Jazz for aficionados

Be Bop is too complex a music to be simplified in writing; it boils down to either you hear it or you don't; it has been called Chinese music by some.



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvdQYSWOobc



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGXFuxKTbfY



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryNtmkfeJk4



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Through these musicians, a new vocabulary of musical phrases was created. With Parker, Gillespie jammed at famous jazz clubs like Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House. Parker's system also held methods of adding chords to existing chord progressions and implying additional chords within the improvised lines



Parker was a highly influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop,[2] a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique and advanced harmonies. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso, and he introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. His tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career.[3] This, and the shortened form "Bird", continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology", "Bird Gets the Worm", and "Bird of Paradise". Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.[4]

O-10, as always, I am sorry that a more enlightened discussion is not possible. There are two things going on here as is usual. You want to be right about an incomplete viewpoint that you hold no matter how much evidence is presented that points to the contrary. Then, you make an argument for your viewpoint with assertions that do not contradict the opposing viewpoint, but which are, in fact, part of the whole picture; as if this would make your case.  You don’t see that irony because your viewpoint is incomplete. We tend to see what we want to see. I would simply ask this question: how would it be possible for someone to understand the evolutionary process that led to bebop when that listener, by his own admission, has not listened to very much of, nor is interested in listening to, the music that preceded it? Nice clips, btw.

Frogman, this is not philosophy or psychology, this is music; it is the discussion, not what you say, or what I say. When you say Be Bop, you say "Bird"; there was no Be Bop before "Bird".

Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso, and he introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions.

I'm not a musician, I don't really know what that means, but I can hear it; even with "Bird With Strings".



                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmRkZeGFONg



Here I can hear all those "Be Bop" chords over the melody in such a way that nothing is lost in the melody; "Who else can do that"?


There are imitators and duplicators, but when you say "Be Bop" there is only one "Bird".



                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug0K62enZ5E



We have but one option, and that is to agree to disagree.

Thanks frogman for the link on the one song from what "some consider" the "first recorded bebop album". I know you do not agree and posted the link so I could hear certain similarities in Hawkins' "improvised chords". However it is nothing like what Bird was doing during the same period. 

You are welcome, pjw.  There are trends in musical styles and often a player develops a certain style that becomes the stylistic seed for a younger player to then take further.  The player who contributed that seed may or may not take it further himself.  This is a key characteristic of any artistic endeavor.  It’s simply the way it works.  In the case of Hawkins, his playing, compared to that of swing players before him was anything but “nothing compared to Bird”. Think of it as a stepping stone between classic swing and bebop.  I believe that was my point. 

I have a challenge for all who don’t believe in the evolutionary process that, in this case, led to bebop.  Much has been written by musicians themselves and jazz historians about Coleman Hawkins’ place in all this.  A simple internet search of Hawkins “Body And Soul” will yield dozens of hits.  There is also much written in support of the idea re Hawkins/bebop.  Produce written commentary that disputes or discredits this well established footnote in jazz history.  One would think that given how much has been written in support that there would be at least a little bit in opposition.