Origins of Bebop

[Grove]

Like it or not there is something about bebop that requires mastery of your instrument. Many things have exploded as a result of it. Bud Powell with his Latin thing. Bill Evans opening up modal improvisation and really a start of of something great with LaFaro with who knows where it would of gone.

I thought I knew the answer until I hit google. Where did bebop start from and influences? I thought it came out of the Kansas City group with Bud Powell, Dizzy and Parker incorporating swing into a classical Hungarian infuence at the time.

[philip sirois]

Originally Posted by Grove

I thought it came out of the Kansas City group with Bud Powell, Dizzy and Parker incorporating swing into a classical Hungarian infuence at the time.

!!!!

[Dr. Zoidberg]

I thought they wanted to make something so complicated white people couldn't steal it like they did the blues.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by Grove

Like it or not there is something about bebop that requires mastery of your instrument.

In a way this is a problem - so I've read many articles recently about the state of modern Jazz, where they bemoan that fact that with so much Jazz education, colleges are churning out students who have devoted their time to mastering lightning-fast Bebop on their instruments, but have little new to actually say....

So students are treating music almost like a competitive sport where it is a case of pitting your bebop skils against the next guy and seeing who can get the most notes in at the fastest possible tempo...?

[sk8terguy316]

I believe bop started when people (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie) started studying more advanced harmonies and playing around with weird phrasings and stuff based off of the upper extesions of chords. Dizzy Gillespie was supposedly known to be a very good trumpet player of the Roy Eldridge mold. He was known to be almost a copy and Dizzy was rebellious in his youth and he seeked individuality so he developed his own thing to separate himself from Roy. Charlie Parker has many times said that he played what he heard in his head. Eventually bop spread because of these players and especially because of the Minton's jazz club in NYC where people could play and sit in. Thelonius Monk and I believe Charlie Parker and Dizzy would sometimes all play there together. I may not be right though so don't get angry if I am wrong

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Compare Bird's transcribed lines to J.S. Bach's lines from the WTC and the 2 and 3 part inventions, and the question becomes a hell of a lot more complicated. I did this by accident while studying counterpoint in grad school as part of my curriculum, and studying the omnibook and transcribing bebop masters to feed my soul. The similarities are astonishing, and in a funny way raised my level of respect for both genres in one fell stroke.

While I don't believe that there is any one "correct" or definitive answer to the question "where did bop come from?", I think the bebop arose from taking different aspects of the music of different cultures and smashing them together, which is often how new musical styles are created.

[ryco]

According to my drummer it started up in Canada after hours. The cats would hang out and blow after the gig drinking "tea" and trying get as far out as they could.

Whatever. He's Canandian, so I take the story with a 10 lb sack of salt.

BTW: He also claims BeBop destroyed jazz. He's old(er) and kinda grumpy but he's an excellent player so I forgive him

[Uncletoad]

Originally Posted by ryco

According to my drummer it started up in Canada after hours. The cats would hang out and blow after the gig drinking "tea" and trying get as far out as they could.

1. "According to my drummer"
2. "According to my drummer"
3. "According to my drummer"

[Sam Sherry]

Originally Posted by Dr. Zoidberg

I thought they wanted to make something so complicated white people couldn't steal it like they did the blues.

This is the kind of ******** that needs to get called.

Not funny, kid.

[Jeremy Allen]

Originally Posted by ryco

...drinking "tea" and trying get as far out as they could.

Bet they weren't drinking it.

I'm not one to provide a bibliographic citation as an answer to every question, but Scott Deveaux knows what he's talking about, his methodology is sound, and his presentation is clear enough that even non-scholars can read it and dig it without zoning out:
http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Bebop-Mu...1269566&sr=8-1

The question "where did bebop come from" is not going to get answered on a message board (at least not well), but this book will take you as close to the answer as books and such can.

[LowDog]

A lot of it came from these musicians that played tunes, like "Honeysuckle Rose", taking some of their solo material and playing those notes across the changes and calling it their own, like "Scrapple From The Ap[ple", (Charlie Parker).

I like Chris's idea of the clash of styles idea as well.

[Grove]

I have been listening to a lot of Bartok lately. I am beginning to think there is a lot of influence from him to create bebop. In a lot of ways I am hearing Bartok as a springboard to contemporary music.

[Bruce Lindfield]

My main Jazz teacher over the last few years is an Alto player who has obviously studied a lot of Parker's music and he says that you can hear him, just trying to add in more notes and treat chords as scales, by adding in upper extensions ... well obviously he said a lot more than that - but this seemed to me the essence of what he was saying...?

I don't see it needs to have come from classical music - it's people experimenting, thinking - now if I add in more extensions to these chords, I have all these choices of extra notes available to me - if I choose some of these it sounds "out" but still makes a kind of sense.....etc. etc.

[msw]

I would have to say that Charlie Parker, and his incredible innovations,could be understood and appreciated in much broader terms than most of what I am reading here. His approach was fueled by an amazingly creative mind and a supreme talent, I would imagine.I am not sure it was contrived. Perhaps it was created a lot more naturally than we are giving credit for.

[nickbass]

Yes, in lots of ways bebop was a natural development (by some incredibly strong and creative players) of approaches that were already being used by some late swing players. Listen to the linear playing of Lester Young, or the intricate reharmonisations of Art Tatum, for example, and you will hear that bebop was already 'in the air', waiting to be developed!
On another point, yes, you can hear plenty of similarities between Bartok and jazz. His use of folk melodies and scales brings to mind Coltrane, Tyner etc; his love of the b5 interval is echoed in bebop. But are these direct influences, or merely parallel movements? I always thought Bird was more directly influenced by Stravinsky (also big on polytonality!)..isn't there a story about Bird travelling to Igor's home to try to see the great composer?
nick

[frichter]

Originally Posted by nickbass

I always thought Bird was more directly influenced by Stravinsky (also big on polytonality!)..isn't there a story about Bird travelling to Igor's home to try to see the great composer?
nick

I don't know about that story, but I do remember reading an interview or liner notes or something with Mingus and he mentioned that one day Bird called him up and said, "hey, check this out," and Bird put the phone down and started blowin over some Stravinsky stuff. Mingus said it blew him away. So, yeah . . . bop was influenced (in a substantial way), by composers such as Stravinsky (Mingus said that Stravinsky was a big influence in his playing/composing), but there is no doubt that it grew out of the hearts and minds of those extremely talented musicians. All new music is influenced by music before it.

[philip sirois]

Originally Posted by msw

Perhaps it was created a lot more naturally than we are giving credit for.

Could be a lot of truth in this.

[Mark Carlsen]

I think alot of you are on the right track and Bird and Diz are the main culprits along w. Monk.
The history is in the recordings that are left behind and the great stories....Mintons, Bird working as a dishwasher at the Chicken shack [?] in Harlem listening to Tatum every night, the Town Hall concert of 1945 in NYC, The Red Cross recordings of Bird and Diz in 1943 in a hotel room in Chicago that Oscar Pettiford walked for miles in a snow storm to go play with, Etc.
This along w. the clasical influence probably shaped this important style of jazz.Check out the history in the recordings for the answers...

[Uncletoad]

Originally Posted by Mark Carlsen

I think alot of you are on the right track and Bird and Diz are the main culprits along w. Monk.

Lennie Tristano as well.

[Aaron Saunders]

Originally Posted by Uncletoad

Lennie Tristano as well.

? Really? I thought that back in the early days of bop, there were the guys playing bebop, and then there was Tristano and his school of thinking.

One of my teachers from last year, Don Palmer, studied with Tristano and Lee Konitz "back in the day" and that was the image I got from him and what he used to talk about. Not to say Lennie didn't have a hand in the creation of bop, but definitely that his own personal playing style was maybe a deviation thereof.