Bebop
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Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. It is characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions—with rapid chord changes, changes of key, angu
Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker was a leading performer and composer of the bebop era. He is pictured here with Tommy Potter, Max Roach and Miles Davis at the Three Deuces club in New York City.
Several bebop musicians headlining on 52nd Street, May 1948
Dizzy Gillespie, at the Downbeat Club, NYC, c. 1947
Hard bop
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Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences
Bebop
…time, a move towards structural simplification of bebop occurred among musicians such as Horace Silver and Art Blakey, leading to the movement known as hard bop. Development of jazz would occur through the interplay of bebop, cool, post-bop, and hard bop styles through the 1950s. The musical devices developed…
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, 1960. Pictured are Lee Morgan (left), Jymie Merritt (center), and Art Blakey (right) (saxophonist Wayne Shorter stands mostly hidden behind Merritt).
Horace Silver Quintet in Amsterdam, 1959
Horace Silver
Wynton Marsalis, an important figure in the revival of bop