Do you think you might like jazz, but don’t know where to start? It is hard to find those gems that are the cream of the crop of Jazz history. As an art form, it includes many extremes, but above all it is music that is profoundly touching to the heart, well worth investigating and gives many years of rewarding experience. To guide you into this brave new world is the ACE Jazz Library. A hand picked listening guide to only the best, the 5 star albums of jazz history.
The Bebop Years
Welcome to ACE Jazz Library - Podcast no.4
Here we tell the story of bebop and feature the playing of the virtuosos, who set the pace and transformed jazz from music hall entertainment to a cutting edge artform of dynamic invention and transcedant experience. Click on the title above to listen. [Click on the text links to hear more samples (US); or the selection box below the post (UK)]
The Bebop era of the 1940's was when jazz rapidly transformed from a fairly rigid method and style of playing, usually as accompaniment to dancing or dining, into a relatively freeform artistic expression. Soloists had hitherto played second fiddle to the band leader who acted as compere for the evenings entertainment. Whether it was wartime frugality, the growing popularity of home radio or a natural development of the expanding New York jazz scene, giving more opportunity to independant and smaller ensembles, new small groups playing bebop rapidly set the tone for the sound of jazz to come and spelled the death of the big band era.
Many of the iconic names of jazz gravitated to New York to learn the trade. In th early 1940's upcoming artists began to focus on and copy the virtuosic innovations of pianist Art Tatum, guitarist Charlie Christian and saxophonist Lester Young. These artists played long drawn out improvisations on a theme, where the original tune was heavily improvised around. With bebop the improvisation took an extra step so the originaal tune often remained only in essence as a key in which to play and some chords around which to improvise.
Lester Young plays D B Blues
Clubs like Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, also encouraged a more experimental scene and this became a melting pot, where established stars like Roy Eldrige rubbed shoulders with upcoming stars like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. The bebop style came about as a result of a number of modifications to the prevailing jazz style. While improvisations are much freer, it is also often played much faster. Not least among the innovations was the shift of emphasis on drums from the simple repetitive bass and brushes accompaniment of swing to keeping the beat on ride cymbal (listen for the characteristic ding ding da ding throughout the podcast). This frees up the hands and feet, allowing much greater flexibility for embellishments on the snare and bass. Kenny Clarke, was house drummer at Minton's and a key innovator of this new drum style. Clarke essentially set the pace for every jazz drummer since, though at the time he was as much lauded as ridiculed (mostly by old timers) for punctuating the rhythm so much. The new soloists however loved this percussion style, because it provided not only rhythm but dynamic punctuation for their continuous improvisations.
Much has already been said and written about Charlie Parker’s influence on jazz, so I will not waste time repeating, but try to get straight to the essence of it. Parker was a spontaneous artistic genius and the greatest, most inimitable soloist in jazz history. His private life was a mess, with chronic drug and alcohol addictions that eventually saw him off this mortal coil, but boy could he play. He was a good old boy who liked to party, but was smart too, having a firm grasp on both the intellectual and artistic side of musical expression. If he lived his life to excess, it is also true of his playing, which was instrumental in freeing jazz of its rules and transforming it to a medium of free form artistic expression. This is beautifully exemplified in this rare video footage, where Parker can hardly wait for old time swinger Coleman Hawkins to finish his typically excellent but sedately paced offering, before he careens in wildy with a characteristically exuberant solo.
While Dizzy Gillespie took a much more technical approach to playing , thankfully writing down his contributions to bebop and jazz in general, Parker was first and foremost a player, who lived the "scene!" He might have been a genius, but like his contemporariess he lived in a society in which many considered any contribution he might make as second class because of his skin colour. The jazz scene typically involved the use of drugs, in particular marijuana and heroin, of which the latter provided the desired ultimate transcendence from the trials of daily life, allowing total immersion in the joy of musical creation, but at a price. (See the Sonny Rollins Special for an enlightening discussion about jazz and drug addiction).
The recording technology of the 1940's was limited to 78's, comprising two sides of acetate of 3 minutes each. During 1942 to 1944 there was also a recording strike by the American Federation of Musicians, which confined bebop to the clubs, but when recording resumed, the radiowaves were overtaken by the all new and fully fledged bebop style. The majority of the short and sweet bebop gems, such as those found on the Parker and Navarro collections, are actually spontaneous happenings rather than premeditated pieces. By 1950 it seems everyone had caught the bebop bug. Check out Lester Young and friends on part 2 of our featured bebop video.
At first bebop may be difficult to get into, probably because there is so much happening, but one of its beauties is that with so much to hear, upon repeated listening, instead of getting boring it grows more accessible and rewarding. And if anything in life is true it is that things which are worthwhile are hard to get and I would seriously recommend trying to get bebop.
Like Charlie Christian who died at 23, having in a few brief years helped sow the seeds that woud change jazz forever, Fats Navarro’s star also flared bright and brief, but at the height of bebop. Having started out in local swing bands of Indianapolis and Kansas, Navarro's brief stint with the Billy Eckstine band, though exciting, was artistically unrewarding. Not content to languish in the shade of Eckstine's commercially appealing vocals Navarro jumped ship, landing in New York in the mid 1940's aged 22, where his virtuosic trumpet playing fell right in with the blossoming bebop scene, now being fueled by the record buying public.
Despite his newly acquired drug habit, Fats was greatly in demand for his ebullient playing, later copied by the likes of Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan. His feature solos, brought much sought after attention to a plethora of recordings on which he appeared between 1946-47 though his best recordings are universally considered to be from 1948 with pianist / arranger Tadd Dameron. These tracks are available on the Fats Navarro Story, where he is ably accompanied by an all star cast, including other budding luminaries Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell and Miles Davis.
Follow the links to find selected 5 star bebop collections from our featured artists. If you like what you hear at Ace Jazz Library please support us by clicking through and purchasing the music you like, or failing that why not make a donation using the paypal button. There are a lot of bebop recordings and reissues around. Not all are worth having. Many are of atrocious quality and some are for completists only. As ever I am directing you to the entry level best buys.
When I first got into jazz music over 20 years ago, it was difficult to access a lot of music.
Now with the internet we almost have too much. In some ways this is good, in others bad. Unless you are a committed jazz fan you will be adrift in a sea of choices. Long ago I decided to collect only 5 star albums. Many years of research later I have an excellent collection of the best classic jazz albums. Even exceptional artists with dozens of albums may only have a small handful of absolute essentials. But if you check on Amazon, just about every other album is rated 5 stars. So how do you get beyond all this difference of opinion? Well, when I say 5 stars, I mean it's a classic of its time - rated highly by both critics and fans alike. To find those, you either need to do some homework or you need a media filter. This blog is a filter you can use to sort out the real gems from the rest of the crop and build your own Ace jazz library. Just check out the posts, listen to the podcasts and start collecting what you like, resting assured that these are the classics.
and saxophonist Lester Young. These artists played long drawn out improvisations on a theme, where the original tune was heavily improvised around. With bebop the improvisation took an extra step so the originaal tune often remained only in essence as a key in which to play and some chords around which to improvise.
, where he is ably accompanied by an all star cast, including other budding luminaries Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell and Miles Davis.
Not all bebop !
Not all bebop!
The most famous bebop concert ever!
