Bebop: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, and Bud Powell

Topics we will discuss and learn:

• Social Conditions
• Bebop as a response to Swing
• Important soloists

Social Conditions

            The war was on and there was a recording band for two years as the musician’s union refused to record until the record labels paid the musicians for jukebox and radio airplay.  Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s innovations would not be recorded till 1945 after the war.

            There was segregation in the military and enemy German soldiers were better treated better than the black soldiers.  Racial tensions also heated up in the cities as a new wave of black workers migrated from the south to get new defense jobs during the war.  Black musicians were targeted for harassment by police because they dressed nicely. 

            52^nd Street in NYC was the place for jazz and people could go to hear any musician they wanted on “The Street,” Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Billie Holiday.

              

Bebop as a response to Swing

            Big band music was becoming too cliché for many musicians and the riffs and licks were not challenging them enough.  They also wanted to express themselves more by soloing longer and not being constrained by elaborate arrangements.

            The competitive nature of the urban music scene led to many “cutting sessions” where musicians would display their skills and win audience applause.  One such spot where the jam sessions really got hot was at Minton’s Playhouse in NYC.  All the musicians came there including Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Mary Lou Williams.  But it was a group of innovators that wanted to push the envelope of the music that began to define what the jam sessions would be.

            Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonius Monk along with Bud Powell and Kenny Clarke would “hold court” and musicians would come through after hours and jam.  These musicians are credited with creating a whole new complex musical language that uses the extensions of chords and is extremely difficult to master rhythmically.  The language would come to be known as bebop from the sound of the syllables that musicians like Dizzy would scat (Oo bop a ree bop).

           

Important soloists

            Charlie Parker

                        Nicknamed “Bird” (short for Yardbird) after he hit a chicken in the road

                        From Kansas City and played in Jay McShann’s band

                        Created along with Dizzy, a whole new way of approaching soloing

Used the extensions of the chord

Started and ended phrases on odd beats

                        Problem with heroine and alcohol died at 35

            Dizzy Gillespie

                        Nicknamed “Dizzy” or “Diz”

                        Blazing technique and speed along with a wide range

                        Helped create the language of bebop with Bird

                        Led a bebop big band

                        Started the Latin jazz movement

                        Considered a father figure to many musicians

            Thelonius Monk

                        An unorthodox style of piano playing using note clusters and a lot of

space

Patterned his style after James P. Johnson

Wrote many jazz standards

            Bud Powell

                        Played like Bird on the piano

                        Very fluid style with great technique

            Miles Davis

                        The opposite of Dizzy on trumpet played laid back with smaller range

                        Was 19 when first recorded with Bird

            Kenny Clarke

                        Created a new style of drumming with accents to spur soloists on

                        Less “four on the floor” bass drum, played bass drum sparingly

            Max Roach

                        Impeccable technique on the drums and he was so fast on the ride

cymbal it sounded like bacon frying

Terms and topics to know:

Scat singing

Bebop licks

Note clusters

Charlie Parker and Dizzy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl6MjOHT8oI

Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8z_nf5WC40

Midterm

The MIDTERM EXAM will be this Thursday 9-20-12

You will take you exam on the following website:

http://www.edmodo.com/jazzhistoryclass

You have to create an account to take the exam (it's FREE)

Jazz Blogs

Interesting blog s talking about various issues and ideas in jazz

http://benallison.com/blog/

http://dothemath.typepad.com/

http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/

http://jazztruth.blogspot.com/

Homework Questions

Answer the following questions and email them to me before class on Tuesday.

Questions from Blues Peoples Reading Chapters 1-6

1. What is a slave mentality? 
2. Why did “Negroes who were highest in the social and economic hierarchy become the most fanatic imitators of white society?” 
3. What does the term antebellum mean? 
4. How does Jones describe the difference between the role of West African women in society and African American women and what effect did this have on the blues? 
5. According to Jones why did Reconstruction fail? 

List of Early Literary Black Stereotypes - By Jamie Wilson

 

















Blacks were often depicted as comically foolish in literature, art and movie

Sterling Brown, a black poet and scholar active primarily in the 1930s, parsed out seven black stereotypes propagated primarily by white writers. Most of these are instantly recognizable today. Brown points out that whether such stereotyping is racist or not, it is bad writing. However, a character's struggle against being stereotyped, as in stories such as "Not Your Singing, Dancing Spade" by Flannery O'Connor, made and still makes excellent literature.

The Contented Slave

• From the inception of slavery in America, its supporters needed to find ways to rationalize its existence. One way was through the stereotyped "contented slave," a black person so lazily happy with his lot that he saw no reason for struggle. The contented slave was always paired with the "good master," a white owner who treated the slave as a lesser person but still with humanity and respect. This stereotype was used well into the 1940s and can frequently be spotted in 1930s literature and movies including "Gone with the Wind" and "The Little Colonel."

The Wretched Freeman

• The "wretched freeman" was set up as a counterpoint to the contented slave. He was the embodiment of the slavery supporter's argument that a slave was never intended to be free. Freedom itself makes him miserable, and when freed, he desires nothing so much as to once again be a slave.

The Comic Negro

• The "comic Negro" was a mainstay of minstrel shows for more than a century. This character was more of a caricature, with his personal and physical traits grossly exaggerated for the sake of humor. The comic Negro was never a main character but always a sidekick -- the comic relief. He laughed at himself just as everyone laughed at him. Topsy, a character in Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a comic Negro.

The Tragic Mulatto

• The "tragic mulatto" is perhaps the only one of these stereotypes that has died out. Usually female, she has so many white ancestors she could "pass" for white. The tragic mulatto was first used by abolitionists to bring home the reality of slavery -- in which a girl as white as many in their audience was degraded and owned. Worse, however, was the implication that the white blood in a black slave was what gave that slave the impetus to escape, and that the black blood in that person tied them to the savagery and lack of control stereotypically associated with blacks. When slavery was ended, the tragic mulatto often tried to pass as a white person, always with terrible social and legal consequences; a frequent plot had her giving birth to a baby who was clearly of black origin. Most of these stories died out in the 1950s, at about the same time the Civil Rights Movement encouraged blacks to be proud of their heritage.

The Local Color Negro

• These stereotyped characters were usually found in groups, like a Greek chorus, and took on whichever other stereotype was appropriate to the story. Most of the time, they were "contented slaves," though they might be "exotic primitives" in Africa or Barbados. These characters were treated as scenery, there only to give flavor and color to the setting of a story. You might see the same thing today in a novel about voodoo, where the blacks at a voodoo ritual are there only to set the scene.

The Exotic Primitive

• This is perhaps the most offensive yet most lingering of the literary stereotypes listed. This stereotyped character embodies all the cliches about the "primitive African." Lust, sexual prowess, a wildly uncontrolled desire for drinking and drugs and often a lifestyle of casual violence mark this character. Its origins were in the "savage inheritance" that white writers believed belonged to descendants of Africans.

The Brute Negro

• Early in the history of American literature, the "brute Negro" did not exist. His brutishness had been tamed out of him, domesticated through slavery. In fact, this alleged civilizing factor was one of the arguments in support of slavery. While historical figures such as Nat Turner brought up the specter of this stereotype, it did not gain traction until Reconstruction, when freed slaves competed with Southern whites still in shock at the upturning of their world. The brute Negro, manipulated and controlled by cunning Yankee carpetbaggers, became the literary repository of everything evil.

References

• "Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America"; Negro Character as Seen by White Authors by Sterling A. Brown; eds. James A. Emanuel and Theodore L. Gross; 1968
• Ball State University; Sterling Brown's Seven Stereotypes; M.B. Montague
• Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute; Recognizing Stereotypical Images of African Americans in Television and Movies; Stephen F. Gray
• Ferris State University Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia: The Tragic Mulatto Myth; David Pilgrim; Nov. 2000 

 

By Jamie Wilson, eHow Contributor

http://www.ehow.com/info_8231364_list-early-literary-black-stereotypes.html