Bebop

Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker was a leading performer and composer of the bebop era. He is pictured here with Tommy Potter, Max Roach and Miles Davis at the Three Deuces club in New York City.

Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales, and occasional references to the melody.

Bebop developed as the younger generation of jazz musicians expanded the creative possibilities of jazz beyond the popular, dance-oriented swing music-style to a new "musician's music" that was not as danceable and demanded close listening. As bebop was not intended for dancing, it enabled the musicians to play at faster tempos. Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords, extended chords, chord substitutions, asymmetrical phrasing, and intricate melodies. Bebop groups used rhythm sections in a way that expanded their role. Whereas the key ensemble of the swing music era was the big band of up to fourteen pieces playing in an ensemble-based style, the classic bebop group was a small combo that consisted of saxophone (alto or tenor), trumpet, piano, guitar, double bass, and drums playing music in which the ensemble played a supportive role for soloists. Rather than play heavily arranged music, bebop musicians typically played the melody of a composition (called the "head") with the accompaniment of the rhythm section, followed by a section in which each of the performers improvised a solo, then returned to the melody at the end of the composition.

Some of the most influential bebop artists, who were typically composer-performers, are alto sax player Charlie Parker; tenor sax players Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and James Moody; clarinet player Buddy DeFranco; trumpeters Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie; pianists Bud Powell, Barry Harris and Thelonious Monk; electric guitarist Charlie Christian; and drummers Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, and Art Blakey.

Quotes about bebop

• Variously called rebop, bebop, or simply bop, the new approach was forged by restlessly innovative musicians who had grown dissatisfied with big-band swing, a dance-oriented style that required a predictable rhythmic groove, a sonic blend that favored tight section playing over improvised soloing, and an atmosphere of unfettered joy and gleaming optimism. Heralded as “modern jazz,” the new music favored small combos playing an opening melodic theme (the “head”) that introduced a set of chords, followed by a succession of solos in which players improvised new versions of the theme with agile, quicksilver runs through the governing chord progression, free to enrich the harmonic texture with substitute and extended chords. The tunes were played at blistering tempos. Drummers accented the soloists’ fractured, serpentine phrasings with abstract, almost ironic, snare drum riffs and—in place of the martial four-to-the-floor style of swing drumming—the deft dropping of bass drum “bombs” in odd corners of the meter. Freed from an obligation to accommodate dancers, these musicians now emphasized technical virtuosity and creative ingenuity. Modern jazz was a listening music, and many of its players insisted on being seen as artists rather than as entertainers.
  • The National WWII Museum (September 15, 2021) [1]

• For guitar players who are studying jazz, taking the next step in jazz improvisation can mean incorporating the distinct language of the bebop style into one’s playing. Most players start out in jazz by matching scales to their parent chord (such as A Dorian or A Aeolian matched to an Am7 chord). But to really enter the authentic historic realm of jazz – and to learn that specific language – means studying the architects of bebop.
  • Jim Bastian of Premier Guitar (September 8, 2008) [2]