The Evolution of Modern Jazz



Shadorne's thread "Outstanding Examples of Musicianship" inspired me to begin this thread. While Shadorne stated that all genre's were welcome, I felt that me and another jazz aficionado were beginning to dominate that thread. Shadorne is a "Rocker", bless his heart. This community functions best when like minded people engage in common dialogue.

The title explains this thread. We will use "youtube" the same as in Shardone's thread to illustrate our examples, and now I begin.

In the beginning, there was Charlie "Bird" Parker, and he said "Let there Be Bop" and thus it began. While walking down the street, Bird ran into John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, who had similar ideas, so they "Bopped" down the street together; Bird on alto sax and Diz on trumpet. My first illustration of this new music is "Bloomdido" with Bird and Diz. We should cover "Be Bop" in depth before we go to the next phase of this evolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MCGweQ8Oso&NR=1
orpheus10
Drumming and bass evolved significantly with bebop as the high hat became time keeper and bass drum was used to comp.

here are two pros

Wow

West coast jazz, WCJ from here on out; is rapidly vanishing. The old records in my collection are out of print. Since it wasn't a radical departure from mainstream jazz like "fusion" was, most did not recognize it as a separate genre. I've included the names of musicians who were the primary west coasters, while they weren't as well known as artist's in other genre, they were just as good.

Curtis Counce, Bob Cooper, Bob Perkins, Conti Condoli, Pete Jolly, Harold Land, Carl Perkins, Shelly Manne, Teddy Edwards, Hampton Hawes,Stan Levey, Monty Budwig,and Mel Lewis are a few great west coast boppers that recorded in the 50's and 60's.

Some WCJ was well represented by soundtracks like "The Man With The Golden Arm" and the TV series "Peter Gunn". This genre will soon be gone with the wind, and I intend to get my share before that happens. This is "The Man With the Golden Arm".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlf1PEwnD7w

"Peter Gunn"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWscwxNBla4&feature=autoplay&list=PLA00348ADE1F4B401&index=45&playnext=2

Harold Land "Invitation"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhFC7LB5OXs&feature=related

Curtis Counce "Nica's Dream"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trjO7TWe6ME&feature=related
The music always sounds better when you can actually see it being made, and they showed us every aspect of the reproduction; outstanding!

Now that you know the names of the players, you can mine the WCJ genre on your own. These are my last recommendations in hard bop before we go to "fusion". Ike Quebec, "Heavy Soul" "The Cannonball Adderly Quintet in San Francisco" Charles Mingus, " Mingus AH-Um Charles Mingus" Art Blakey, "A Night in Birdland" "The Best of Horace Silver" "The Best of Lee Morgan" The sidemen on these CD's became leaders, These few CD's can take you a long way.

Tomorrow we'll begin "Fusion". Since there are many experts here, I hope for a lot more help in that genre. While I liked fusion initially, it got boring in a hurry. I guess that tells you why I'm not the best person to take us through fusion. Next we get into some of the most beautiful music in jazz. It's so beautiful, that I've had people tell me it's not jazz because they don't like jazz. The next phase of this wonderful music incorporates music from around the world, maybe that's why some say it isn't jazz; whatever it is I love it.