The rhythmic structure of bebop?

[karsten_selleri]

Hello everyone

My bebop obsession continues..

I am looking for material which explain the rhythmic structure of bebop lines.

I see a lot of lessons/material on what to play, but almost nothing on how to play a bebop line rhythmically. (I think it is kind of a fogery to state that bebop only consists of streams of 8th notes. It is the rhythmic syncopation which makes the music vibrant and vivid IMO)

Take a look at the following phrase. Its rhythmic structure is used very frequently in bebop.




Do you guys know any books/videos/DVDs/other material that has rhythmic trademarks/motifs/ of bebop as subject/explains how to build phrases within the bebop idiom?

Thank you in advance :-)

[MarkRhodes]

The Thomas Owens book "Bebop: The Music and Its Players" gives a few dozen of Charlie Parker's most frequently used "devices." (The one from your post is among them. Indeed, it may be the first---meaning, most frequently used----one!)

My local library has this book and I check it out at least once a year to refresh my memory.

Bebop - Thomas Owens - Oxford University Press

[goldenwave77]

Go listen to some vocalists as well, esp. Cab Calloway, e.g. "Jumpin' Jive" from the movie with the Nicholas Brothers doing their tap dancing magic. (Available on YT.)

And I know I sound like a broken record lately, but listen to some Earl Hines. His playing "against the beat" is influential, I think, and his band had a ton of people who were influential in bop. Completely different rhythmic sense than other great soloists of the day, Louis A., Coleman H., Lester Y., Roy E..

Of course Charlie Christian is key.

You're right...uninterrupted straight (or even swung) 8th notes are not, IMO, what this music is about. A lot of the best stuff defies notation. Ergo, reading about it, is not all that helpful.

[Bobby Marshall]

Mike Longo has a 4 part series on the rhythmic structure of jazz. I have only done the first two parts but it is dvds and written materials (and cds to losten to and play along with) that work together for you to teach yourself about jazz rhythms. Mike played with Dizzy for many years and says Dizzy is the one who taught him about this. Great material.

[karsten_selleri]

Mike Longo has a 4 part series on the rhythmic structure of jazz. I have only done the first two parts but it is dvds and written materials (and cds to losten to and play along with) that work together for you to teach yourself about jazz rhythms. Mike played with Dizzy for many years and says Dizzy is the one who taught him about this. Great material.

Can you recommend his material?

Going to NYC soon. Perhaps I can find a shop there where I can buy his DVDs? (In order to save shipping expenses)

[dasein]

Can you recommend his material?

Going to NYC soon. Perhaps I can find a shop there where I can buy his DVDs? (In order to save shipping expenses)

Only place in NYC where you might be able get them is from him directly. He lives and teaches in his apartment/studio on the Upper West Side.

[karsten_selleri]

Only place in NYC where you might be able get them is from him directly. He lives and teaches in his apartment/studio on the Upper West Side.

Great! Any ideas of how to get in touch with him concerning classes?

Also: On his website I can only find vol 1 & 2 - has the third and fourth not been released yet?

[christianm77]

I've got a lot out of the Mike Longo thing so +1 on that.

Here are my thoughts FWIW:

[Bobby Marshall]

Great! Any ideas of how to get in touch with him concerning classes?

Also: On his website I can only find vol 1 & 2 - has the third and fourth not been released yet?

Third volume is available online on his website.

[christianm77]

Mike is on Facebook, also I think you can email him at the consolidated artists address

[Hatim]

One thing that helped me a lot was to start and end on an offbeat.
It keeps it light and swinging.

Here is an example:
You hear me playing very short frases starting and ending on an offbeat. Even a bunch of offbeats in a row.
A bit exaggerated, but you 'll get the idea.



0.00 - 2.22 with metronone
2.27-end with backing rack

Hans

[Richard Luther]

Another approach. Take a handful of Parker recordings and start singing those lines. Over and over. Sing them in the shower, in the car, quietly in your mouth at work. Get percussive. Be a Mel Torme with it. Start improvising using your voice any chance you get away from your instrument. Listen in 4 and 8 bar phrases.

Having lived in Japan for 5 years, with my then Japanese wife, one thing that helped me learn Japanese was listening to it all day long.

Your voice is your first instrument.


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[rlrhett]

How did your wife stop being Japanese? I thought that was for life.


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[Bobby Marshall]

How did your wife stop being Japanese? I thought that was for life.


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She converted to American?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

How did your wife stop being Japanese? I thought that was for life.

I assumed she continued to be Japanese but stopped being his wife.

Do I win some mochi?

[Richard Luther]

Lol. Too funny guys. Mochi for Mr. Roboto.


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[karsten_selleri]

Thanks for all of your input and contributions! Highly appreciated! :-)

I really like your stuff Christian. It is very thoughtful and interesting. I've subscribed to your YouTube channel as well.

Also: I've found the Thomas Owens book online if it caught the interest of somebody. I find it alarmingly rigorous and scholastic but it may help you to achieve an overview/'statistics' about the music of Charlie Parker.

Lastly, I've arranged a meeting with Mike Longo in his NYC Office to buy his DVD's. If anyone wants to avoid paying custom/shipping that's just a tip, I will pass on.

Cheers everyone

EDIT: Forgot to post the link:
http://www3.telus.net/sametz/charts/...ens%201974.pdf

[Bobby Marshall]

When yIu see him, tell Mike the jazz guitar forum sent you!

[MarkRhodes]

I've been reading in Dizzy's memoir "To Be Or Not To Bop."
Dizzy spent a lot of time with the piano. In the bands he joined while young (Cab Calloway's band, Earl "Fatha" Hines' band) he was known for his study of chord progressions. (Hines himself mentions that Dizzy was a great musician and very sophisticated but not really--gasp!--much of a soloist. (I had to read that twice. I may go back and read it again later.)

Dizzy was 'on the scene' before Charlie Parker but they did play together in the Hines band. (Hines talks about them bringing their practice books to gigs and looking for ways to put things from those books into the songs the band played.)

Dizzy said that Bird was less harmonically sophisticated than he was, but that he (Bird) had that rhythm in his playing and that that was his main contribution.

I think that's true.

[pcsanwald]

I'm a bit surprised no one has mentioned Hal Galper's book "forward motion", which breaks it down a lot. It's a helpful book, but, books have their limit in what is really an aural art form and tradition.

Ultimately, I agree it's much better to learn from the records, to sing solos and get the rhythmic structure that way. When I studied with my teacher (who was a student of Tristano's), we learned the following way:

1) learn to sing 8-10 solos by an artist along with the record, one per week
2) sing the solos without the record, one per week
3) learn them on your instrument, one per week

for the first time doing this, you could pick Lester Young, Charlie Christian, or Louis Armstrong. After you did one of them, you then did the same thing with either Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro, or Bud Powell. Lennie (and my teacher also) greatly preferred the early material for all these plays.

This sounds kind of formal, and it is, and it's definitely not everyone's thing. surely most great players have not done this in this formal a way. but, doing this with charlie christian and then charlie parker really got me phrasing jazz properly. And, I have met tons and tons of great players that have done the equivalent of this without codifying it: Lage Lund talked to me about transcribing and seemed to approach it this way: really internalizing the phrase off the record before putting it on the instrument.

[GuyBoden]

Hal Galper recommends tapping out the rhythm to Bebop heads you know (or think you know) without singing the melody.
Then apply this rhythm to your improv lines.

This is a very good exercise in my opinion.

[Navdeep_Singh]

Hal Galper recommends tapping out the rhythm to Bebop heads you know (or think you know) without singing the melody.
Then apply this rhythm to your improv lines.

This is a very good exercise in my opinion.

Dizzy, as told to Mike Longo: “I fill my bar lines with rhythm and throw some notes at it”.

[bako]

This is an interesting read on this subject by Steve Coleman who concurs that Bird's important innovation was rhythmic.

THE DOZENS: STEVE COLEMAN ON CHARLIE PARKER (edited by Ted Panken & Steve Coleman) | Steve Coleman

[Strat-itis]

My contribution is that micro study on specific rhythms is important, but macro study is essential as well. -> Learn all the rhythms, 8th notes, 8th note triplets, 16th notes, 16th note triplets, 32nd notes (ballads and slower tempos). Bebop builds rhythmic momentum with the lines, so you need to be fluent in all the rhythms to play it effectively. If you can only play slow rhythms, it won't be bebop. Of course it isn't only the rhythms themselves, the notes must accompany them at least coherently, but really eloquently. So you have to work out exercises and lines that incorporate the rhythms and work them into your technique, muscle memory, and repertoire.

[PickingMyEars]

Very cool to see a thread like this on JGF. Very cool to see a thread like this on the internet, PERIOD.

Jon Raney had A LOT to say about rhythm in his Jimmy Raney Book. I would still love to see a book study created around that text. Jon has been really responsive to my questions. If he saw his book gain more traction, maybe he could help guide us through the book?

What I haven't seen enough of relates to spatial awareness of the measure. Subdivision is important, but I would like to make a parallel to scales. If you play scale tones all over the place, you may not hear how they relate to the key center or the chord of the moment. Contextual.

I think the same can be said about rhythm. Knowing how to play a triplet or 8th notes is good and all. If we are just subdividing from the base beat and imitating rhythms, we risk approaching the study of rhythm as a random entity--detached from the music. Rhythm is contextual to where it is played in the measure. Where we place a note within the spatial context of the measure can change how that note sounds.

Hal Galper got us off to a great start with Forward Motion, but most of us misread his whole strong beat/weak beat principle--including myself. The off beats are just as important as the on beats, there shouldn't be a hierarchy that makes us avoid the off beats. Just as Chris Parks realized in an old "TILFBarry Harris" video, we gotta be comfortable starting all of our material from the off beats as well.

We also have to be aware of where our phrases start in the measure, where our triplets fall, where our lines end... the details get more nuanced, but each rhythmic ripple helps us get closer to the fingerprint of our musical heroes. Instead of obsessing on the what (notes), we should consider the where (rhythms in contextual space). Maybe that will get us closer to our how?

The measure, and ultimately--the phrase, should serve as a road that we drive down. As we accelerate, we engage time--the beat goes on. Where we decide to turn has a specific location related to our road.

Rhythm is NOT random. We should be able to hear where we are in the measure and not just cram subdivisions haphazardly. Bird's rhythm was intentional. We should strive for the same rhythmic intent. Easier said than done, but I think rhythmic intent is a worthy element of our practice.