Week eight

Bebop

Bebop compare/contrast to Swing (G, 88-89)(B, 70, 73)

Bebop:

-Offered higher, faster, more complex playing.

-Featured more variety in rhythms, melody lines and in accompaniment.

-Used richer chords, more chord changes, and a more elaborate relationship

between the notes of the melody and the notes of the accompanying chords.

(Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Art Tatum influences)

-Small group oriented

-Music became less singable

Bebop’s incubation period (early 1940’s) – Minton’s Playhouse Monday night jam sessions (B, 71)

Why did white America and some prominent swing musician reject Bebop?

Primary early bebop figures:

Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk

Charlie Parker, alto saxophone(G, 91-93):

-astonished the music world with his melodic imagination

-unprecedented mastery of the saxophone

-the speed at which he was able to improvise with ingenious creativity

Many musicologists consider Parker to be one of the most brilliant figures in twentieth-century music

He built an entire system of improvisation and composition by selecting unique, non-tradition notes that fit around the notes in the accompaniment chords

* “Ko-Ko” Jazz Classics CD

Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet (G, 94):

Louis Armstrong to Roy Eldridge to Dizzy Gillespie

-Innovative melodic concepts, high-register playing (simultaneously)

-Harmonic skills - “Bird’s” equal on trumpet

-Weaved in and out of different keys within a single phrase resolving his lines logically

to fit a chord change

-made lasting contributions as a composer

* “Things to Come” Jazz Classics CD

Thelonious Monk, piano (G, 98):

-wrote compositions whose melodies were unorthodox accompanied by chord changes

that severely challenged improvisers

-piano playing- accompaniment chords were often very dissonant, famous for the blunt,

strident way he struck the keyboard

-Often stopped comping for long passages, leaving the soloist to improvise with only bass

and drums for accompaniment.

Bud Powell, piano (G, 99,100)

-Most imitated of all bebop pianist.

-Incorporated the style and phrases of C. Parker and D. Gillespie with the piano styles of

his predecessors (i.e. Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk)

-New left hand style of comping. Two- and three-note chords that reduced the harmony

to the barest minimum

Powell was the model for hundreds of pianists during the 1940s and 50’s

Jazz Classics CD track 45 Powell’s piano solo

*Performing with Dexter Gordon “Dexter Digs In”

Vocalist

Sara Vaughan (G, 105)