What other types of music are in the same catageory as bebop?

Im no expert, but heres some info.Bebops origins are from Dixieland Jazz and swing. Dixieland Jazz was basically (at that time; MID 1940'S) fast, upbeat blues and alot of musicians were starting to improvise most of their solos. Bebop got its start in afterhours jams in (for the most part)big cities such as NY and Chicago. Many swing musicians would get together after their swing gigs and play all night. It was kinda an underground thing in the early days. By the late 40's there were clubs that featured nothing but bebop. Cotton Club and other 42nd street type clubs were popping up all over New york(actually the cotton club came later but I can't remember names of early clubs). In the late 40s & early 1950's, Miles Davis started messing around with bebop. Miles thought Bebop was starting to be an exclusive, hard to understand and sometimes hard to follow style that only musicians could truely understand (using flated 5ths is a good example). He wanted to be able to get through to the average(non-musician)person. He took the idea of free-flowing improvised solos and put it to a backdrop of simpler, usually slower blues based songs. This is what is referred to the "Birth of the Cool"(see also the album of the same name). By the mid 50s people were just calling it all "Bop". By the mid 50s, another style of Jazz was starting to get popular. Gill Evans, Stan Kenton, and Woody Herman (amoung others) were starting to write huge arrangements for much larger bands. Most bebop acts were Quartets and Quintets. Kenton (and others) were starting to write for 15-20 piece bands (note* swing bands were usually large as well). Kenton, as an example, used 5 sax's, 5 trombones, 5 trumpets, and a rhythm section (drums, bass, guitar). This is when people started using the word "Jazz". These big bands were called jazz (in style). Of course we now lump many different forms into the catagory "Jazz" including bop and bebop, but Kenton and others were the originators of "Jazz" proper. Kenton liked to write big wide chords spread out through out the entire range of sound. It was loud and brighter (in style) than bop. It didn't swing (much). Swing was too sweet. There are still remnants of this era, example; Maynard Ferguson (He's still around, isn't he?).
Jazz hasn't changed all that much since, with the exception of Fusion and this soft Jazz/adult contemporary crap( sorry, my opinion)(Note* "West Coast" Jazz started to take on a distinctive sound in the early 60's, but never really became a seperate genre, examples; Stan Getz and Dave Brubeck amoung others). PBS has a series on the origins of Jazz. Its a really good series that follows it from its early beginnings. If you ever get a chance (even if you are not into Jazz), check it out. Its interesting to see parrellels between it and rock-n-roll(or rather all of pop music). I didn't mean to write this much, sorry. So, to answer your question. Bebop is in the catagory "Jazz". Also in the "Jazz" catagory are Dixieland, Big Band, Jazz, swing, fusion, etc.

DudeManCentral
(a professional jazz trombonist for 15 yrs before going into the recording industry)

Recommended listening: J.J.Johnson




[This message has been edited by DMC (edited 01-29-2003).]

DMC. Thanks for your Bebop input, I enjoyed reading about it.
You are very knowledgeable so can we have some more about BigBands etc: please.

Graham UK

Its refreshing to have a topic I know something about. I haven't thought much about this topic in years, so excuse me if I forget some things. Big Band is more of a generic name for Swing and "Jazz" bands, hence "BIG". It, in it self, was not necessarily a seperate genre. Now a days its used pretty loosely to mean almost any of the Jazz styles, but usually intended for "Jazz" (proper) and swing. It has more to do with the size of the band than the actual style. Miles Davis wrote bop songs (birth of the cool,above) for some large (and interesting) bands(how about Jazz tuba and french horn, really), but I would think no one would consider those "Big Band". Its a term used mostly by non-musicians (whom don't know any better). Remember, almost all of the Jazz styles(bebop, west coast, swing, etc.) are collectively called Jazz now a days. So "Jazz" proper tends to be referred to as Big Band, but oddly enough tends to include swing. Modern "Big Bands" play all the Jazz styles and even jazzed-up rock standards (how about a Madonna song to a swing beat)and modern jazz. Nostagia acts mostly...
I actually got my start as a professional musician playing in a so called "Big Band".

DudeManCentral

PS.I remember hearing Stan Kenton for the first time in the late 50s. His band blew the roof off the the place. It was so loud, bright, and moving. With those huge chords, HUGE DYNAMICS, and unique key changes. It really was incredible back then. The dynamics were incredible. They'd go from extremely soft to very very loud in a drop of a hat. Even in this modern day of 24bit recording and big sound-to-noise ratios, there is really nothing like it today(dynamically speaking). Electronic instruments have really zapped the use of dynamics. Remember the Memorex commercials with the guy in a chair getting blown away with the sound coming from his speakers? Thats how I felt listening to Kenton the first time. Now a days, if a band was to play that loud, the sound code police would be there pulling the plug....






[This message has been edited by DMC (edited 01-29-2003).]

Some Bebop Humour:

A visitor to New York asks a bop musician how to get to 42nd street. The musicians answers "practice, man, practice".

DMC

Bebop really started in the late thirties with such luminaries as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Essentially what they were doing was taking standard tunes, extracting the chord sequences and putting their own tunes on top. Another major difference was to use the higher intervals, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths. Also instead of using 8th notes, the trend was to double time into 16th notes. As DMC rightly pointed out, flatted fifths also became popular, particularly with Thelonius Monk. It was musicians' music in the sense that you couldn't understand it unless you had been there. I stopped playing jazz in the fifties because I didn't have the musical ability to play the new stuff at the time (I'm a little better these days). The bebop era lasted into the late fifties but with the death of Bird the life went out of it somewhat. Miles Davis put an end to it with his introduction of "cool" jazz and Bill Evans changed piano playing for ever. Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane continued with it to some extent but when they played with Miles the trend shifted to modal styles and long solos. One quote from Miles - "We had a session and I only got to play two choruses - Coltrane and Adderley took fifty choruses each"

Bryan

It's amazing how genre's cross mutate and form new genre's. Just goes to show how much you can get out of a thump and a scream.