Jazz is a music genre that has existed for a very long time. In the U.S, the first Jazz recording was done in the year 1917, but research shows that the music existed for 20 years before then in at least primitive forms across Africa and Europe. The music is sometimes branded as the union of African and European music. The African music is believed to provide an underlying beat mostly absent in European music, and polyrhythms. The European music is therefore responsible for the formal dance rhythms. The 1920s came to be known as The Jazz Age, and this was because jazz influenced many dance bands and the commercial outfits who began having solos and some rhythm sections. Jazz music incorporates different styles which are most noticeable through the various timelines of the 20th century. Two of those styles include Big Band and Bebop.
Big Band, concerning jazz, is generally referred to as the swing era that took place between 1935 and 1945. The music style appears to have no apparent event that introduced it to the world; it is known to have evolved naturally from the blues and jazz being played at the time in New Orleans, Chicago and Kansas City. However, the appearance of Benny Goodman and his Big Band in Los Angeles introduced the style to the broader population. During this period, the jazz seemed to dominate all other forms of music in America. The era was accurately known for the large orchestras dominating the music charts. Performers such as Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw were household names who wowed the jazz enthusiasts by their sleek use of the jazz style.
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With the growing sizes of orchestras, it resulted in there being a formal arrangement to avoid confusion. The careful and natural flowing style presented by the likes of Casa Loma Orchestra and Duke Ellington’s Orchestra was evolving jazz into the popular name and form, Swing. During the Big Band era, was when it was known as the ‘Golden Age of Radio.’ A vast population was listening to shows and music. The Big Band style also grew its popularity from the airplay. Dissatisfaction by the union of musicians due to lower royalty payments led to a strike known as The Record ban. When the strike had settled, the music climate had changed, the sweet sounds of the world war II era jazz style, the big band had competition from the new sound of Bebop.
Bebop or bop developed in the late 1940s as a unique form of jazz characterized by fast rhythms, and improvised moves based on harmonic structure rather than the melody. Bebop first became established in the New York Harlem Clubs after circumstances conspired against the big bands and swing. Beboppers were usually smaller incorporating four to six musicians and mainly dwelled on instrumentalization and improvisation. Bebop did not just offer people music to dance to, and it provided a great sound to listen to. Some of the early pioneers of Bebop include Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Art Tatum. Exploration of advanced harmonies and complex syncopations by young musicians like John Gillespie with the trumpet and Charlie Parker with the alto saxophone ensured the style transformed music from entertainment into art.
The standard structure and format of Bebop music by the early 1950s, had been exhausted. Musicians had to explore new directions to build on. Miles Davis a trumpeter, and John Coltrane particularly experimented on developing a less aggressive and still hard-edged form of bebop with orchestration which came to be known as the cool school. Similarly, exploration by other musicians led to the development of other forms of jazz which include modal jazz, free jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Bebop music received a lot of criticism by established jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong who went on to claim that it was noisy. The style however not only became an art form but the most significant single influence on the music industry in the last half-century. Bebop is known to have fused with rock to spread it into the 1960s and beyond. Nearly all jazz styles were still active by the 1990s as it is very much international music; however, it has slowed down, and no apparent direction can be given for the music genre’s future.
