Before the spark of World War II, the swing and blues were the most prominent. However, around the 1940s many influential African American musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk propelled jazz into a radical shift of style, composition, tempo, and chord progression. This new aspect of jazz was formally called Bebop, or Bop for short, and was defined by fast tempo solos usually from the saxophonist or trumpeter. Bebop was most commonly played in Harlem, New York in night clubs like Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe Uptown House in small bands of up to four to seven instruments. Towards the end of the 1940s and into the 1950s, as a reaction to growing popularity of Bebop, caucasian musicians from the west coast started …show more content…
Bebop emerged in the 1940s and established jazz as a music for listening rather than just dancing. It’s characterized by solos focusing on the chords underlining the melody, fast tempos, complex chord progressions, and virtuoso improvisation. Bebop came to prominence at the end of the second world war and “amid rising African American political demands” (Porter …show more content…
According to Professor Harrison, Cool Jazz is considered by most to be a reaction to the unorthodox nature of bebop or, as Eddie S. Meadows puts it “Bebop was perceived by many whites as radical and revolutionary … because of the radical stratification of the 1940s” (Meadows 244). Cool indisputably stemmed from bebop, but had several defining musical qualities which separated itself from bebop. Cool Jazz, or West Coast Jazz was much softer, controlled, and easier to sing and for audiences to follow. Bop was faster, more hectic, and less peaceful. On the other hand, Cool was was more relaxed in its nature and was “more cerebral and less intense rhythmically” which helped it gain popularity in southern California (Meadows 247). Some notable Cool musicians included Gerry Mulligan on the baritone saxophone, Chet Baker on the trumpet, and Dave Brubeck on the