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JAZZ PERSPECTIVES
Jazz Forms - Hard
Bop
From the onset of the
20th century, jazz development occurred through generational cycles of stylistic
change. Young musicians taught by their New Orleans elders became
first-generation swing musicians, and virtually all the creators of BeBop
developed in established swing orchestras. BeBop itself produced two styles, the
Cool jazz of the late 40's, and later in the mid 50's, a new sound called Hard
Bop. While Cool based its refinements on the musical esthetics of European
classical music, Hard Bop reached into the street music of the black
neighborhoods: rhythm-and-blues [r&b], blues, soul and gospel.
Second-generation BeBop musicians found themselves working in all of these
contexts, and the interplay between their Bop sensibilities, the funky beats of
dance music, and various Latin, Spanish and Afro-Cuban influences gave birth to
Hard Bop.
One of the leading groups
of the Hard Bop sound was the Jazz Messengers. Led by drummer Art Blakey, the
group began as a collaboration with pianist Horace Silver, a prolific Hard Bop
composer. Silver's The Preacher became an early classic in the style. Based on the
chord changes to I've Been Workin' On The
Railroad, the melody is simple and catchy. Although the song is not a blues
in the strict definition, the originally recorded performance sounds like blues
because of the way the musicians express themselves within it. Art Blakey's
drumming style swings hard as always, and Silver's piano playing states the
'funky-ness' of the new movement. Another Silver composition, Song
For My Father, was rooted in the newly developing bossa nova beat. The
harmony of the song is in a minor key, a common Hard Bop occurrence, and Silver
credited the melodic inception to his early exposure to Portuguese folk music.
Through all of these factors, the funky blues feeling pervades.
The soloists of Hard Bop
stood squarely on the shoulders of their BeBop predecessors. What separated them
in style was the additional mixture of blues and funk ideas, which, for the
originators of BeBop, would have been regarded as regressive or square. For
the Hard Bop stylist, any music rooted in the black sounds of jazz and pop was
fair game. Two of these soloists who crossed musical paths with Blakey and
Silver were trumpeter Clifford Brown and saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Brown's
early jazz gigs took place in Philadelphia with many of BeBop's first
generation, including Max Roach, with whom he would eventually form his final
group. His work in r&b took place with Chris Powell and His Blue Flames, and
was followed by a short but prolific jazz career, which ended with his death in
1956. Brown's trumpet style was fast, clean and articulate, and he was noted for
his originality and creativity. His influence on trumpeters is undeniable even
today. Sonny Rollins, a member of the Max Roach - Clifford Brown Quintet,
developed his style out of the mold of Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt and Dexter
Gordon. After establishing his own sound, he went on to become one of the most
influential tenor players in jazz. Although he composed a small number of well
known tunes, including
Doxy and
Oleo, his main thrust was as an improviser. His unique approach to melodic development in the Hard Bop context took place mostly within the
standard jazz repertoire.
Hard Bop continued to be
at the forefront of the jazz landscape until the mid-sixties. Free Jazz,
arriving at the onset of the decade, gradually reduced the influence of Hard
Bop. By then however, this mixture of jazz ideals with the various world and
urban flavorings had developed into an enduring sub-style of jazz. Hard Bop took
its place along side Cool, BeBop, Afro-Cuban Jazz, Swing, and New Orleans Jazz
as one more form of the expanding category of jazz dialects.
[top]
- article by Frank Singer ©2002
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JAZZ PERSPECTIVES
CONTENTS
Jazz
Origins
I - Beginnings
II - Jazz and Technology
III - Radio and the Industrial Beat
The
Swing Era
I - Precursors
II - The Decade of Swing
III - The
BeBop Strain
A
First Look Back
New Orleans
Revival
Jazz
Forms
The Blues
The 32 bar Song Form
The Latin Influence
Cool
Hard Bop
Evolution 1 - A New Dialogue
Evolution 2 - Into The Seventies
Evolution Of The Jam Session
Post Modernism
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