How was Bebop accepted into the Jazz community when it first arrived?

[princeplanet]

Yep, derailed, but then again, the OP has done little to keep his original (albeit confusing) premise on track. it ends up that we all just crap on about whatever we want to crap on about. i'm often guilty of it as well, yet as much as I like exploring related issues in threads, I wish there were more threads where the questions are clearly put, and the answers stick to the question.

I suppose it's up to the OP to help steer the course of their own threads....?

[AlsoRan]

Yep, derailed, but then again, the OP has done little to keep his original (albeit confusing) premise on track. it ends up that we all just crap on about whatever we want to crap on about. i'm often guilty of it as well, yet as much as I like exploring related issues in threads, I wish there were more threads where the questions are clearly put, and the answers stick to the question.

I suppose it's up to the OP to help steer the course of their own threads....?

Ha! Ha!

PP, you made me chuckle.

I like to let the conversations go where the may. After my purposefully leading intro, I got the information that I was looking for. Now, when a musician that I respect starts callling Jazz art, and then talks negatively of all other types I music, I can at least see where he is coming from.

Before I would raise an eyebrow and ask myself who made him/her God of music to decide who is making art and who is making crap. Now, I can see how this is can be consistent with the thinking of someone who has poured their heart and soul into a craft or profession.

Louie Armstrong did it, and many others music legends did as well.

Also, thanks to you folks, I have crafted my own conclusions about music, art, and entertainment, FWIW.

[pubylakeg]

I felt it was worth mentioning that a large part of the divide between the traditionalists and the modernists was based on the modernists rejection of certain racial stereotypes that were imposed on entertainers of the previous era.

Furthermore, consider this Charlie Parker quotation:
"When I first heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise..Something that people could understand, something that was beautiful."

Also, was there any greater entertainer in Jazz than Dizzy Gillespie ?.

[princeplanet]

Also, was there any greater entertainer in Jazz than Dizzy Gillespie ?.

Of course there was, Louis Armstrong.

[Stuart Elliott]

I think the conventional story of massive resistance to the emergence of be-bop misses the enormous popularity of the new music in the jazz community. There was resistance and disdain from older musicians to be sure, but that is always the case when there is a major new development in any art form. And, even that is perhaps overstated. There were older musicians who understood and encouraged be-bop. But the story is not really with the old guard. While be-bop never achieved the popularity of swing with the general public, my impression is that it won over young musicians and young music fans in a very startling way. The famous NYC jazz club "Birdland" was named after Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillispie's beret, glasses, and goatee became a fasion fad, many leading big bands not only hired bop oriented players, but even adapted a bop style. Parker's "Now's the Time" became a r&b hit as "The Hucklebuck." More than one jump blues tune from the era borrowed a be-bop riff for the horn section.

[monk]

While bebop may have won over young aspiring musicians and young jazz fans, that was still an extremely small demographic compared to the continued success of swing musicians and swing influenced singers as well as the wider acceptance of the emerging Rhythm and Blues genre by both adults and young people.

Compared to everything else going on at the time bebop was a drop in the ocean.

In 1950, more people knew about Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman or Hank Williams than knew about Charlie Parker.

[MarkRhodes]

One way in which bebop won out is that it made small groups (rather than big bands) the norm. Small groups existed before, and some big bands soldiered on for a long time after the arrival of Charlie Parker, but it's remarkable how many great jazz records of the '50s were made with small groups. And small groups were much better suited to (most) clubs than big bands were.

[Jehu]

My understanding is that WWII made small groups the norm.

[jtizzle]

There wasn't really such a thing as "bebop" and "cool" back then. It was jazz, and that's about it. Think about today. Some new guys coming into the scene playing stuff you're not familiar with. It's jazz, but more contemporary. Some people like it, some people don't. A lot of people are now calling it post-bop, or modern jazz. It still came from the same stuff. Back then, you liked the guys that were playing like that, or you didn't.

Also, you have to understand, Bird didn't wake up one day and started playing like that all of a sudden, when Louis Armstrong was playing his more simplistic sing-song like solos. Lots of guys helped gradually create that style. There's no single day where everyone suddenly said "this is good now, let's go hear it". Again, think about today. A bunch of musicians, for example, think of Chris Tordini, or Miles Okazaki. Chris has his money gig with Becca Stevens, and Miles had his money gig with Jane Monheit (not saying anything bad about those singers). Outside of that, they play some serious avant stuff. Chris also plays with guys like Tyshawn Sorey, and Miles is now in Steve Coleman's band. It's the same case as back then. They had their money gigs down in midtown, and played all their crazy stuff up in Harlem. The rich people gradually got more interested in the art side of it than in the straight ahead, club date sound.

A thing with music history (not jazz) is that books tend to organize it by style, saying things like "Bebop happened in this year, and Free jazz happened this year. Contemporary jazz then started from this year". This is a really inaccurate way to describe the timeline, as a lot of things were happening concurrently. Ornette did not come out of nowhere, Bird wasn't the seminal bebop figure, Miles didn't invent cool jazz.

The best way to get this is by yourself, documenting the history of the music. Get all the records you can, listen to them. Find out who's on it and when it was recorded. Why does that record sound different from the one they recorded the year before? Who were those guys listening to? When you do a lot of listening you really get to figure out where a lot of the stuff you like came from.

[princeplanet]

My understanding is that WWII made small groups the norm.

... as well as the recording ban, maybe...

[MarkRhodes]

My understanding is that WWII made small groups the norm.

There is a relation, yes. Many players went into the military and wound up in military bands. That left fewer young players around to entertain the folks at home. Also, the American Federation of Musicians were on strike against the four major record companies, so there was little recording. A special arrangement was made for them to perform on V-discs----made for soldiers overseas---which were not for sale in the US.

So much of the late-swing / early-bop experimentation went unheard by most people.

Further, since V-discs were meant to be morale boosters, the emphasis was on rousing, feel-good music. I imagine some of the soldiers were shocked after hearing that stuff for a few years to arrive home and hear something very different. A real "wtf?" moment for many, I'm sure.

When WWII ended and lots of players came back home, they didn't automatically return to big bands. Some did. But a lot of them went into small groups.