“Charlie Parker was a legendary Grammy Award–winning jazz saxophonist” . If there was a previous era of Jazz, due to the emergence of Louis Armstrong, a completely new and transformed Jazz Age came after and was created by Charlie Parker. Although Charlie Parker lived a short life, he accomplished a great achievement in jazz, as he still remains as a legendary figure to many people. Charlie Parker is one of the most famous and influential jazz alto saxophonist and composer that influenced the course of jazz with the creation of his unique Bebop style. Charlie Parker was born on August 29th 1920 in Kansas City. His father provided him with some musical influence as he worked as a pianist, dancer and a singer on the T.O.B.A circuit. However, …show more content…
Charlie Parker is the leader of the new and fresh genre of Jazz after the Swing era. “With the focus on improvisation, Bebop allowed for an explosion of innovation. Inspired by the more harmonically and rhythmically experimental players in swing era” The word bebop came from the sound “bebebebe bopbopbop” that people makes when they sing Jazz around in joy. Bebop is the freewheeling style of Jazz where the tempo gets fast with intense improvisations and where the progression of harmony and melody gets complicated. Bebop that contains dynamic and rough improvisation used the “Blue Note”, which is the technique that plays one semitone down to a few specific sounds. By adding fast rhythm and passage to the blue note, the unique sound of bebop has finally been produced. However, this new format of Jazz was highly regarded to have an artistic value but it was lack of popularity where people love jazz as an entertainment source to dance and not mainly focus on their emotions. Bebop brought a huge impact on the history of Jazz; it brought huge changes of foundational melody, rhythm, and harmony. Moreover, we can see that Charlie Parker changed the whole era by playing bebop with saxophone and it opened the start of Modern
It was a newly coined term that was used to describe the spirited, high-energy of Bolden’s music (Buddy Bolden PBS). Of course, jazz did in fact exist before Bolden, but it was Bolden who took on the first definitive figure for jazz (Charles “Buddy” Bolden National). Some individuals claim that he invented jazz, but this is clearly not true as it existed before Bolded; however, it is clear that he did cause a surge of popularity to the musical form (Marquis). He was basically Jazz’s first rock star (Marquis). It may seem strange that Bolden, and his huge contribution to jazz, would leave behind zero evidence of his impact.
This new identity was the combination of Gospel and R&B. This genre was called soul music. Later in his career, he began entertaining the world with his amazing and unique records, with the members of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Other musicians began calling Charles “The Genius”.
Jazz has shaped the world we know today. Jazz would have never been as popular without the help of the famous musicians: Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. These people helped spread the new genre through radio, railroads, and the records that they played. Where did this all start? The jazz age began in New Orleans where a certain King was born.
Jelly Roll Morton, a well known jazz pianist, is known for influencing the formation of jazz in the
Jazz began to divide during the war into two musical philosophies: traditional jazz "Revivalism" and modern jazz, known as bebop. In New York, where youthful creatives like Gillespie, created new revolutionary methods, the name "bebop" was first used. Charlie Parker, a player of the alto saxophone, was Bebop's most renowned icon along with Gillespie. Complex, quick-paced melodic lines, fresh rhythmic concepts, adventurous harmonic improvisation techniques, and ferocious instrumental prowess characterized the music. Bebop evolved into a variety of current jazz forms after the war.
African Americans after the Civil War created many blues melodies that have been passed down as part of their culture. Along with melody, the beat of jazz, consisting of syncopation and polyrhythms came from African communities that were passed down. Along with this, Ellington created some different styles present in jazz. These were “call and response”, ternary forms, and swung rhythms. He also created a balance of music created by him and improv from the musicians.
Miles Davis, one of jazz’s most influential musicians with career that expanded six decades. Davis was known for his always changing style, from bebop to rock. He had been part of the bebop, cool jazz, hardbop, modal, rock-fusion movements, and shortly before his death working with hip-hop fusion. Throughout his entire career, Miles Davis preferred the audience recognize him for what he was doing then, not what he had done in the past. Over his sixty-year career he had earned several nicknames: The Sorcerer, the Prince of Darkness, and the man who walked on eggshells.
The Santa Fe Evening of Jazz was a great concert featuring the Rhythm and Blues, Jazz Combo, and Big Band from Santa Fe College with special guest Professor Scott Wilson from the University of Florida Jazz Studies. This Evening of Jazz was the ninth one to be held and was superbly done; getting a ticket was quick and simple, finding a seat was as easy, and leaving was not hard. The whole performance was led by Doctor Steven Lee Bingham who also played with all the bands on the alto saxophone along with giving information about each band, song, scholarship players, and on Mr. Wilson and his unique instrument called a E.V.I.. The audience had a pleasant feel, everyone was talking and laughing before and after the performance, they also were
Thus rebelling against the existing structures in the jazz world. The first notable style “bebop” was so difficult for white musicians to copy and too intricate for dancing, forced audiences to sit up and listen and take note of who and what was being played. It was an underground movement not seeking commercial success but rather seeking another type of gratification, self expression. The musicians development of the improvised solo was a crucial vehicle for their self expression and the key feature of the style. Jazz being one of the few public forums for African American self expression, allowed musicians a platform to speak to their audiences and to transcend the barriers they faced in society.
Initially, bebop jazz was characterized by significantly more complex chord progressions and melodies with a strong focus on the rhythm section. Although the irregular and unpredictable lengths of solos and increased sophistication made the music less suitable for dancing, it was nonetheless entertaining. Jazz had gained higher respect from a widestream audience, as it was no longer just dance music. Bebop lasted well into the 1950s, and the next stylistic revolution came during the revolutionary decade of the 1960s: fusion. Jazz fusion came into fruition when musicians combined aspects of jazz harmony and improvisation with styles such as funk, rock, rhythm and blues, and Latin jazz.
Rough Beginnings It was 1915 and the music scene was just getting hot. New Orleans was busting at the seam with young cats prowling the streets, lurking in seedy after-hours clubs looking to get a wild jam session in before the night was through. An insanely talented and equally arrogant ragtime pianist by the name of Jelly Roll Morton began to play with a different kind of flavor that drove audiences crazy, and with that the invention of Jazz was born. The heavy syncopated beats making your pulse jump, the bluesy lilt of a melody lapping lazily at your senses; this was the time to be alive.
Armstrong performed an astonishing 300 concerts per year on average (Harris). Through his expertise in jazz music Armstrong set the bar for all aspiring musicians, something great to learn from but hard to live up
If you listen to jazz today, you will hear expanded musical harmonies, musicians playing more complex chords, and musical harmonies borrowed from many different genres of music, including pop. Many new, mainstream jazz as artists use the same techniques that artists from the early 1900’s used. Joseph “King” Oliver was the father to many of these techniques, which changed jazz and the way we hear it today. During the 1920’s, Joe “King” Oliver was the most progressive and influential artist in jazz because of his musical innovations that influenced other jazz artists to incorporate his methods,which sparked a new type of jazz. Jazz was first born in New Orleans and eventually moved to Chicago.
Jazz, in nature contains many characteristics of black people because its origin was from an African music. When we talk about jazz as a black music, the black here refer to African-American. African music is characterized by collective performance as a musical element. Several people played together and danced and enjoyed music. That's why rhythm play was more important than melody in Jazz eventually in Hancock’s music.