Bebop Research Paper Essay

Bebop music was the next evolutionary change of Jazz music that succeeded swing music. This paper’s aim is look at musicians who impacted this era, exploring more in depth Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. In the early 1940’s, the swing bands began to all sound the same as well as work along predictable chord changes.1 The music was now not used for dancing. Some people believed that this would let the music go away from the elite social groups, and now be for everybody. Also just because a musician could play swing music well, there was no guarantee that the same musician would be able to perform Bebop. This new style of music was defined through adventurous soloists such as Dizzy Gillespie. Although swing music did have some creativity, in Bebop the chorus was done once at the beginning and once at the end, the middle was mostly up to the soloist’s creativity and inventiveness. Bebop music really took hold during the years of American involvement in WWII. During this time there was a major strike from the Musicians Union because they wanted more money from labels because of money lost on free radio.2 The strike led to musicians jamming with each other and not being able to record. Since there was a lack of recorded material for the music, when recording started again, and people heard Bebop they were very taken aback. They had no warning that this new style of music was being created, let alone how different it was from swing. The musical style itself differed quite a lot from anything that had ever been done in Jazz up until this point. Along with the chorus only being repeated at the end of a musical number, there were fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, and intricate melodies. The only things that held Bebop together were underlying harmonies that were played by the rhythm section. Other then this, most of the music ended up being improvisational as discussed earlier. The chord progression which was used for the music was actually not much different from the swing era, but the melody was new and much more complex. At the end of the Bebop era, musicians were using harmonic substitutions instead chords. This style and era of Jazz took people by surprise. The music was different, unique, and really let the musicians express who they were as Jazz musicians. Dizzy Gillespie was born John Birks Gillespie in South Carolina on October 21, 1917.3 He was youngest of nine children. His childhood was not one that he wanted to remember much. His father was very abusive towards him and his siblings. â€Å"I was scared, scared of my father. He was super austere, and never showed any emotion. He’d give me a whipping every Sunday morning, me and my brothers,† said Dizzy speaking of his childhood. 4 Gillespie got into a lot of trouble as a child. But at the age of ten or so, an English teacher introduced him to music, which lead him to joining the school band. 5 He 3 Alyn Shipton, Groovin High: The life of Dizzy Gillespie, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 6 started his young music career playing the trombone. The instrument changed once he borrowed a neighbor’s trumpet for the first time.6 Dizzy began playing in the loc al bands all around town. After his younger years, Gillespie attended a school that was a boarding school and day college, called the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina. 7 While he was there it is thought that he was struggling for money for clothes. Although tuition and board was covered for him, he had worked in the field to make extra money. 8 Dizzy Gillespie’s mother moved up to Philadelphia while he was at the end of his career at the Laurinburg Institute and moved up to be with her in 1935.9 He began playing in bands about Philly and in the area. This was done for a few years between 1935-1937, before he moved up to New York City.10 While he was in Philadelphia he got his reputation and subsequently his nickname, â€Å"Dizzy†. He was known for the unpredictable nature in which he would play the trumpet and act outside of performing. When he arrived in New York City, he was hired by the Teddy Hill Orchestra for a European tour.11 Before being hired, Dizzy was playing around town and making a name for himself. There he lived with his brother in an apartment in New York City. He went out all night so that his brother could come home form working all day and go to sleep. Gillespie’s first recordings were with the Teddy Hill Orchestra Band. After being with Hill for a few years, Gillespie joined Cab Calloway in the summer of 1939. 13 They played at the Cotton Club but Calloway was touring a lot. This gave Dizzy the opportunity to develop his musicianship through style and knowledge through playing at all night jam sessions. Then, in 1942, Gillespie joined Earl â€Å"Fatha† Hines band. Unfortunately, in 1943, lots of band members left, including Dizzy Gillespie. He began to form his own bands that started by opening at Onyx Club on 52nd St in New York City.14 Dizzy had begun to play â€Å"bebop† in 1940, and was now able to do it full time. The venue became a hot spot for this new evolutional sound in Jazz. In 1956 Gillespie and his band went on a state department tour of the Middle East, which earned another nickname â€Å"Ambassador of Jazz†. He continued to work as a Jazz ambassador for the rest of his career, going to Cuba in 1977, and working with United Nations Orchestra. At the end of his life he took up educating young musicians. He unfortunately died from pancreatic cancer in 1993. He left us with a new style of music, and left his mark by helping educate a new generation of Jazz musicians. Another great artist, and considered the second founder of Bebop was Charlie Parker. He grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. Parker was raised here until he was seven years old and then his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri that was thriving culturally at the time.15 It was an important city for African-American music as well. Parker had his irst bout with music in public schools in Kansas City, Missouri.16 In high school, Charlie Parker began by playing the baritone horn, then later on switched to the alto saxophone in 1933, which he stuck with. At the age of 15, the determined in yet not very talented yet, Parker left school to pursue his music career. The young man had a hard time at first getting yelled at by fellow band members, and then practicing for fifteen hours a day.17 From 1935 to 1939 he worked in Kansas City playing with local groups developing his talent through practice and performance.18 In 1939 Charlie Parker moved from Kansas City to New York City. When he arrived he worked as a dishwasher and attended jam sessions during the nights.19 While he was in New York City, he ended up meeting trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. He would end up collaborating and working with Gillespie to create what we now know as Bebop.20 From 1940-1942 Charlie Parker played in Jay McShann’s that toured in the southwest and Chicago, and then recorded with them in Dallas.21 At this time, the recordings were more swing-based and were also made for broadcasting.22 In 1942 he joined Earl Hines band, this would prove to be a great move because him and Gillespie together were able 16 Ken Burns, Charlie Parker, to experiment. As this â€Å"big band† style of music began to decline, the up-beat improvisational style of Parker began to show. This style of Jazz caught on with the younger generations of musicians throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s. Parker’s success was cut short because of addiction. When he was a child, he had an accident that he got addicted to morphine from. In 1951, he had his cabaret license revoked.23 Parker was banned from performing at nightclubs and later attempted suicide twice, and died in 1955. As one of the founders of Bebop, Charlie Parker contributed quality work in Jazz for the future generations. When he was playing, the older generations did not take to his new form of Jazz, now people look back and call him and innovator. Max Roach is another great innovator, and is one of the best jazz percussionists to ever play. Roach grew up in Brooklyn in a house that was already full of music. His mother was a gospel singer and began to play instruments in gospel bands when he was 10 years old.24 The first instrument he played was the bugle, and then later switched to the drums. When he was 16 he played in his first big performance, he substituted in Duke Ellington’s band. 25 When he was 18, he began going down to 52nd street and 78th street to begin jamming with other Jazz musicians. He was influenced by Kenny Clarke and was one of the few bebop drummers of the time. Roach would keep time on the cymbal instead of the bass drum, as swinger drummers did.26 This technique allowed for more 23 Burns  space to create rhythmic accompaniment. Throughout his career, Max Roach played with all the greats of the Bebop jazz style. He was able to play with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Coleman Hawkins, and Bud Powell.27 Roach actually played on most of the recordings of Charlie Parker, including Savoy 1945, an important turning point in recorded Jazz.28 He also played on Miles Davis’s recording Birth of the Cool in 1950 and Jazz at Massey Hall in 1952.29 Max Roach is the percussionist who took Bebop took the next level and is one of the best percussionists there was in Bebop jazz. Miles Davis, born in 1926, came from middle class beginnings and was raised outside of St Louis.30 His mother raised him in an integrated in an integrated suburb and began music through playing trumpet after his father bought him one. Davis’ first teacher encouraged him to play the trumpet unlike Louis Armstrong and Roy Eldridge, using straight, vibratoless tones.31 After a visit by Billy Ecksteins Band to St Louis, which included Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, he applied to the Julliard School of Music in New York City in 1944. Some people say that he only went there to find his idol Charlie Parker.32 The formal teaching at Julliard was not enough for Davis and he ended up 27 All About Jazz seeking out Jazz clubs such as the Savoy and Minton’s. He joined Charlie Parker in live appearances and recordings between 1945 and 1948.33 In 1948, Miles Davis started his own Bebop groups. He participated in a workshop with arranger Gil Evans. This led to collaborations with Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, and Johnny Carisi, which ended up being recordings. They were recorded for Capitol under Davis’ name and later reissued as Birth of the Cool. 34 Miles Davis career at this point was marred by a heroine addiction. He was unable to perform much and when he did, it was with inferior accompanists, and performed infrequent recordings for labels. Miles Davis did not spearhead the Bebop movement as Parker or Gillespie did, but he was nonetheless very important in the Jazz revolution of the time. Davis’ jazz is some of the best in the 20th century. Thelonius Monk was a Jazz pianist who helped spur bebop during the height of this new revolutionary sound. Monk was born in 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.35 He grew up with a piano in his house, and that became his first exposure to music at a very young age. He taught himself how to read music when he was five or six by looking over his sisters shoulder as she was rec eiving music lessons.36 Before Monk was ten years old, his family moved to New York City, near the Hudson River. His father left his family after becoming ill and moving back south, leaving Monk’s mom to raise him and his siblings. She was able to get him a piano when he was eleven and he began taking formal lessons at this point.37 He started playing piano in the church choir which is mother sang in, while also being surrounded by the Jazz scene in New York City. In 1939, Monk created his first jazz group.38 Monk’s first notable moment was in 1940 when he was hired at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem as the house pianist. 39 While at Minton’s he was able to playwith the house quartet, and got to play with Jazz pianist Bud Powell, Roy Eldridge, and Don Byas. In 1944, Theolnius Monk made his first visit to the recording studio as a part of the Coleman Hawkin’s Quartet. 40 In 1944 he also recorded Round About Night, and ended up joining Dizzy Gillespie’s Orchestra and playing on 52nd street at Spotlite Club.41 Then in 1947, Monk made recordings under his own name in a sextet session for Blue Note. Thelonius Monk was falsely arrested in 1951 for narcotics possession.42 He had his cabaret license taken away from him therefore inhibiting him from playing in the Jazz clubs in New York City. He played in out of town gigs and made some records for Prestige Label during this time.43 Then in 1954 he traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to play in the Paris Jazz Festival. While there he recorded his first solo album for Vogue, which would prove to be the way people would remember him, as one of the most imaginative solo pianists. The Bebop era was filled with musicians that are still talked about today as having great influence on 20th century music. Bebop let jazz artists express themselves through extended solos that were not very common yet. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker really took the scene abruptly and changed the way one can play jazz. This evolution in Jazz evoked fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, and rhythm sections expanding their roles in the band. The Bebop era gave listeners great Jazz in an evolutionary style, that people still enjoy today.