Bebop: A Style Based on the Twelve-Bar Blues

Bebop is a style of jazz characterized by fast tempos, improvisation, and complex harmonic structure.

Bebop’s Beginnings

Bebop emerged in the early 1940s, when a group of young musicians in Harlem began playing a new style of jazz that was based on the twelve-bar blues. These musicians were influenced by the music of the Swing Era, but they wanted to create something that was more exciting and personal. They developed a new approach to improvisation that involved playing faster and using more complex harmonic ideas. Bebop quickly became popular with other jazz musicians, and it soon spread to other cities.

The twelve-bar blues

The twelve-bar blues is one of the most important progressions in all of jazz. It’s the foundation of bebop and hard bop and has been used extensively in rock, R&B, soul, and country. It has even found its way into pop music. Almost every jazz standard you can think of is based on the twelve-bar blues, so it’s important to have a firm grasp on this progression.

The twelve-bar blues is built off of the I, IV, and V chords of a major key. In a major key, the I chord is always major, the IV chord is always major, and the V chord is always dominant (major with a flattened seventh). For example, in the key of C, the I chord is Cmajor7, the IV chord is Fmajor7, and the V chord is G7. So in a twelve-bar blues in C, you would play Cmajor7 for four bars, Fmajor7 for two bars, Cmajor7 for two bars, G7 for two bars, Cmajor7 for one bar, Fmajor7 for one bar, Cmajor7 for one bar. This might look like this:

The rise of big band jazz

In the early 1930s, big band jazz was the dominant form of American popular music. Bands such as Duke Ellington’s and Benny Goodman’s played to large audiences in dance clubs and theaters, and their music was also widely heard on radio. Big band jazz was based on the Twelve-Bar Blues, a simple chord progression that provides a harmonic structure for the improvisation of melodic solos.

The rise of big band jazz coincided with the development of swing, a rhythmic style that gave the music a driving energy and made it ideal for dancing. Swing was created by African American musicians who were influenced by the blues and by traditional West African rhythms. The most important innovator was pianist and bandleader Count Basie, whose group became one of the most popular bands of the 1930s.

The popularity of big band jazz continued into the 1940s, but the music began to change in this decade as well. Many young musicians, including saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, became dissatisfied with the constraints of swing. They began to experiment with new harmonic ideas and rhythmic approaches that would lay the foundation for bebop, a style based on the Twelve-Bar Blues but with more complex harmonies and rhythms.

Bebop’s Key Characteristics

Bebop is a style of jazz that was developed in the early 1940s. It is characterized by swing rhythms, fast tempos, and improvisation. Bebop is also based on the twelve-bar blues, which is a popular form of blues music.

Melodic and harmonic innovation

Bebop was born out of the desire of a group of young jazz musicians to create music that was both sophisticated and challenging, yet still accessible to a wider audience than the avant-garde jazz that had come before. Bebop is characterized by a strong emphasis on melody and harmony, as well as a wide range of musical influences.

One of the most important innovations of bebop was the use of extended harmony. Bebop musicians often used chords that were outside of the traditional major and minor tonalities, as well as scales such as the blues scale and the bebop scale. This allowed for a greater range of expression and helped to create a more complex sound.

Bebop also made extensive use of improvised solos. Soloing was an essential part of bebop, and many of the genre’s most famous musicians were known for their virtuosic solos. This emphasis on improvisation led to an increased focus on technical proficiency and individual expression.

Rhythm and tempo

In bebop, the prevailing rhythm is 4/4 (“common time”), with a medium tempo ranging between approximately 200 and 250 beats per minute (bpm). Bebop tunes are often blues-based (“blues tonality”), but feature more complex chord progressions than the related twelve-bar blues. Bebop scales include minor pentatonic scales, as well as the chromatic scale. In bebop, chords are often played in sixthths (octaves are omitted), and fifths. For instance, if the tonic is “C”, one possible progression would be C7–F7–B♭7–E♭7–A♭7–D♭7–G♭7 occurred in works such as Dizzy Gillespie’s “Groovin’ High”. Later Charlie Parker tunes recorded such progressions in less explicit form.

“Double-time feel” plays an important role on many bebop tunes. This approach to rhythm is derived from African American vernacular music: brass band music and gospel music. These influences are most evident in solos: fast arpeggios and undistorted (or “clean”) hard-swinging electric guitar work that employs plentiful use of string bending, vibrato arm techniques, trills, tremolos and fast runs.

Improvisation

One of the key characteristics of bebop is improvisation. This means that the performer is making up the music as they go along, rather than playing a predetermined piece. This was a radical idea at the time, and bebop quickly gained a reputation as being ‘difficult’ music. Nevertheless, many of the tunes that bebop musicians composed have become standards, such as ‘Donna Lee’ and ‘Wee’.

Bebop’s Legacy

Bebop is a style of jazz that was developed in the early 1940s. It is characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions, and improvisation. Bebop was a reaction to the big band style of jazz that was popular at the time. It was influenced by the blues and African-American music. Bebop’s popularity faded in the 1950s, but its influence can still be heard in many styles of jazz today.

The influence of bebop on later styles

Bebop was the first style of jazz to be based on the twelve-bar blues, and it quickly became the most influential form of jazz. Bebop was characterized by fast tempos, complex harmonic structures, and improvisation based on scales and chord progressions.

Bebop revolutionized jazz in the 1940s and had a profound influence on all subsequent styles of jazz. Bebop influenced hard bop, modal jazz, Freestyle Jazz, cool jazz, soul jazz, Free Jazz, and even fusion. Musicians who pioneered bebop included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, and Max Roach.

The influence of bebop on popular culture

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, bebop-influenced musicians such as Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Aberdeen native saxophonist Charlie Parker and singer Ella Fitzgerald rose to prominence. Others, including Gill Evans, Gil Evans Orchestra leader and Miles Davis collaborator, composer-arranger Ernie Wilkins and singer Sarah Vaughan played major roles in developing bebop’s cool jazz offshoot. Popular songs such as “A Night in Tunisia,” “Now’s the Time” and “Donna Lee” helped to establish bebop’s popularity.

Bebop has had a significant impact on many other styles of music such as cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, free jazz, soul jazz and mainstream pop music. Many bebop musicians went on to form their own bands or join existing ones, helping to spread the bebop style around the world. Bebop has also been influential in the development of hip hop and rock music.