History of Bop

Courtney Rogers

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History of Bop

The first thing that come to my head when the word “bop” comes up is the popular band Kidz Bop. Although kids bop has no correlation to jazz music, it encompasses the same ideal, making music more interesting. As popular bandleader Ray Conniff said, "If you believe in your art & you love what you do, that energy will go out & people will respond." Music was erupting in the 20th century but with the start of World War II, musicians were sent overseas and it ended the era of swing music. Bands got smaller and smaller groups meant that the focus shifted away from intricate arrangements and entertainment. The roots of Bop started in 1940 after the end of the swing era with the introduction of Bebop. The main transitional figures were Jimmy Blanton, a bass player and Charlie Christian, an electric guitar player. Bop really took off in 1945 and would eventually give way to many different kinds of music thorough out the second half of the 20th Century.

Bebop was known for its complicated chords and fast tempos. The bop era transitioned into music that was about soloists rather than dancing. In Bebop music there was no duplication in the rhythm section and the music was instrumental in nature, and extremely chromatic^[1]. There were many influential musicians during this time, including Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Max Roach but the leading Bebop musicians were Charlie Parker on Alto Saxophone, and Dizzy Gillespie on Trumpet. These musicians viewed themselves as artists rather than just entertainers. Charlie Parker’s style combined lyricism with harmony and technique. Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards, including “Confirmation,” “Moose the Mooche,” and “Billie’s Bounce.”^[2] He formed a friendship with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he would collaborate and develop the style of jazz known as bebop. Gillespie was known for pushing the limits of the trumpet, by playing fast and nimble melodic lines in all of its registers.^[3] After a few short years Bebop, musicians began to counter the melodies and tunes of Bebop with a new style by the name of Cool Jazz

Cool Jazz featured many known artists including Miles Davis with his recording of Birth of The Cool in 1949 and Stan Getz, a Tenor Saxophonist. Alongside Cool Jazz there was also Progressive Jazz, a big band compositional music and Third Stream Jazz, a blending of Classical music and Jazz. Whereas bebop was “hot,” cool jazz was the opposite or “cool,” more reserved, and controlled. Much of cool jazz was arranged ahead of time instead on improvised on the spot like in bebop. These music types took place in the gap between Bebop and Hard bop during 1950-1955.

Hard Bop was a funky feeling kind of music. In hard bop, something new was created without sacrificing vitality^[4] and it was the musical world’s reaction against Cool Jazz. Hard Bop featured a strong drum beat and extensive influence from blues and gospel music. There were two factions of hard bop: funky jazz and mainstream.  Funky jazz was relatively simple and its essence was the part of hard bop that was groovy and influenced by blues and gospel music. Mainstream jazz was far more complex, it was still about groove but added the complexities of bebop.^[5] Miles Davis was a prominent figure in Cool Jazz as well as Hard Bop. In the late 1950’s Miles Davis formed a Hard Bop band which included famous saxophone player, John Coltrane. Many other famous figures came out of this time including Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers as well as the Clifford Brown and Max Roach Quintet. Hard bop, in part, was a means of expression by young African American men to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the social, political, and economic climate of America at that time. This political style of Jazz gave way to the most political of all styles, Free Jazz that occurred in the 1960’s after the end of Bop.