To Be or Not To Bop….

Willie Thomas | February 16, 2011

As some of you may know, I've borrowed my title line from a biography about the life of Dizzy Gillespie, who played a vital role in the nascent period of a jazz epoch called “be bop” in the mid 1940's in NYC.  There are several theories and many questions about how this term was inculcated into the jazz vernacular of American culture. Today, be bop describes one of the most virulent aspects of the jazz language.

Be bop began when Charlie Parker, Dizzy, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro, Max Roach, Tad Dameron and other jazz acolytes gathered at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem on Friday nights to marinate in the  sounds of this new music and glean the recently minted licks that flowed like a river out of their instruments on that infamous bandstand.

A few Be Bop legends in front of Minton's

As be-bop became an ever more prevalent strand in the tapestry of jazz, it's affect on the jazz vocabulary began taking root and by the mid 1950s. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakely and many others were fluent in this new language. Be bop had become indelibly etched into the jazz patterns and licks everyone had to know to even be considered a real player.

The evolution of be bop continued to be the base line for the jazz language into the 60's in spite of occasional odysseys and abstractions by the likes of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and others searching to be recognized, breaking the be bop boundaries and taking jazz to the next level. Even when Trane hopped on the free jazz wagon, it didn't derail be bop.

Be bop continued to march into the 70s with the jazz cadre, i,e. Freddy Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Wynton Marsalis leading the parade.  Now, a new question took center stage, is and should be bop be the bulwark of the jazz curriculum now emerging in the Jazz Education arena? The jury is still out on that one.

Wynton Marsalis' attempts to marry the more traditional Big Easy music and mainstream it into jazz along with today's fester of fusion, crossover, cross under,  and a myriad of  other styles of music masquerading under the jazz banner, has made some inroads into the jazz vocabulary tool box. However, players like Chris Potter, Roy Hargrove, Ryan Kisor, Walter Smith III, and more, keep pushing the boundaries with be bop at the roots of these new explorations.

Jazz is now a world music and over the last 30 years many other strains of influence continue to briefly become stirred  into the potion. Every type of ethnic music under the sun has had its turn in the ring, but, be bop continues to remain at the core.  Bunky Green, an old side kick of mine has seen the rebirth of his pyrotechnique based jazz come into prominence with some support from a new kid on the block, Rudresh Manhanthappa. Their music, however, doesn't leave you with one of those intriguing lines that Bird played dancing in your head.

So, this 80 year old be bop warrior is happy with the status quo and my jazz lessons in my Jazz Everyone language system will no doubt stand the test of time with all of its intrinsic be boppery.  And, when all is said and done as Frank Foster and I always said .... be bop Rules!