Bebop And Modern Jazz

The Fusion Of Jazz and Bebop

BEBOP AND MODERN JAZZ - A FUSION

In the 1940s, Jazz musicians developed a complex new style called bebop (or bop). It was abstract music that required attentive listening and was not mean to “entertain”. To its early audiences, bebop seemed to lack melody, organization, and a clearly defined beat. Bop drummers did not play all four beats of the bar on the bass drum, as in the swing style.



 Instead, they used the other drums for very asymmetrical accents sometimes called “dropping bombs,” and played a constant rhythm on the ride cymbal. This took away the listener’s familiar frame of reference – the beat – the drummer wasn’t stating the beat but only referring to it.

There is, in fact, as much organization in bebop as in swing or the New Orleans music. The forms are exactly the same: the twelve-bar blues and thirty two bar A  A B A. The boppers kept the basic harmonic structure of the forms, but they composed a new melody (called a “line” or “head”) to substitute for provocations. The elaborate melodic improvisations contained tones that suggested substitute chord or series of chords that refers to the original chord or chords; it has either additional or altered notes that usually correspond with the melody. Complex bebop harmonies were generated by the horn players’ melodies.

Charlie “Bird” Parker

Charlie Parker

Bebop was not only a new style of music, but a distinct lifestyle as well. Shades, berets, and goatees were the “official” dress, and “hip” or “jive” talk was the vernacular. The man who epitomized this revolution and was, in fact, its musical and spiritual leader was Charlie “Bird” Parker (1920-1955)

Parker was born in Kansas City. He played Baritone horn in the school marching band but soon switched to alto saxophone. By fifteen, he was a high school dropout, a professional musician, and a heroin addict. He worked around Kansas City and there heard Lester Young play with the Basie Band. Young was Parker’s most profound early influence. Parker then lived in New York for some time. Along with the trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, he became a standard figure in the Harlem Jam sessions. Both he and Gillespie worked with Earl-Hines in traditional swing band until they were fired for playing their “weird” music.

The first bebop records were made in late 1944 and early 1945 for the new and exclusively Jazz Savoy record company. Parker recorded as sideman with Tiny Grimes, with Dizzy Gillespie, and finally under his own name. Most of those recording had typically (for bebop) deceptive titles like “Billie’s Bounce” (twelve bar blues) “Thriving on a Riff” (“I got rhythm”), “KoKo” (a strange version of “Cherokee”). These records had a hostile reception, with critics using such glowing adjectives as “comical”, “ugly”, “squealing”, “honking”, and “non-“ Ant music”.

Lyricism, intensity, and timing were the three major elements of Parkers’ style. His melodic line was extremely long and used intervals that implied so many substitutions that the harmonic background of the original tune was changed forever. He had a great sense of humor and quoted melodies from outside the jazz repertoire in the middle of his improvisations. The Habanera from Bizet’s opera Carmen and “Popeye the Sailor Man” were two favorites.

John Coltrane

John Coltrane left bebop to emerge as the new spiritual
leader of the modern jazz (United Press International)

John Coltrane (1926-1967) and Sonny Rollins were the most influential saxophone players after 1955. Coleman Hawkins had inspired both of these aggressive tenor sax players. While Rollins was still perfecting his post-bop style, Coltrane left bebop and emerged as the new spiritual leader of modern jazz.

Coltrane’s first break came while he was with Miles Davis Quintet, 1955-1957. This band played bebop standards, non-jazz standards, and the blues. The driving force behind the band was the rhythm section. Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). They provided a solid background for Coltrane’s solos, which were characterized by a bebop rhythmic feeling, melodic lines punctuated by “cries” in the upper register, and some of the double-time passages. Perhaps his most outstanding characteristics is that- unlike Young, who created new melodies on the top of simple harmonies – Coltrane “ran the changes”, creating patterns that extended of the harmonies. This new approach to improvising was fully realized when he left Davies Quintet in 1958. Substitution, in the bebop sense, had meant altering the chord progression to fit the soloist’s melodic line. But Coltrane’s “Giant steps” goes beyond this and starts out with substitutions as the original harmonies. The harmonic vocabulary is complex in this tune, and Coltrane changes chords every two beats.

With Coltrane’s death in 1967, Jazz completed a full cycle. Today Jazz is heading towards a fusion with rock music. This seems inevitable, with more and more rock bands playing jazz with jazz musicians using rock tunes and forms for improvising. Only time can tell whether the fusion will produce artists whose creativity matches that of the musicians we have briefly examined here.