Charlie Parker Quintet "Bongo Bop" Dial 1102 (1947)

Miles Davis, Tommy Potter, Duke Jordan, Max Roach

Bebop players set themselves apart from other jazz musicians. Bebop musicians had ways to weed out novices and greenhorns from jam sessions at after hours clubs on 52nd Street.

No sheet music was allowed on stage, no real titles of songs were used, and no keys or time signatures were announced. No count off was given for the down beat. Most of what went on during performances was by hand signals and nods as if everyone were reading each other's minds.

Guest musicians who could follow along in key and play through the changes and play in time were welcome.

Anyone who couldn't function under those conditions were thrown off stage--of left on their own due to humiliation. Union rules demanded that bands allow unexperienced musicians who were union members in good standing to participate in performances and sessions.

Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Joe Guy, guitarist Charlie Christian, drummer Kenny Clarke, bassist Jimmy Blanton, Charlie Parker and others wanted to break out of the Big Band and Swing music that prevailed. They pushed the parameters of the music by incorporating polytonal chord changes as well as polyrhythms with their extended legato treatments of standards and traditional pieces with unbounded improvisations as they explored new heretofore unheard of intervals breaking all traditions and rewriting the playbook for Jazz expression.

They were pioneers as early as 1939.

Jazz journalist Ira Gitler expounded on this more thoroughly and more in depth in his classic book titled Swing To Bop.





Charlie Parker "Bongo Bop" Dial 1102 (1947) Miles Davis, Tommy Potter, Duke Jordan, Max Roach, bebop

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