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Hmmm.... I dunno again it depends what you mean by Bop. I can HEAR a lot of bop in PM, but it's not bop.
Originally Posted by henryrobinett
BTW The guy I was talking about is a pianist.
I remember transcribing Shorter on Yes and No and thinking there was a definite bop influence in there. I felt like he's learned the language to some extent.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 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.
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07-26-2017 04:51 PM
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I haven't heard Shorter's bop language. Even back in his Art Blakey days. He had a nodding acquaintance with it. But not really.
There are a lot of guys, like Miles famously and his extended family, who walked away. Miles saying it was too restrictive. That's when he embraced modalism. But he ingested it already, as did Herbie, Trane. Bill Evan's wasn't really bop, but he ingested the language in a unique way. Monk was one of five founders. Four if you don't consider Klook a founder. Monk had all the elements but put together in a different way.
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You don't sign up for a class in US History and decide you're just not interested in learning about the Civil War. That's it's not germane to your life. That's it's old and outdated. No. You do the course, the assignments, the quizzes, tests and take the final. You do your best to apply yourself to get a good grade by reading the required texts. Guitar players are hard headed numb skulls in this regard. I just flunk them.
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It's interesting...I haven't heard Shorter's bop language. Even back in his Art Blakey days. He had a nodding acquaintance with it. But not really.
There are a lot of guys, like Miles famously and his extended family, who walked away. Miles saying it was too restrictive. That's when he embraced modalism. But he ingested it already, as did Herbie, Trane. Bill Evan's wasn't really bop, but he ingested the language in a unique way. Monk was one of five founders. Four if you don't consider Klook a founder. Monk had all the elements but put together in a different way.
I think it could be a good idea - since we are all in this thread in comunication that shows different perspectives on the subject - to try to describe be-bop language in more particular terms... not necessarily in strict definintions, but as a discussion...
Artisic language is a semantic system and can be described at least in general... but not just that 'it is about rythm' or just a collection of specific turnarounds... when it's a language - it's realtions and meanings...
so it's actual elements that have some musical meaning and 'functions' as part or artistic musical language...
(Like cadences in classical harmony for example)
I think it could be productive... after all what I like about music is that whichever theory we apply - it is expressed in a very definite way... (much more definite than visual arts or literature)...
Basically any person can open a score or trascribe a solo and make his own analysis from it and put his own arguments...
Why not try to do it here - it could be interesting...
(We could find out if it is really a language at least))) Let's not forget that style is not a lanbguage yetLast edited by Jonah; 07-27-2017 at 05:00 AM.
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I think Wayne Shorter learned a lot of bebop stuff while he was still at school, pretty sure it mentions that in his biography ('Footprints'). He was born in 1933, so it's the right period. Originally Posted by christianm77
Last edited by grahambop; 07-27-2017 at 07:20 AM.
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Me, I like my Bop hard, Hard Bop and maybe early post Bop. So Clifford, mid 50's Miles, Rollins and Jazz Messengers through to mid 60's Joe Henderson, McLean, Shorter and McCoy. Most, if not all, those cats seemed well schooled in Bop - had to be, they grew up with it!
If I'm to have any chance to even vaguely think like they did, I gotta learn to Bop, simple as that.
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Rhythm has been brought up in this thread - and social, cultural and historical factors, too. Originally Posted by Jonah
I'll venture to push out a little paper boat of a thought regarding bop being idiomatic - observation having compelled me to conclude that it floats (though one never knows how rough the sea may get, do one?).
Donning my Hat of Accountability, my honest impression is that there exist today widespread tacit assumptions about bop's international dimension.
Regardless of any parallels between social, cultural and historical factors, and although they are played down (probably for reasons of tact), those assumptions fly in the face of the specific idiomatic nature of bop.
Because my honest impression is that, broadly speaking, I not only prefer to drink from the source - i.e listen to records from the US - but, all other things being equal, I generally prefer bop today when it's played by people from the English-speaking world.
Kudos, though, to those disadvantaged in the bop stakes by the natural prosody of their native tongue, who - challenged - ride out to slay the dragon and prevail.
Anyway, just a thought - based on observations (of past frustration and of others' formidable efforts to express themselves).Last edited by destinytot; 07-27-2017 at 09:37 AM.
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Seams Wiki is wrong about it:
No mention of specific rhythmic nuance, but then, there is use of scales?Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States, which features songs characterized by a fast tempo, 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.
I always thought "to Bop" was to play on chord, using chord tones and extensions with swinging shuffle feel, using chromatics and enclosure figures to connect and for interest and implied speed. Not much nuance in that thought.
Be Bop as a style I think of as something after Armstrong and Goodman, before solo Miles, excluding larger orchestras, Gypsy stuff and whatever.
Seriously and honestly, I have no idea how to tell Bop from not bop, with any oldish fast jazz tune, that is not obviously swing, modern, or something ... ?!
I would really appreciate example of "Bop" vs. "Something almost bop, but no cigar" with possible explanation,
for example ... at 1m 19s there is bop figure ... at 45s there is bop-like figure that did not quite make it due failure in rhythm nuance ... something like that?
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I don't really have the time. One of the big innovations was utilization of the II-V progression and substituting that all over the place. This gave the beboppers a device to play their lines with. Chromatic approaches to chords, where scales were mere reference points. Extensions and altered tones especially the flat 5 and b 9. For the first time the instrumentalist was on top of small ensembles. Virtually no dancers or singers. Little commercial consideration. Contrafacts gone wild. Rhythm Changes, Indiana, Whispering, How High the Moon were staples.
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AS a big PM fan, I don't hear any bop in his playing. He can play bop tunes and improvise like hell, but he's not playing bop derived stuff. Not that I can hear. And not's a criticism. Originally Posted by christianm77
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Maybe he did. Point to where he did. I've done a bunch of transcriptions of his playing. He didn't with Miles. He kind of did, but not really with Blakey. None of his own records were bop. Which ones are you referring to? I'm totally willing to be wrong. I know its kind of a controversial statement. Again, I'm not cutting him. He was a self-admitted astronaut. Originally Posted by pcsanwald
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I just posted a link of wayne playing killing bebop! and you said you didn't have time to listen to it. not sure what more you want, man. I mean, here's a quote from the interview Ethan does with Wayne: Originally Posted by henryrobinett
EI: Now, I heard something about you: I heard that when you were a teenager you could play just like Charlie Parker.
WS: Oh, yeah. Well, actually a lot of us played like him. There’s a guy from Jersey City, what’s his name, Jimmy…he played really like Charlie Parker. It was a close match. He knew all the stuff, “Star Eyes” and all the breaks and all that.
I'm not trying to bust chops here, but this interview and listening to a 23 year old wayne playing over "what is this thing", it's kind of hard to be saying that Wayne didn't come out of bebop.Last edited by pcsanwald; 07-27-2017 at 04:11 PM.
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Wow! I guess he did! Are you SURE that's Wayne?? I heard some characteristic, but it's so cool jazz sounding, which can make sense. He sounds more like Warne Marsh. Great find! Thanks.
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I was just thinking, so even if we agree Wayne or Pat never played bebop, is it rather a good thing? Why should they? Why should anybody? Who needs another bebop player? Studying is one thing, every serious musician kinda have to. But then we also study Baroque, or Blues, or whatever. Doesn't mean anyone should be stuck in it. Study it and move on... rather quickly, I'd say.
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I was also shocked by this recording! Ethan is super diligent in his research, so I'd bet that it is indeed Wayne. That's a good call on the Warne influence, I hear that too. The big thing that surprises me here is the ornamentation and the double timing! I never hear him ornament phrases in this way or do that kind of double timing with blakey even. certainly not by the time he was with miles. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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Curious, does anyone hear any bebop influence from guitar solo in this track?
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I have this album. I love it. But this is what I'm talking about. PM is a great player and swings. But this ain't bop. He's playing a blues that's very modal. Is it influenced b bop? Yeah, but it doesn't really have the language of bop. F. Nobody knows what the hell I'm talking about. That's because we're talking apples and oranges. Guitar doesn't really have a huge bop lineage. Maybe that's the problem I'm running into here. Ellis was not bop. Kessell was. Pass was. Christian wasn't. He was just pre. I don't think Farlow was. Articulation has a lot to do with it. I don't think we guitar players hear it It's not born in on our phrasing, more or less.
Sue me.
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There are also stories of both Ornette and Dolphy sounding exactly like Bird when they were younger. You can only go by evidence at hand. That's all. I can't make up shit. I can believe it, but I got to hear it. Originally Posted by pcsanwald
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I'd like a horn player to transcribe Pats solo and play it. I think folks might think differently.
But I agree, guitar ain't a quintessentially instrument, so I think people have a tough time hearing it...plus, Pat is Pat, so fuck it if he doesn't sound "bop enough," the tune ain't bebop anyway.
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It's because they would never get a record deal or got hired to do a record if they still sounded like Bird at the time. Thats the point. Leave your bebop in the bedroom and do something fresh and worth listening in the studio. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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I became a fan of PM's before Bright Size Life came out. He blew my socks off. I bought every release of his. I think I might have every release and a lot of bootlegs. He's a great player. He's an innovative guitarist. I'm sure he studied ALL of this stuff. He took from it what was valuable to him, as all students must do.
My problem with most guitar players, students, and some pro jazz folk, is that to my ears some of their language just sounds awkward. It's just friggin' awkward to me. And most people can't hear the same awkwardness I do. I mean, I'm SURE it's me, because I'm just the old crotchety guy yelling "Get off my lawn!" But as I've been a student and teacher of this for so long, and I had it, from my viewpoint, wrong for a long time, I have a point of view. And as a person who taught bebop in a jazz Univesity, to NOT guitar players, but to piano players, trumpet, tenor, alto, bassists, trombone players, a vocalist - no guitar players in my bop class actually. I kind of know what I'm talking about. But you know, I've known professors who I thought were completely wrong as well. Doesn't mean shit. It just means that the Dean of the jazz department, an alto player, thought I knew enough of my stuff to teach it to his school. The university of the Pacific, home to The Brubeck Institute.Last edited by henryrobinett; 07-27-2017 at 06:37 PM.
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I think worrying about whether this or that player was this or that genre is a waste of time. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
I've got no problem with the idea that learning how to play over a ii-V7-I7 with b5 substitutions will do a hell of a lot to teach a player jazz.
I also think that meticulous arguments online about "he's bebop" and "he isn't" kinda miss the point. Earlier in the thread someone compared bop to a language. I disagree. I think music is the language, and the genres are actually dialects, with their own vocabulary and grammar. Some dialects are closely related, others, farther apart.
By this analogy, bop seems to me to be the Latin of jazz, which spawned so many different yet very interrelated dialects, each somewhat comprehensible by the speakers of other Romantic tongues -- French and Spanish and Italian are the classic examples. None of them are speaking Latin. You know why? Because the culture that gave rise to Latin is no more. But they each can understand the other with a lot less work than someone coming from, say, Madagascar.
This point doesn't devalue your point about the utility of learning bop, in the same sense that learning Latin and Greek roots in sophomore English not only strengthened my command of English, but also gave me a doorway to understanding foreign cognates. When I moved to Spain, such learning was very useful. It buttresses it. For the same reason, I learnt gutbucket blues -- not because I wanted to play it, but because it was the bedrock on which the blues I did want to play was built.
In the same sense, learning the background in jazz can function as a springboard for further learning.Last edited by Thumpalumpacus; 07-27-2017 at 06:01 PM.
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It should be taught in schools. Along with other genres, I wish. But if be bop is the main focus in academia for the expense of other styles, it shouldn't be IMHO. Personally it's probably the least exciting genre of jazz as far as guitar is concerned, but it's just me. I did study it though, no regrets.
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But I thought we're talking college. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyone can listen to it, if they want to. But teaching jazz pedagogy is a thing. There are various styles and genres in jazz. Each have to be studied to some degree. We're not tallking jamming and having fun. We're talking, or at least I am, getting a degree in jazz studies. You have to know what it is. And as a player, you have a]to analyze solos, devices, compare one style to another. I'm not talking getting a degree in guitar from some community college.
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Of course, but why are people studying jazz these days?
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