto sax

Known to have possessed an idiosyncratic wit, he was one of the most

popular musicians to come out of the West Coast's "cool jazz" scene.

Cool Jazz Performers

Modern Jazz Quartet

Piano, Vibraphone, Bass, Drums

Gerry Mulligan-baritone sax

Line For Lyons - Classic example in the Cool Jazz repertoire

Stan Getz sax

With Astrud Gilberto The Girl from Ipanema

Chet Baker trumpet/flugelhorn

Specializing in relaxed, even melancholy music`

West Coast Jazz

Late 1940s-cool style on the West Coast

Lighthouse at Hermosa Beach-center of activities

Competition between East Coast and West Cost Cool

Jazz

Most of West Coast musicians - white, associated with

Swing band tradition

Most of East Coast musicians - African American,

associated with the bebop style

West Coast musicians working in Hollywood studio

orchestras

Influences of Western European classical music

Third Stream

Combines elements of Jazz and 20 Century art

music

Extension of the cool compositional style

Gunther Schuller

One of the key figures in contemporary classical music.

Schuller coined the term third stream in a lecture

Thus describing a style that is a synthesis of classical

music and jazz

Third Stream

In 1981, Schuller offered a list of "What Third Stream is

not:

It is not jazz with strings.

It is not jazz played on classical instruments.

It is not classical music played by jazz players.

It is not inserting a bit of Ravel or Schoenberg between be-bop changesnor the reverse.

It is not a fugue played by jazz players.

Third Stream

From Jazz:

Language, gestures, improvisation, and rhythmic drive

From Classical:

Instrumentation (orchestra, string quartet, etc.),

forms (fugue, suite, concerto, etc.), and compositional techniques

Hard Bop (Funky, Gospel Jazz)

Characteristics

Hard (more driving)

Bop (return to the elements of the bop style)

Funky (rhythmic feeling)

Gospel Jazz (funky + elements of early Gospel music)

Characteristics

The Hard Bop style was more improvisational and

emotionally based

Used highly rhythmical melodies and less complex

harmonies

Happy sound, lacked tension and frustration

Bop elements which were generally simplified

Borrowed elements from African American church music

Cool jazz and Hard bop

Cool Jazz

European compositional techniques

Often called West Coast jazz - centered in California

Hard bop/Funky

Adopted the truly American, and oral idioms found in

gospel and blues

Centered in New York

Art Blakey

One of the inventors of the

modern bebop style of drumming.

Formed a group called the Jazz Messengers

Blakeys name became synonymous with hard drive and pulsating excitement

Art Blakey

Art Blakey

Along with pianist Horace Silver formed a group called

the Jazz Messengers

Over more than 30 years his band the Jazz Messengers included

many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz.

Blakey's group is equivalent only to those of Miles Davis in this regard.

His brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was, and remains, profoundly influential on mainstream jazz.

Horace Silver

Pianist, composer

Known for his distinctive humorous and funky playing style and for his pioneering contributions to hard bop.

His quintet served as a model for small jazz groups during the 1950s 1960s

Trained many young players

Excellent composer and arranger Horace Silver

Charles Mingus

Bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader

Influenced by Ellington, Charlie

Parker, Thelonious Monk, Negro gospel music, Mexican folk music

Had a strong approach to composition and performance

Excellent bass soloistCharlie Mingus

Bill Evans

One of the most famous and influential American

jazz pianists of the 20th century

His use of impressionist harmony, his inventive

interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and his syncopated and polyrhythmic melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists

His works continue to influence pianists, guitarists, composers, and interpreters of jazz music around the world.

Moved to the head of the jazz community when asked to join the Miles Davis group in Kind of Blue album

Created a new sound for the piano that took the traditional chords and reshaped them with his own trademark voicings

During his lifetime, Evans was honored with seven Grammy Awards and nominations.

In 1994, he was posthumously honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Bill Evans

Free Form Avant-Garde

Free Jazz - Characteristics

There is no universally accepted definition of Free Jazz, and any proposed

definition is complicated by many musicians in other styles drawing on free jazz, or free jazz sometimes blending with other genres.

Free Jazz uses jazz idioms but generally considerably less compositional material than in most earlier styles

Typically this kind of music is played by small groups of musicians.

Free jazz normally retains a general pulsation and often swings but without regular meter, and often

with frequent accelerando (gradually speeding up the tempo) and ritardando (gradually slowing down the tempo), giving an impression of the rhythm moving in waves.

Rhythm is more freely variable but has not disappeared entirely.

It is also fairly common for free jazz songs to use an "open vamp" of one chord

for solos

Consciously breaking away from the established tradition

Melody of the tune - often absent

Rhythm would not likely remain the same throughout the performance

Improvisations - not based on a harmony of a popular tune

The more freedom allowed, the more discipline necessary

Ornette Coleman

Saxophonist

One of the major innovators of the free jazz

movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

1st known leader of the jazz avant-garde

One of the most controversial free jazz players

He initiated a controversy of strong, opposing opinions from many of the other established jazz leaders, including Miles Davis & Charles Mingus

1st player to move all the way into harmonic freedom

Approached the harmonic freedom through improvisation

Had an extensive background in blues bands

Ornette Coleman was honored with a Grammy

award for lifetime achievement (2007)

Pulitzer Prize for music (2007)

Ornette Coleman

Cecil Taylor

Pianist

Extremely controversial, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the inventors of free jazz.

Attended the New England Conservatory of Music

His music is a fusion of classical compositional practices and jazz improvisations and can be heard as either classical or jazz

His music is some of the most challenging in jazz, characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing exceedingly complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. At first listen, his dense and percussive music can be difficult to absorb. His piano technique has often been likened to drums and percussion rather than to any other pianists.

Cecil Taylor

John Coltrane

Saxophonist (tenor/soprano)

Massive influence on jazz, both mainstream and

avant-garde One of the most dominant influences on post-1960 jazz saxophonists and has inspired an entire generation of jazz musicians.

Played with Miles Davis

Produced a large, dark, lush sound from his

instrument

Known for his long improvisations (sometimes 40

minutes in length)

Throughout his career Coltrane's music took on an

increasingly spiritual dimension that would color his legacy. His conception of expression in jazz became increasingly mystical, Gnostic and cathartic.

Awards

Coltrane received a posthumous Special Citation from the

Pulitzer Prize Board (2007) for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz.

Posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1992)

John Coltrane

Saint John Coltrane

Chicago Style of Free Jazz

Art Ensemble of Chicago

An avant-garde jazz ensemble that grew out of Chicago's AACM in the late 1960s

AEC explore world-based modern jazz music.

Notable for its integration of musical styles spanning jazz's entire history and for their multi-instrumentalism, especially the use of what they termed "little instruments" in addition to the traditional jazz lineup

Little instruments" can include bicycle horns, bells, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and a vast array of percussion instruments (including found objects).

The group also uses costumes and face paint in performance. These characteristics combine to make the ensemble's performances as much a visual spectacle as an aural one, with each musician playing from behind a large array of drums, bells, gongs, and other instruments. When playing in Europe in 1969, the group were using more than 500 instruments.

Chicago Style of Free Jazz

Sun Ra & Sun Ra Arkestra (a deliberate re-spelling of "orchestra")

Pianist, composer, arranger, synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy", musical compositions and performances

Quite a controversial jazz figure

Known by several names throughout his career, including Le Sonra and Sonny Lee

Denied his connection with birth name, saying "That's an imaginary person, never existed Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym.

He abandoned his birth name and took on the name and persona of Sun Ra (Ra being the ancient Egyptian god of the sun). Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn, Sun Ra developed a complex persona of "cosmic" philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of afro-futurism as he preached "awareness" and peace above all.

He experimented with electronic instruments

1st composer in Chicago to employ techniques of collective improvisation in big-band

compositions

His music touched on virtually the entire history of jazz, from ragtime to swing music, from bebop to free jazz

He was also a pioneer of electronic music, space music, and free improvisation, and was one of the first musicians, regardless of genre, to make extensive use of electronic keyboards.

Free Jazz Controversy

Free jazz performers - considered the most radical musicians since the bebop era

It remains less commercially popular than most other forms of jazz.