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Full-Text Articles in History
Playing Bebop: Culture And Bebop’S Reciprocal Influence, Audra M. Deboy
Playing Bebop: Culture And Bebop’S Reciprocal Influence, Audra M. Deboy
Student Publications
Following the sweet, pleasant Swing era style music of the 1930’s, Bebop emerged within the United States as an aggressive, percussive, musician-focused style in the 1940’s. However, Bebop’s creation was not spontaneous. Its composers, John Birks Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk, wrote for the sake of the music itself as a form of self-expression, not as entertainment for an audience. Bebop’s dissonant sound expressed political and cultural frustrations, stemming from World War II and similarly shown in the early Civil Rights Movement. I will argue that not only did Bebop develop out of such conflicts, but in a reciprocal …
How Bebop Came To Be: The Early History Of Modern Jazz, Colin M. Messinger
How Bebop Came To Be: The Early History Of Modern Jazz, Colin M. Messinger
Student Publications
Bebop, despite its rather short lifespan, would become a key influence for every style that came after it. Bebop’s effects on improvisation, group structure, and harmony would be felt throughout jazz for decades to come, and the best known musicians of the bebop era are still regarded as some of the finest jazz musicians to ever take the stage. But the characteristics of bebop can easily be determined from the music itself. [excerpt]