Why bebop was created

It is this experience, I believe, which motivated the bop greats far more than the immediate financial concerns on which DeVeaux places so much emphasis throughout his book. By seeking to reduce bop to nothing more than a gimmick for black musicians to make money at the expense of their less gifted but more privileged white counterparts, DeVeaux unconsciously translates profound questions of art and society into the crude language of the s--that the sole purpose of human activity is the accumulation of personal wealth and privileges, with various groups pitted against each other along racial and ethnic lines.

DeVeaux tells his story with an unwarranted focus on Coleman Hawkins, the superlative swing era virtuoso justifiably regarded as the father of all jazz tenor saxophonists, but not a bop musician.

Hawkins emerged from the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra under the spell of its greatest improviser, Louis Armstrong, and in emigrated to Europe, where he was able to perform improvised solos for appreciative audiences outside the stifling structures of the dance bands.

Upon his return to the United States in , he recorded a stunningly beautiful solo masterpiece on the standard "Body and Soul," a huge seller which was later set to words by jazz singer Eddie Jefferson, and then again, in harmony, by the Manhattan Transfer. Rather than rejecting bebop, as did most of his contemporaries, Hawkins fronted groups in that featured many of the new musicians, including Monk, Gillespie and the brilliant young drummer Max Roach one of the few original bop musicians still active in music.

Nevertheless, Hawkins's own playing did not successfully incorporate the innovations of his younger sidemen. In placing such emphasis on the role played by Coleman Hawkins, DeVeaux overlooks the swing era tenor saxophonist generally credited as being the fount of the boppers' new musical ideas, Lester Young of the Count Basie Orchestra.

DeVeaux seeks to prove his conclusion with a nuts and bolts examination of the economics of the music business. His starting point is the special attraction that careers in the dance bands held for black youth because music provided one of the few avenues in the s and 30s through which they could advance socially. Although he points out that early in the century jazz musicians came disproportionately from the ranks of the black middle class, many aspiring black musicians lacked the resources for extensive formal training.

As a result, there was an astounding development of instrumental individuality and imagination, which has contributed so much to the distinctive character and appeal of jazz over the years. DeVeaux explains with great passion that despite the commercial success of the bands, the twin impact of the Depression and Jim Crow racism caused great hardships and a never-ending string of petty humiliations for these talented musicians.

Excluded from extended engagements in major metropolitan hotels and on radio shows which were dominated by white bands such as Goodman's and the Dorsey Brothers' , black jazz musicians spent endless months on uncomfortable buses performing one nighters, one after the other, especially in the South, where they could not even sleep in hotels or eat in restaurants.

The advent of World War II brought these relations to a crashing halt. Conscription decimated the ranks of the big bands and gas shortages halted the tours. DeVeaux argues that due to racial discrimination, the few remaining jazz jobs went mostly to white musicians, but his evidence on this point is weak, and is inconsistent with radio transcriptions and films of the period. In any event, the result of this process, he contends, was the sudden appearance of regular Harlem jam sessions at which the new musicians, including Charlie Christian before his untimely death of tuberculosis in , Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and drummer Kenny Clarke, worked out the new musical vocabulary.

DeVeaux's tracing of this history, especially the details of the Harlem jam sessions and the early bebop groups and recording sessions, is admirable. His conclusion--that the purpose of these efforts was to work out music too complex for white imitators--is questionable, at best. There were parallel developments in modern classical music as well as in "progressive" white big bands, particularly those of Boyd Raeburn with whom Dizzy Gillespie first recorded "Night in Tunisia" , Stan Kenton and Woody Herman.

Moreover, DeVeaux's racialist thesis is contradicted by the statements of the bop pioneers themselves, who, despite the terrible impact segregation must have had on the musicians in the s, did not respond with black nationalist and separatist views. The development of bebop, in the aftermath of World War II, signified a certain optimism and hope about the ability to break down racial barriers.

Frankly, when appreciating recordings of this music, it doesn't matter one bit whether musicians like Charlie Parker were white or black. I think Parker's words on the subject are much more persuasive than DeVeaux's arguments. During a interview, Parker claimed that in the early s he had "no idea [bebop] was that much different" than the jazz which preceded it.

What is the content of this "something that was beautiful" to which Parker, perhaps the greatest of all jazz musicians, thinks should be directed "more or less to the people"? By fixating on race, DeVeaux avoids tackling this more fundamental question. Music is by its nature the most abstract of all art forms, yet its allure lies in its ability to concretize the most fundamental human emotions.

As WSWS arts editor David Walsh explained, "Art is very much bound up with the struggle, as old as human consciousness, to shape the world, including human relations, in accordance with beauty and the requirements of freedom, with life as it ought to be. But these strong emotions transcend the immediate circumstances that produced them, and pass into a far more universal sphere. Inspired by the more harmonically and rhythmically experimental players from the swing era—like Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Art Tatum, and Roy Eldridge—bebop musicians expanded the palette of musical devices.

Soloists no longer concerned themselves with lyricism and emphasized rhythmic unpredictability and harmonic complexity instead. The advent of bebop marked an expansion of the roles of the rhythm section. In bebop, rhythm section players were no longer simply time-keepers, but interacted with the soloist and added their own embellishments.

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Time Traveler. Love words? Need even more definitions? Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Literally How to use a word that literally drives some pe Is Singular 'They' a Better Choice?

The awkward case of 'his or her'. Take the quiz.