3. LEARN ABOUT BEBOP

Unless you were in Ellington's band, Swing wasn't the most exciting time to be a jazz musician. Almost everyone was capable of playing more complex stuff, but was limited by the dance hall constraints of the time. Consequently, in the early 1940s, many good young jazz musicians would have "day jobs" in a Swing band while their best music would be played after hours in jam sessions with other young cats at New York hot spots like Monroe's and Minton's. These guys stayed up late inventing Bebop.

Listening to the experimentation of such musicians as guitarist Charlie Christian and saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, the true inventors of Bebop were the baby-faced trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and sax player Charlie Parker (also known as "Bird").

Bebop contained harmonies as complex as any ever developed, and it had active percussion and vibrant rhythms. Drummers, such as Max Roach, became more important and received more attention, as the focus moved from the bass drum to the cymbals as the primary element of the backbeat. The music was "hot" (meaning it had an expressive sound), and made all jazz before it seem like a precursor. To the novice listener, it just sounds really fast. Bebop is often considered to be the pinnacle of jazz.

The only problem was that no one was listening. The musicians all knew how great it was, so they decided that the music was too overwhelming for audiences. So to make it more accessible, they decided to simplify the music a little and highlight certain elements for the audience. This is when Bebop, starting in the late 1940s and continuing to today, splintered into a couple of new genres: Cool Jazz and Hard Bop.

  • Cool Jazz (mid 1950s): Cool Jazz shares bebop's intellectual style but is slower, has less complex melodies, and is much more laid back. If you want a good example of Cool Jazz, look for early Miles Davis (an important trumpet player who we'll talk more about later) or some Stan Getz on the sax.

  • Hard Bop (late 1950s to early 1960s): Hard Bop used electric instruments for the first time, which took away much of the intellectual play of Bebop and emphasized the Hot sound. Hard Bop musicians sought to appeal to their audiences but not overpowering their ear with too much information. Hard Bop is very accessible for novice jazz listeners. Go out and get some Art Blakey or early Herbie Hancock to hear Hard Bop.