THE BOP BEAT
The bebop revolution coincided with the birth of the Beat Generation. In a slightly unbalanced relationship, Beat writers often molded their poetics and style after the playing of such jazz music. "Jazz writers," such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, upheld their poetic ideals to the techniques of jazz musicians, such as rhythm, improvisation, and call and response. The structure of creative writing underwent a change, as the importance of form equaled that of theme. Swing, the predecessor of bop, was big, sweet, and hot. The performers were big bands, fronted by a charismatic bandleader, yet the success of a piece depended mostly on the unity of the ensemble as a whole, rather than on the showcasing of prodigious individuals. The requisite instrument was the saxophone, which was often smooth and mellifluous. Songs were old favorites, or simple jazz standards, that had been arranged to suit a large ensemble. Swing bands played in large venues, such as ballrooms, and to large audiences, who seized the opportunity to not just tap their toes, but to "jump, jive, and wail." The swing era became the most popular form of jazz, as it catered to audiences as a form of social and interactive entertainment.
(Erenberg). So, bop can be seen as a reaction to the eventual sterilization and ubiquity of swing music. The first bop records were made by in 1944 by Coleman Hawkins experimenting with his swing band. Several individuals were instrumental in the propagation of this new form, such as Charlie "Bird" Parker (alto sax), Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Thelonious Monk (piano), Bud Powell (piano), Miles Davis (trumpet), and Charles Mingus (bass). The standard ensemble became a quintet, consisting of piano, bass, drums, reed instrument, and trumpet. (Erenberg). The distinguishing factors of the bop style were: notes that were more far-reaching, and which Garner 2contained a rhythm that was looser and more complex. Instead of the traditional stressing of the first and third beat of a measure, as in traditional Western music, bop music stresses the second and fourth. The playing pattern usually initiates with the theme, then follows with a reed solo, trumpet solo, piano solo, bass or drum solo every second, third, or fourth number. Within a song would sometimes hold "trading fours," alternating four-bar improvisations between instruments. "Music expressed the feirce divisions in American culture... modern jazz musicians over the nature of music, new forms of personal freedom, racial assertiveness, and generational alienation. (Erenberg 252). Additionally, when familiar tunes were included, it was to satirize such antiseptic creations of the white world, and were more often then not turned upon their heads and wrecked for bop motives. Bop musicians rejected the idea of playing solely for an audience; they graduated from the roles of entertainers to the positions of musicians. Therefore, "having lost their mass audience, jazzmen were freer to develop some of their best music in the mid to late 50's..." (Erenberg 253). Their music was not as melodic and hyperactive as swing. Subsequently, bop never became an obsession of popular culture, and remained introspective, for a largely introspective Beat culture. The Beat Generation was a movement that rebelled against the social and literary conformity and conservatism of white, middle class, suburban, post-war America. The term "Beat" holds many origins. One is canonized, as tired and weary. Another derivation, pinpointed by Kerouac, comes from the word "beatitude," holy, state of ultimate bliss. A relevant definition to jazz involves the division of music into equal portions, such as "four beats to a measure." The Beats sought the grit and grim of urban life, the poverty and pathos of black existence. Thus, they happened upon, in the sweeped-into-the-cobwebbed corners of American life, the liquor-nursed, Benzedrine-hopped cats of smoky jazz joints. Their solution is to be beat. "Members of the Beat Garner 3Generation, responded to the conformist materialism of the period by adapting lifestyles derived from social disobedience" (Kerkhoff 1). Also according to the U.S. Catholic, to be beat is "a shorthand term for beatitude and the idea that the downtrodden are saintly" also included in this article Kerouac is quoted to have said "Beat doesn't mean tired, or bushed, so much as it means beato, the Italian for beatific, to be in a state of beatitude, like Saint Francis, trying to love life, trying to be utterly sincere with everyone, practicing endurance, kindness, cultivating joy of heart." Another interpretation of Beat life by Ann Charters synthesizes the attitude that the Beats held towards the abject lifestyle prescript to black jazz musicians. The Beats, overwhelmingly white, and college-educated, foregoed their inherited social status for a romanticized vision of a bohemian lifestyl
Some topics in this essay:
Charles Mingus,
Kerouac Benets,
Allen Ginsberg,
I'm Rockland,
Maxine Cassin,
Beat Generation,
James Baldwin,
FINE Road,
Dean Moriarty,
Ann Charters,
jazz musicians,
call response,
jazz music,
improvisation call response,
rhythm improvisation,
improvisation call,
music bop,
characteristic jazz,
feinstein 255,
rhythm improvisation call,
oral tradition,
jazz form,
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Approximate Word count = 2473
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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