The Bebop Era

I. A Musical Revolution
 A small group of musicians, seeing jazz from a different perspective, felt that big band
swing was in a rut.
 They felt that arrangers were not leaving enough room in their music for solo
improvisation, and the style itself was harmonically empty
 Chord progressions were limited to triads, 7th chords, and occasional diminished and
augmented chords with perhaps an added note.
 Rhythms were too stereotypes and consisted only of formula mixtures of simple
syncopations
 Melodies were too traditional-bound to 4 and 8 measure phrase structure of dance music.
 They heard new harmonic and rhythmic implications in the famous Coleman Hawkins
“Body and Soul” solo, realizing that he had constructed his melodic line as if the rhythm
section were playing at twice the actual tempo of the original composition.

II. New Sounds

 These same musicians heard new sounds and ideas in the famous Charlie Christian
recordings of 1941
 These new sounds were also happening in musical sessions at Monroe’s Uptown House
and Minton’s Playroom in Harlem (New York City) with sidemen Thelonious Monk on
piano, Kenny Clarke on Drums, Don Byas on Tenor Saxophone and Dizzy Gillespie on
trumpet.

III. The word “Bebop”

 The word Bebop originated in the jazz musicians’s practice of vocalizing or singing
nonsense syllables (scat singing).
 At first, it was “rebop” then “bebop” and finally “bop.”
 There were earlier appearances of this word
 In 1928 the word occurs in the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers “Four or Five Times”
 1939 recording of Chick Webb’s “Tain’t Whatcha Do
 1945 hit recording by Lionel Hampton, “Hey-Ba-Ba-Re-Bop”

*These recordings show no evidence of a musical influence of the Bebop musical ideology

IV. A Clash between Modernism and Tradition - “Modern Malice”

 In this music where you are judged by your improvisations, topnotch jazzmen awoke to
hear themselves sounding old-fashioned.
 Louis Armstrong, for example, broke his life-long rule of never criticizing jazz or
jazzmen by calling bop ‘that modern malice.’
*….they want to carve everyone else because they’re full of malice, and all they want to do is
show you up, and any old way will do as long as it’s different from the way you played it before.
So you get all them weird chords which don’t mean nothing, and first people get curious about it
because it’s new, but soon they get tired of it because it’s really no good and you got no melody
to remember and no beat to dance to. So they’re all poor again and nobody is working, and
that’s what that modern malice done of you.
 V. The Economic Factor
 The importance of the Negro market was discovered and, for the first time, a series of
52nd Street and Broadway nightclubs advertised for the Negro trade.
 Here was a highly receptive audience which in turn influenced the music and , by 1947-
48, eager patrons formed lines around the block waiting to enter The Royal Roost, The
Metropolitan Boprera House, The 3 Deuces, The Famous Door, The Downbeat, Birdland
and The Onyx among many others.

VI. The Color Line

 The Color line in jazz bands was breaking down.
 Back in the early ‘20’s, negro arrangers like Don Redman were writing for white bands
such as Goldkette and Whiteman.
 By the ‘30’s, mixed bands in the recording studio were no novelty

*Jelly Roll Morton appears to have been the first in 1923 with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.

 Benny Goodman featured pianist Teddy Wilson at the Congress in 1936 and also
recorded with a sextet in 1939 consisting of a racially mixed personnel Lionel Hampton
(vibes), Fletcher Henderson (piano), Charlie Christian (guitar), Art Bernstein (bass), Nick
Fatool (drums)
 In 1945, Benny Goodman recorded with a new sextet, again racially mixed, with Red
Norvo (vibes), Teddy Wilson (piano), Mike Bryant (guitar), Slam Stewart (bass), and
Morey Feld (drums)
 Artie Shaw hired vocalist Billie Holiday, Tommy Dorsey hired trumpeter Charlie
Shavers, alto saxophonist Charlie Barnet teamed up with trumpeter Howard McGhee,
Jimmy Dorsey featured vocalist June Richmond, and so on.

VII. Non-musical Factors that led to the creation of Bebop

 New sense of self awareness and and independence for the Negro Jazz Musician.
 All aspects of American life were questioned; society, religion, race relations, laws of
the city, state and even the US Constitution, foreign policy, etc.
 During World War II, Negroes in Harlem and elsewhere had been urged to join the war
effort and fight the ‘yellow-skinned Jap.’
 Negro leaders were arguing that the war was a ‘white man’s war’ and the fruits of
victory would not go to the Negro.
 Simultaneously, a Mohammedan sect of Islam was developing in Harlem.
 It’s members studied Arabic, many were both serious and sincere and there was historic
precedent in Africa.

 Bebop musicians were among some of the first Negroes to convert to other religions
outside of Christianity:
•Dizzy Gillespie joined the Bahá'í faith.
•Art “Buhaina” Blakey, Yusef Lateef, Kiane Zawadi and others joined Islam
•Herbie Hancock and many others joined the Buddhist faith.
VIII. Roots of the Bebop Vernacular
 During the Jazz Age of Chicago through the Swing Era, the music was described as
“Hot” music or “Hot Jazz.”
 During the Bebop Era, the temperature plummeted to “Cool.”
 Fans who were “in the know” of the Bebop culture were known as being “Hipsters.”
 The domesticated cat was perceived as cool, so in turn jazz musicians were called “The
Cats.”
 The prevalent greeting was ‘Be cool, man’ but there was still a deeper meaning.
 The Negro refused to play the stereotypical role of Negro entertainer, which he rightly
associated with “Uncle Tomism.”

*Uncle Tom is a derogatory term for a person who perceives themselves to be of low status, and
is excessively subservient to perceived authority figures; particularly a black person who
behaves in a subservient manner to white people. The term comes from the title character of
Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

 Furthermore, today’s common usage of the word ‘man’ – as to say “Hey, man?” or
“What’s up, man?” – was conceived during the Bebop Era as a revolt against black men
being referred to as “boy.”

IX. Charles Christopher “Yardbird” Parker

 Born in Kansas City, Kansas on Aug. 29, 1920 and died March 12, 1955.
 He was raised by his mother in Kansas City, Missouri.
 When he was fifteen he quit school and , that same year, played his first professional
engagements.
 At sixteen he was married and playing with George Lee’s combo.
 The pianist in the band gave him his first harmony lesson.
 Parker’s true mentor was alto saxophonist Buster Smith who was a member of Walter
Page’s Blue Devils and co-led the Buster Smith-Count Basie Band of Rhythm.

*Originally from Alsdorf, Texas, Buster Smith was also the innovator of the “Texas Sax” sound
(more commonly known as the Texas Tenor sound) achieved by using a hard tenor reed on the
alto or a hard bari reed on the tenor.

 The young Charlie Parker played in two of Buster Smith’s bands, a five piece combo and
a twelve-member group with aspirations for the road and the “big time.”
 By 1938, the 18 year-old Parker pawned his horn, rode a freight train to Chicago and took
a bus to New York.
 This bold move for Parker landed him in New York, where he found a job as a
dishwasher at the club where Art Tatum was the resident pianist.
 In 1939 he began to jam at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House
 On a trip back to Kansas City in 1939, Parker first met trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and
before long they would be jamming together in Harlem.
 The following year, the young saxophonist rejoined the Jay McShann band and in April
of 1941 recorded his first solos, Swingmatism and Hootie Blues.
  During that same year up at Monroe’s Uptown House in Harlem, Parker, guitarist Charlie
Christian, pianists Bud Powell and Thelonius Monk, drummers Max Roach and Kenny
Clark and Dizzy Gillespie were all young artist aware of their musical accomplishments
and intent upon creating a new, more intricate and complex ideology for jazz music.

*A national recording ban was enforced from 1942 to 1944 by James Perillo, president of the
musicians’ union, in a dispute over royalties and the Music Performance Trust Fund. During this
time Parker played short stints with Noble Sissle’s band and spent almost a year playing tenor
saxophone with Earl Hines in 1943.

X. Stories behind the name “Bird”

a. Jay McShann
 The Jay McShann band was on its way to play a job at the University of
Nebraska. As they passed a farm, the car Charlie Parker was riding in hit a
chicken that ran across the road. McShann said: Charlie told the driver, "Man, go
back, you hit that yardbird." They went back, and Charlie jumped out and got the
chicken. When they got to Lincoln, he asked the lady who ran the boarding
house where we were staying to cook it for dinner. The name stuck and as time
went by it was shortened to “Bird.”

b. Dizzy Gillespie
 "Charlie Parker's bluesy, syncopated style is often attributed to the influence of
'Old Yardbird', Buster Smith, a saxophonist out of Kansas City. I never heard
'Old Yardbird' play, but I've heard about him." This suggests that Charlie
inheritied the name Yardbird from Buster Smith? That Charlie was once possibly
'Young Yardbird'?

c. Buster Smith
 "When he'd get off work at night, he said, "I'm goin' home and knock over me
one of them yardbirds." So the boys would ask him, I even asked him, "What do
you mean, yardbird?" "I'm going to get me one of them chickens.” He'd go catch
one of these chickens and kill 'em. I guess he was staying with his parents, and
he'd have them cook him a chicken. Middle of the night, didn't make no
difference to him. And so them boys got to callin' him Yardbird, and that's the
way he [unintelligible]. They couldn't call him "Charlie." "Yardbird!" He'd look
out, "Yeah!"

XI. John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie

 Born Oct. 21, 1917 in Cheraw, South Carolina, died Jan. 6, 1993 in Englewood, New
Jersey.
 He was a composer, occasional singer and considered to be one of the greatest trumpeters
of all time.
 His style of improvisation was built upon the virtuoso style of trumpeter Roy Elderidge
with added layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown to jazz.
 His trumpet style along with style of scat singing, his beret, horn-rimmed spectacles, his
bent horn and pouched cheeks were essencial in popularizing bebop.
  Together with Charlie Parker, he became a major figure in the development of bebop and
modern jazz.
 The youngest of nine children, his father James Gillespie was a local bandleader so
instruments were made available to him as a boy.
 He received a music scholarship in 1932 to the Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, North
Carolina where he studied the piano and became a master of chord progressions.
 He attended for two years before accompanying his family when they moved to
Philadelphia.
 Dizzy's first professional job was with the Philadelphia based Frank Fairfax Orchestra in
1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and Teddy Hill,
essentially replacing Roy Eldridge as first trumpet in 1937.
 He toured Europe with Hill’s band in 1937 and made his first recording with this band in
1939, King Porter Stomp.
 In 1939, Dizzy joined Cab Calloway's orchestra, with which he recorded one of his
earliest compositions, the instrumental Pickin' the Cabbage, in 1940.
 Dizzy was fired by Calloway in late 1941, after a notorious altercation between the two.

Dizzy & The Spitball

*The incident is recounted by Dizzy, along with fellow Calloway band members Milt Hinton and
Jonah Jones, in Jean Bach's 1997 film, The Spitball Story. Calloway did not approve of Dizzy's
mischievous humor, nor of his adventuresome approach to soloing; according to Jones,
Calloway referred to it as “Chinese music.” During one performance, Calloway saw a spitball
land on the stage, and accused Dizzy of having thrown it. Dizzy denied it, and the ensuing
argument led to Calloway striking Dizzy, who then pulled out a switchblade knife and charged
Calloway. The two were separated by other band members, during which scuffle Calloway was
cut on the hand.

XII. Dizzy’s trumpet style

 Dizzy modeled his style after the great swing trumpeter Roy Elderidge.
*This similarity of styles made Dizzy a perfect fit for Teddy Hill’s band when Roy left.
 Not as majestic as Armstrong, nor cracking with intensity as Elderidge, Gillespie’s style
is full of fast runs, unexpected pauses , and places where he holds a dissonant note,
hovering like a hummingbird until he alights on the resolving tone.
 Where as half of the excitement of an Elderidge solo comes from the sense of strain in
the way he reaches for notes, Gillespie always sounds wryly assured.
 His style is made dramatic by the way he moves from simple melodic statements to rapid
strings of triplets, by his radical shifts in dynamicsm and by his unexpected leaps in pitch.
 His tone is more nasal than that of most swing trumpeters, which initially bothered some
listeners.
 This aspect of Dizzy’s tone, in a sense, is made up for in his harmonic and rhythmic
imagination.
XIII. Dizzy, spreading the Bebop message
 Dizzy was commissioned by Woody Herman in 1942 to write several arrangements for
his band, which heralded a change in the style of music Woody’s band was known for.
 Of these arrangements were "Woody'n You", "Swing Shift" and "Down Under".
 After the sudden death of Chick Webb on June 16, 1939, Ella Fitzgerald who was the
vocalist with the Webb orchestra, took leadership of the band and is was renamed “Ella
and her Famous Orchestra.” This group existed from the time of Webb’s death to 1942.
Dizzy Gillespie was a member of Ella’s orchestra during this time, contributing
arrangements and the new bebop concept.
 The Boyd Raeburn Orchestra recorded Dizzy’s “A Night in Tunisia” in January 1945
 Stan Kenton managed to make progressive, bop-influenced music that pleased the public.
 After six-week engagement at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, which left most of the
audience ambivalent or hostile towards the new music, the band broke up. Unlike Parker,
who was content to play in small groups and be an occasional featured soloist in big
bands, Gillespie aimed to lead a big band himself; his first, unsuccessful, attempt to do
this was in 1945.

XIV. The Rise of Bebop

 Bebop was known as the first modern jazz style. However, it was unpopular in the
beginning and was not viewed as positively as swing music was.
 Bebop was seen as an outgrowth of swing, not a revolution. Swing introduced a diversity
of new musicians in the bebop era like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell,
Kenny Clarke, Oscar Pettiford, and Gillespie. Through these musicians, a new
vocabulary of musical phrases was created.
 Charlie Parker's system also held methods of adding chords to existing chord
progressions and implying additional chords within the improvised lines.
 Gillespie compositions like "Groovin' High", "Woody n' You" and "Salt Peanuts"
sounded radically different, harmonically and rhythmically, from the swing music
popular at the time.
 "A Night in Tunisia", written in 1942, while Gillespie was playing with Earl Hines' band,
is noted for having a feature that is common in today's music, a non-walking bass line.
The song also displays Afro-Cuban rhythms.
 Gillespie taught many of the young musicians on 52nd Street, including Miles Davis and
Max Roach, about the new style of jazz.

XV. Earl Hines influence on Bebop

 The Grand Terrace closed suddenly in December 1940 with the manager, Ed Fox, 'not
to be found.’ Hines, always famously good to work for, took his band on the road. It
was during this time (and especially during the (and especially during the 1942–44
musicians' strike recording ban) that members of the Hines' band's late-night jam-
sessions laid the seeds for the upcoming 'revolution' in jazz, Bebop. The Earl Hines
Orchestra of 1942 had been infiltrated by the jazz revolutionaries. Each section had its
cell of insurgents. The band’s sonority bristled with flatted fifths, off triplets and other
material of the new sound scheme.
 Dizzy’s view point
We had a beautiful, beautiful band with Earl Hines. He’s a master and you learn a lot from him,
self-discipline and organization. Earl Hines was the pianist in his band and I mean he played
some piano. We used to make him play longer solos. We’d say, “Play another one, Gates”. And
he’d go again. They’d say, “Lay out, lay out, lay out …” and we wouldn’t come in. Earl had to
play again. He’d look up and keep playing and grinning. You couldn’t flush him … no matter
what you did. We wouldn’t come in when we were supposed to and make him play another
chorus. He’d be sweating, man, but he’s so cool, he's the epitome of perfection. Earl Hines is the
master of composure. He is class personified. I don’t know a classier musician or a classier
person in any field than Earl Hines.

Duke Ellington’s view point

"the seeds of bop were in Earl Hines's piano style"

XVI. Mary Lou Williams

 At the start of the Bebop era, Mary Lou Williams was centrally involved with many
of the younger figures of the new music.
 She had already met Charlie Parker in Kansas City when he was very young.
 Her New York apartment served as a school and “crash pad” for the likes of Bud Powell,
Thelonius Monk, and their compatriots.
 Both Bud Powell and Thelonius Monk worked on voicings and compositions in her
company and came under her informal tutelage.
 William’s works started to take on modern characteristics, such as the comping left hand
and dense harmonies of her protégés.
 In 1945 she created a unique unheralded work called “The Zodiac Suite,” which contains
twelve movements inspired by the astrological signs of the horoscope.
 It was recorded in 1945 and performed on New Years Eve of that year by a chamber
orchestra at New York’s Town Hall.
 Some of the movements were later scored for the New York Philharmonic Orch. for
performance at Carnegie Hall.
 She also composed two large religious works, “Black Christ of the Andes”
and “Mary Lou’s Mass,” the latter choreographed by Alvin Ailey

XVII. The Lineage of the Bebop Big Bands

 Duke Ellington Orchestra – although considered to be primarily of the Swing Era, Duke
was a very early influence on Bebop.
 Earl “Fatha” Hines Orchestra – the first “science lab” for bebop and employed many of
the future innovators of this new modern music.
 Billy Eckstine Orchestra – the first true Bebop big band
 Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra – picking up where Eckstine left off
 Woody Herman Orchestra – a greatly admired band by the public, known for combining
bop themes with swing rhythm parts
 Stan Kenton Orchestra – bebop influenced, spread the progressiveness of more modern
jazz to a wider audience (similar to the effect of Benny Goodman to Swing music). He
referred to his music as “Progressive Jazz.”
XVIII. Planters of the Bebop Seeds
 Trumpet – Louis Armstrong, Roy Elderidge
 Alto Saxophone – Buster Smith
 Tenor Saxophone – Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young
 Piano – Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams
 Guitar – Charlie Christian
 Bass – Jimmy Blanton
 Drums – “Papa” Jo Jones, Kenny Clarke
 Composition – Duke Ellington

XIX. Individual innovators of Bebop on each instrument

 Trumpet – Dizzy Gillespie
 Alto Saxophone – Charlie Parker
 Tenor Saxophone – Dexter Gordon, Don Byas
 Trombone – J. J. Johnson
 Guitar – Charlie Christian
 Vibraphone – Milt Jackson
 Piano – Bud Powell, Thelonius Monk, Tadd Dameron
 Bass – Oscar Pettiford, Ray Brown
 Drums – Kenny Clarke
 Composers – Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Thelonius Monk, Tadd
Dameron, Miles Davis

XX. The Big Changes in the Rhythm Section

DRUMS
 While working in Teddy Hill Orch. During 1939 – ’40, Kenny “KlooK Mop” Clarke and
Dizzy Gillespie engaged in serious discussion about the new music.
 As a result of his manner of playing at that time, Kenny Clarke is credited with being the
drummer who modified the swing system to a new one suitable for Bebop.
 He stopped playing bass drum on every beat, reserving it for accentuation and rhythmic
effect.
 He took the ride pattern off the sock cymbal and played it on a suspended cymbal so that
beats two and four would not be accented
 Therefore, he was able to use the top cymbal, later renamed the “ride cymbal” for steady
rhythm.
PIANO
 Earl “Bud” Powell is credited with relieving the left hand of it’s rhythmic function of
maintaining a steady beat, allowing it to “comp” (accompany), a freely syncopated
chordal manner.
 Powell also developed a piano style that adopted saxophone-like characteristics for the
solo melodic work of the right hand.
 While the right hand improvised long-line scalar solos, the left havn, by contrast,
would continue to comp.
XXI. Dizzy Gillespie Big Band

 Dizzy's first big band was a part of a road show called Hepsations 1945.
 Ill-advised bookings and unsympathetic southern blues-oriented audiences doomed the
orchestra from the start.
 1946 Dizzy organized his second big band. Working vith arranger Walter Gilbert Puller
and borrowing music (Stay On It, Our Delight, Cool Breeze, and Good Bait),
microphones, and stands from Billy Eckstine, Dizzy put the new band into rehearsal.
 During the first week of rehearsal, between Dizzy and Gil Fuller, arrangements were
made on Things To Come, One Bass Hit. Oop.Bop-Sha-Bam, That's Earl, Brother, and an
opening.
 At the end of that week the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band opened at The Spotlite to good
audiences, growing acceptance, and critical acclaim.
 The 1947 rhythm section consisted of John Lewis (piano), Al McKibbon (bass), Kenny
Clarke (drums), and Chano Pozo (conga and vocals); the vocalist was Kenny "Pancho"
Hagood.
 This version of Dizzy's Big Band recorded the classics Algo Bueno, Cool Breeze, and
Cubana Be. Cubana Bop, Manteca, Woody'nYou, Good Bait and Ool-Ya-Koo for the
Victor label.
 By late 1948 bebop was in its halcyon days. Host of the other big bands were tryiing to
incorporate the innovations of Diz and Bird into the fabric of their music. Duke Ellington,
Woody Herman, Boyd Raebum, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie all had arrangements
 incorporating bebop and soloists playing in the prevailing modem style.
 Young players the world over were trying to learn to play the music of Diz and Bird, and,
despite many critics, bebop was fast becoming an accepted part of the mainstream of
jazz.
 In 1950 Dizzy was one of a host of orchestra leaders who found themselves forced to
disband, some of the others being Basie, Bamet, and Woody Herman.

Dizzy has said of the dissolution of his band....

"The bebop fad ended because the press could kill anything it created. The negative image of
bebop in the press hurt the big band secne, but musically it was not a creature of the press. We'd
survived with a hostile press or no" press at all for several years. The reasons why big band
ended were mainly economic and social and sexual."

"Economically, there was the rising cost of paying all those musicians in a big band and their
transportation to and from engagements. To survive, a big band had to travel and play one-
nighters, so the costs of transportation were astronomical. Then there was collusion between
some lesser bookers and the promoters. These bookers would be getting money under the table
for underselling or cutting down your price, and you'd wind up paying more to get a job than
you'd receive for playing it. With the end of the fad, there weren't too many jobs coming in, and I
didn't have that kinda money to lay out, to pay the guys to wait for future engagements."
XXII. Dee Gee Records

 In 1951, partially as a result of disenchantment with recording companies, Dizzy and

David Usher formed Dee Gee Records; it was based in Detroit.
 The first recordings for his new company were made on March 1, 1951, using Milt
Jackson (vibes), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Percy Heath (bass), Kansas Fields (drums),
Freddy Strong (vocals), and a little-known saxophonist named John Coltrane
 They recorded Love Me (Dee Gee 36OO), Tin Tin Deo (Dee Gee 3601), Birk's Works
(Dee Gee 3601), and a vocal entitled We Love To Boogie (Dee Gee 3600).
 Subsequent sessions for Dee Gee produced such works as The Champ l & II, School
Days, Swing Low Sweet Cadillac, Caravan, Nobody Knows the Trouble, 0oo-5hoo-Bee-
Doo-Bee , and OnbreHa flan (Dee Gee 3607).
 In 1953 Dizzy dissolved Dee Gee Records, and the masters were sold to Savoy.

XXIII. Dizzy’s Innovations

 Following Roy Eldridge's lead, expanded and solidified the trumpet's range.
 In his playing the efforts of Roy Eldridge and others were brought to fruition.
 Greatly expanded the technical resources of the trumpet. He proved that the trumpet was
capable of everything which the saxophone, clarinet, piano, or any other instrument could
do.
 Perhaps even more than Parkerer, was responsible for bringing to popularity certain very
sophisticated scales such as the diminished scales, the various forms of the ascending
melodic minor scales, and the lydian scales.
 Gillespie was the jazz musician largely responsible for translating the bebop language
into big band terms
 Gillespie and Parker did much to reestablish the "break" as an integral part of jazz. At the
hands of Gillespie and Paricer, the break took on new meanings and was eagerly
anticipated as one of the most exciting sections of a bebop performance
 Gillespie helped to bring Latin American and West African rhythms into jazz
 Starting with his 1940 composition Pickin' the Cabbage, which he characterized as "a real
beginning of Latin jazz and possibly the first use of polyrhythms in our music since the
very beginning of jazz.”
 *Selected tunes from the Gillespie Big Band repertoire combining Afro-Cuban rhythms
with jazz:
 Manteca, A Night in Tunisia. Woody'n You, Tin Tin Deo, Guarachi Guaro. and such
collaborations as Cubana Be, Cubana Bop
 His hiring of Chano Pozo, the Afro-Cuban percussion virtuoso, to play in his band was
without precedent. In many ways this event signaled the beginning of the fusions between
Afro-Cuban music and jazz.
XXIV. Four Styles of Big Band Jazz-1940 through early 1950’s

1) Mainstream – bands whose styles were largely unaffected by Bebop

 Ellington, Basie, Les Brown, Andy Kirk, Erskin Hawkins, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey

2) Actual Bebop bands – bands the exemplified all the aspects and innovations of Bebop
 Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, Chubby Jackson

3) Bebop influenced bands – bands which were heavily infuenced by Bebop

 Woody Herman, Boyd Raeburn, Elliot Lawrence, Claude Thornhill, Lionel Hampton

4) Progressive Jazz Bands

 Stan Kenton
Influenced by, yet a departure from Bebop. Calling upon an experimental, non-melodic, and
often free-flowing style of modern jazz, especially in the form of highly dissonant, rhythmically
complex orchestral arrangements. Considred to be a forerunner of “Thirdstream” music of the
1960’s, calling upon European classical influences for musical conceptuality.