WAYNE COMMUNITY COLLEGE MUS Introduction to Jazz Fall, Tuesday/Thursday 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. SJAFB Library Bldg. Instructor Information Instructor: Dr. Joseph Hodges Telephone Numbers: (252) (H) (252) Ext 2379 (O) Office Hours: 8-9:30 a.m. Address: FAX Number:(252)

Dr. Hodges’ Playlist s2j2UbIxOcAxOUPzqfMniAaHM3db s2j2UbIxOcAxOUPzqfMniAaHM3db

Modern Jazz Bepop

Bepop and Jam Sessions In mid 1940s, swing jazz rose from New Orleans origins to turn a corner with bebop or Bop. Jazz became an isolated music appearing in tiny nightclubs rather than dance halls. Small combo tunes were traded in a mass audience for a jazz cult. Revered musicians with revered names People saw it as an outsiders music steeped in drug abuse and tainted with an atmosphere of racial hostility.

Bepop and Jam Sessions Initially described bebob as a revolution Charlie Parker insisted bebop was a new music “something entirely separate and apart from jazz. Historians tend to treat bebop as an evolution from swing placing it in the center of the jazz tradition acknowledging that its status was altered to that of self-conscious art music.

Bepop and Jam Sessions The swing musicians’ day began in the evening By the time people were going home musicians were gearing up for more work. To keep people from wandering in who didn’t belong, jam sessions offered a series of musical obstacles. The simplest was to make an inexperienced interloper feel unwelcome was to count off a tune at a ridiculously fast tempo or pla it in an unfamiliar key.

Bepop and Jam Sessions Charlie Parker and other young musicians could be heard at Minton’s Playhouse on 118 th street in Harlem. Kenny Clarke explained his breakthrough came when he found it impossible to keep up with striking the bass druym on each count and shiftd to the ride cymbal. Creating a shimmering cymbal that became the lighter, more flexible foundation for all modern jazz.

Bepop and Jam Sessions Clark’s style of unexpected bass drum explosions was referred to as dropping bombs. Young hip musicians like Max Roach and Art Blakey found in this playing the methods they needed for a more modern style. Rhythms played by the soloists were disorienting and unpredictable. Listeners were startled by the spurts of fast notes ending abruptly with a two- note gesture that inspired the scaty syllables “be- bop” or “re-bop”.

Bepop and Jam Sessions Comping –the rhythmically unpredictable skein of accompanying chords that complemented the drummer’s strokes and added another layer to the rhythmic mix. Bassist’s role didn’t change – they remained the timekeeper at the bottom of the texture. Bepop was famous and reviled for its complex dissonant harmonies.

Bepop and Jam Sessions New harmonies fastened onto dissonances like the tritone – the chromatic interval known to the Middle Ages as the devil in music and to beboppers as the flatted fifth. Nonmusical forces – racial and economic – were driving musicians out of swing into the unknown future. During the Swing Era, black bands were barred from sponsored prime-time radio show and lengthy engagement jobs at a major hotel ballroom. They had to stay on the road.

Charlie Parker Ko KoKo One of the most gifted instrumentalists in musical history. He earned his nickname “Yardbird” while touring with a Kansas City based territory band led by boogie-woogie pianist Jay McShann. Musicians were intrigued by the 64 bar form of Cherokee written by British bandleader Ray Noble in 1938 with its AABA form. Transformed in to Ko Ko in 1945 when Parker brought a new quintet to Savoy Records.

Dizzy Gillespie John Burks “Dizzy” Gillespie Astounding solos, crackling in the upper register and accelerating to speeds not thought possible matched Parker’s. From Cheraw, South Carolina and taught himself trumpet

Charlie Parker Embraceable You

Charlie Parker Now’s the Time

Bud Powell The finest pianist of the bepop generation. Father was a New York stride pianist. Brother played trumpet Younger brother Richie became a bop pianist. Drilled with classical technique

Bud Powell Tempus Fugue-It

Dexter Gordon Father was a jazz loving doctor who treated Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington Went to hear the big swing bands that came regularly to the coast. Originally sat Coleman Hawkins as a model for harmonic improvisation. Creative inspiration was Lester Young Gordon combined the looseness of Young, with Parkers rhythmic intricacies.

Dexter Gordon Long Tall Dexter