Why study bebop?

[Jazzstdnt]

Yeah, I was out as soon as I read the line where it included post-bop into the implied meaning of the question.

At that point the question effectively changed to "should we study the jazz language in a jazz studies curriculum?"

I believe the answer to be self-evident. If you don't like jazz, just study something else.

[Jonah]

I never had this controversy I believe... I was first attracted to jazz by two dofferent records: it was Armstrong plays W.C. Handy and Ole Coltrane... and I did not feel those were too far away one from another.

[henryrobinett]

I haven't read the article or most of the replies. But FOR ME, and only me, I think bebop is the most important music to STUDY as a jazz musician. I'm not saying its's the best music or the best jazz. But as a language of JAZZ it has everything essential. If you can play bop you're on the road to being able to play it all. It's the most demanding music to improvise. I played jazz for 30 years and hadn't really gotten bop under my belt. I've said this before, but it wasn't until 12-15 years ago or so, a great group I play with did a "season of bebop." It kicked my ass. I had been faking it. It's a difficult language. I played it, like I always did. I made the changes and most of the tempos. But that wasn't it. It's way more than "making the changes." Ever since bop has been my focus. It's also helped me improve other areas as a player. I'm subbing for the guitarist in a Steely Dan tribute band. Bop is even helping me out there. The reverse doesn't work. I can't study modal jazz, fusion, and blues and then play bop. That's what I think, FOR ME.

Each genre has their stylistic things. But it's easier to simplify.

[pkirk]

I liked the article. I sometimes find Guilfoye's writings to be a bit arrogant, but I think he does a good job describing the utility of studying bebop. I especially like this part:

The traditional skill set required to play jazz contains many varied yet interconnected skills that are of immense benefit to any aspirant young musician who wants to learn the craft of music performance. This skill set is eminently transferable - skills acquired in the study of jazz are, in one way or other, of use in almost any music you care to name. In order to improvise over changes, in an ensemble, in the jazz idiom, you need a command of a wide variety of skills. You need a very good technique on your instrument, you need a thorough knowledge of harmony, you need to be able to read music, (notation and chord symbols), you need really good ears and an ability to identify and process aural information in real time. You need very good time, a thoroughly developed sense of rhythm and rhythmic nuance, and an ability to create rhythmic phrases that make instant sense both to you and to your bandmates.

In order to improvise convincingly over the progression you need to develop a sense of form, to know where you are in the tune at all times. Allied to this is the ability to develop musical memory, to be able to keep large amounts of musical information in your mind and spontaneously use it to create music of the moment. You need to be able to listen deeply and respond instantly to musical cues and information created by your ensemble colleagues. Allied to the learning of these skills are the tangential skills often taught as part of a jazz programme - arranging, theory, transcription, composition etc.

So - technique, aural training, harmonic knowledge, rhythmic skills, reading skills, musical memory, deep listening, understanding of form and the ability to instantly create melodies over moving harmony. All of these are necessary in order to able to be able to play standard jazz material. This is a serious set of skills for any musician venturing into the professional music world, and some or all of them are transferable into any kind of musical situation you may be find yourself in.

If a jazz school were to remove the requirements to learn this repertoire, then, from a professional skill-set point of view, what would they replace it with? I cannot think of any other form of musical training, including classical training, that provides such a range of transferable skills.

[christianm77]

I have to say most of the top guys who play contemporary stuff seem to have a good or great command of bop.

[pkirk]

On another topic touched in this discussion: I think every (aspiring) musician is 100% responsible for their aesthetic goals, and criticism of music schools sometimes aims to "blame" a school or approach for stifling artistry. Creativity can't be taught (IMO), and in any case someone with strong creative impulses, work ethic, and talent will find their way, and can't be hurt by having to woodshed bebop.

[rlrhett]

Many people comment that jazz was not developed in academia but rather on the street. Implied is that if you really want to learn jazz you need to learn it on the street. Problem is, no one plays jazz on the street. There is almost no live music in bars or clubs either. If you are hoping to learn jazz by hanging out in brothels and bars you are in for a disappointment (many, most likely).

So we learn it and love it in the few paces it still exists: academia. You take what you can. Discussing whether it would be better to learn it by sitting in a smoky bar with Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie night after night seems a little bit like discussing Fantasy Football.

[henryrobinett]

I never had this controversy I believe... I was first attracted to jazz by two dofferent records: it was Armstrong plays W.C. Handy and Ole Coltrane... and I did not feel those were too far away one from another.

Neither one of those are bebop records. Armstrong was dead set against being intimidated by these kids playing "Chinese music." And by the time of Ole, Trane had embarked on modality leaving bop and his sheets of sound period behind. By way of the vast changes that had occurred between those two records, the divide was quite wide.

[Thumpalumpacus]

'Contributing to a continuum...' wow...

Is it not much too much for a poor young kid who just wanted to learn to play some jazz?


Actually... I believe this position is too educatorial for the purposes...

it's a weird thing to go to college and study be-bop for 5 years... and the get a degree as a 'professional be-bopper, be-bop teacher'

Who are you?
Oh I got PhD in be-bop you know...

It's like being graduate poet...

I really agree. Art, in my view, should exist only for its own sake, rather than be subsumed to a higher purpose.

I'm not saying art cannot be repurposed in order to support this or that outlook, but it's been my experience that when the moment of creativity arrives, it's not a good idea to hinder it by filtering it through any preconceived notions.

[Stevebol]

On another topic touched in this discussion: I think every (aspiring) musician is 100% responsible for their aesthetic goals, and criticism of music schools sometimes aims to "blame" a school or approach for stifling artistry. Creativity can't be taught (IMO), and in any case someone with strong creative impulses, work ethic, and talent will find their way, and can't be hurt by having to woodshed bebop.

That's something I try to remind myself of all the time. I don't see eye-to-eye with academia but they've never stopped me from doing my own thing and they don't own jazz.
Why study bop? I say, why not? I can do it the way I want to even though it's unlikely I'll ever do a jazz gig.

Bop is the most universal music there is. I figured that out long ago. I didn't need anyone to tell me it is or prove that it is. I just know it is.

[destinytot]

Is there a brothel I can go to and learn bebop? I think that would be SOOO much more fun than how I've been learning it.

Seriously though, many people comment that jazz was not developed in academia but rather on the street. Implied is that if you really want to learn jazz you need to learn it on the street. Problem is, no one plays jazz on the street. No one plays jazz in brothels. No one plays live music in brothels. As far as I know, there aren't even any brothels left. The Internet killed them off. There is almost no live music in bars or clubs either. If you are hoping to learn jazz by hanging out in brothels and bars you are in for a disappointment (many, most likely).

So we learn it and love it in the few paces it still exists: academia. You take what you can. Discussing whether it would be better to learn it by sitting in a smoky bar with Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie night after night seems a little bit like discussing Fantasy Football.

On the other hand, outside of academia, smoky places do exist - such as this one, in the city where I live. While the place in the video below isn't a brothel, it's beyond seedy - in every conceivable sense of the word.

Several of the players in the video hold doctorate degrees - with full-time positions as lecturers/'professors' at the city's various music schools - and probably enjoy the weekly jam in this toilet of a venue more than the prospect of yet another stuffy concert hall.

Likewise the serious music students who go there to test out their skills. (As Val Wilmer put it) Serious As Your Life.

[christianm77]

Yeah, I was out as soon as I read the line where it included post-bop into the implied meaning of the question.

At that point the question effectively changed to "should we study the jazz language in a jazz studies curriculum?"

I believe the answer to be self-evident. If you don't like jazz, just study something else.

Whoa there tiger, defining jazz! Haha....

For me jazz is always the rhythm thing - the swing, the polymeter, the push and pull, the phrasing and that's what bebop IS to me, a certain way of doing that, different to what came before.

The rhythm is the language... After all you can play bebop on the drums. The notes come from what you play these rhythms through...

But for many others the key interest is that jazz is improvised music, so that's their main area. Players with a focus in that area might not be so interested in the rhythmic aspects.

[henryrobinett]

Interesting. I think when we try to simplify something by finding a one word definition we lose essential qualifies and it becomes useless. Rhythm is an interesting and very true component but I think bop is so much more than rhythm. How chords and how the melodic line is delineated through specified harmony is more how I think of it. It's a whole form where each component part fits in a brilliant puzzle.
Yeah, rhythm is the primary element. But it ALWAYS is in most forms of music. It's really fundamentally what defines music, as its primary component.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cosmic gumbo]

I agree that without the bebop rhythmic vocabulary, it just isn't really jazz, no matter what melodic or harmonic know how you use. It's the rhythmic phrasing that makes it authentic primarily, and the rest is secondary, but you gotta have some handle on that too.

I've heard theory geeks who had all that stuff covered in their playing, but rhythmically they weren't speaking the language, so it had no gravity, they were saying nothing.

I can only speak for myself, but I can definitely hear if someone hasn't got their bebop rhythm and harmony shit together, regardless of the style of jazz they play, and if they don't, the jazz just sounds fake to me....so get grounded in bop, it's the foundation of real jazz vocab.

One of my gurus -

[Jonah]

Is there a brothel I can go to and learn bebop? I think that would be SOOO much more fun than how I've been learning it.

Seriously though, many people comment that jazz was not developed in academia but rather on the street. Implied is that if you really want to learn jazz you need to learn it on the street. Problem is, no one plays jazz on the street. No one plays jazz in brothels. No one plays live music in brothels. As far as I know, there aren't even any brothels left. The Internet killed them off. There is almost no live music in bars or clubs either. If you are hoping to learn jazz by hanging out in brothels and bars you are in for a disappointment (many, most likely).

So we learn it and love it in the few paces it still exists: academia. You take what you can. Discussing whether it would be better to learn it by sitting in a smoky bar with Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie night after night seems a little bit like discussing Fantasy Football.

You see... indirectly this is a statement that you have to treat be-bop as a dead language (or belonging to different culture).

And that brings us back to my point... great music usually has its cultural enviroment.
When we approach ot from outside it brings in a sort of 'historical flavour' into the process...

I do not say we should not study be-bop... I have basically nothing against academia approach.. I just try to note that it will probably either develope into a different music or will stay an interesting historical research which is not art.

Same thing happened in early music practice during 20th century... from mostly demonstration of historic enthusiasm and a bit provocative aesthetic conception it seems that it developed finally into real artictic practice... (but probably rather modern than historical after all - so it means new fresh and true). But we should not forget that it was backed up by long-time written and theoretic tradition that jazz did not ever have.

[Jonah]

Neither one of those are bebop records. Armstrong was dead set against being intimidated by these kids playing "Chinese music." And by the time of Ole, Trane had embarked on modality leaving bop and his sheets of sound period behind. By way of the vast changes that had occurred between those two records, the divide was quite wide.

I understand this of course...

My interest to Louis was much more in the vein of my general interest in American history and culture and its root music... I read and tried to find anything on sprituels, gospels, ragtime, minstrel, blues tradition (those days there was no internet and I lived in absolutely different culture)..

With Trane it was much more personal... I just felt immidiately that his approach to music, his fari seriousness, confidence corresponded to what I felt music to be for me.


TBH I was attracted to bop mostly by personalities - like Bird, or Monk than by style itself... It seemed to me that bop is too individulal to be repeated in a way...

That caused sort of theory - in musical style development there are points tension and release...

Pre-bop styles accumulated this tension gradually, it was like lots of rivers were gradually getting into one quite narrow but the very dense, very concentrated, very intensive flow... highest tension... and then post-bop breaks it into many rivers again with much more relaxed feel and flow...

Probably this makes bop so idiomatic (historically speaking)

[henryrobinett]

Very nice. I like the concentrated rivers then splitting into many. The distinction I would make is that applies very strictly to the musical style in a historical lineage. But as a musical language and tools, it still exists in modern form, quite devoid of the significance of the 40s and early 50s.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JGinNJ]

Why study bebop? If you're going to college for jazz studies, it should just be a segment like say, Southern Gothic writers would be to an English major.

If you look at the history of jazz, at least up to the 80's or so, it seems to change every decade, with some different streams and holdovers. Bebop was just one movement, and not all that popular even in it's heyday of the late 40's, early 50's.

Remember, too, that much of the bebop was improvising on standards and pop tunes of the day, with new melodies over the changes. Lennie Tristano and his students were doing the same thing, but what they were doing was more the roots of both avant-garde and cool jazz.

If you're going to be a jazz musician, sure, learn Donna Lee or Night In Tunisia, but what you really have to learn is how to improvise and swing over changes.

[henryrobinett]

Why study bebop? If you're going to college for jazz studies, it should just be a segment like say, Southern Gothic writers would be to an English major.

If you look at the history of jazz, at least up to the 80's or so, it seems to change every decade, with some different streams and holdovers. Bebop was just one movement, and not all that popular even in it's heyday of the late 40's, early 50's.

Remember, too, that much of the bebop was improvising on standards and pop tunes of the day, with new melodies over the changes. Lennie Tristano and his students were doing the same thing, but what they were doing was more the roots of both avant-garde and cool jazz.

If you're going to be a jazz musician, sure, learn Donna Lee or Night In Tunisia, but what you really have to learn is how to improvise and swing over changes.

I think this misses the point. It's NOT learning bop tunes. It's not even being able to play over the changes of bop tunes. Bebop has permeated modern jazz. If you are a PLAYER you have to deal with the language of bebop. For HISTORICAL reasons, bop was also crucial to the development of music and society.

[JGinNJ]

^ If I understand what you're saying, the point of learning bebop over and above lines and changes is, to learn the phrasing & vocabulary because it's now an integral part of jazz.

I would agree, but I probably take it for granted because I cut my teeth playing the Charlie Parker omnibook nearly 40 years ago. When I was coming up, jazz was the likes of Weather Report, Return to Forever, Al DiMeola- so when I stumbled across a Charlie Parker record it turned my understanding of music upside down.

So yes, anybody who wants to be a jazz musician or just appreciate the music, I think being hip to bebop is a must. But again, the music changed, and even the pioneers who lived moved on (like Miles?). I don't know, maybe today to young students bop seems dated and irrelevant.

[henryrobinett]

Exactly. But the point of education, one of many, is to expose people, regardless who thinks is old and dated. They still teach Bach Chorales and figured bass in school. Nothing more irrelevant than those things. I came up during the same period. As a player, my playing always suffered when playing with jazz musicians who had studied bop, even if we weren't playing bop. I just had a big hole in my ability. But I had no idea my playing was lacking. And I listened to a lot of bop. From the beginning, I listened to a ton of Bird, Dexter, Brown, along with Dolphy, Trane, McCoy, McLaughlin, Coryell. I hadn't STUDIED it, I just listened. A world of difference. I also played through the Omni Book. For me it wasn't the same.

[christianm77]

I'm not sure there's any musts or shoulds. While it's almost impossible to overestimate the importance of Parker etc to the history of music, I think the enthronement of these things on the education system is what turns people off. It would turn me off. I'd rather people come to bop in their own way.

[henryrobinett]

I just disagree. I taught jazz in a University. If you're talking about an education in music, absolutely. If you're just taking some music appreciation classes, yeah. But JAZZ?? Hell no. In my book, you gotta study it. And I guess I'm old school. What is required is required. I'm not concerned with who would be turned off. I'm interested in providing an education.

[Jonah]

I just disagree. I taught jazz in a University. If you're talking about an education in JAZZ, absolutely. If you're just taking some music appreciation classes, yeah. But JAZZ?? Hell no. In my book, you gotta study it. And I guess I'm old school. What is required is required. I'm not concerned with who would be turned off. I'm interested in providing an education.

There are 'musts' in music study process but these 'musts' should be logical conclusion of good will, curiousity and aspiration...

It should always be fun and music appreciation... otherwise for me it contradicts the purpose of it all

One of my friends a very good pro player says... the more I play the more I enjoy playing with good amateurs... they do not always cover technical issues... but they appreciate music and do it for love of music.

Flip side of professionalism and generalized educational system...

[henryrobinett]

Yeah, well there aren't a lot of guitarists who CAN'T actually PLAY bop, myself included. I'm getting better. Metheny doesn't. Whether he can or not, I can't say. And I'm a huge PM fan. There's a basic language that's being lost and by-passed by guitar players. Not so much sax, trumpet or piano players. They're still getting the language. Guitar remains the redheaded stepchild.

The PROBLEM I have with teaching guitar is most guitar players know what they want to learn, whether they really DO or not. Just like you said with "partial differential equations". You studied what they required you to study because you didn't know any better. You wanted to get your grade and your degree. But guitar players are very hard headed. Whether they know jack shit or not, they will NOT do what is required if it gets in the way of their precious selves. If you're going to college to get a degree in music or jazz, there is a curriculum and many syllabi. You do it or you flunk. You talk to your teacher, counselor, advisor, whatever and see if you can get some relief. But you'd rather major in Death Metal. When I teach I can see well beyond where the student can see. I'm looking down the road across fields and into two other counties. The student can't see this. He's stuck where he is with his dreams.

You have to study Counter-Point, Functional Harmony, figured bass, all kinds of things you might question their relevance. And in many cases, you'd be right. But that's college, the last I checked. I haven't taught in a university for a couple of years, so things may have changed in that time. I taught courses in Be-Bop, so maybe it's a little close to me. Trust me, for jazz, bop is essential. Its tools can be applied universally. There's a lot of jazz, and jazz musicians who don't play bop or who apparently haven't been influenced much by bop. Wayne Shorter comes to mind. But where the lines curlie-que around enclosures, where scales aren't even really used, or modes, where the ii-V have been substituted all over the place, altered tones and as you said, the rhythmic uniqueness, that's bop. Nowhere else. And the frustrating thing about it is it will sound like shit if you're not doing it right. It's fairly unforgiving, unlike modal jazz.