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Although some history books claim that hard bop arose as a reaction to the softer sounds featured in cool jazz, it
was actually an extension of bop that largely ignored West Coast jazz. The main differences between hard bop and bop
are that the melodies tend to be simpler and often more "soulful," the rhythm section is usually looser with the
bassist not as tightly confined to playing four-beats-to-the-bar as in bop, a gospel influence is felt in some of the
music and quite often the saxophonists and pianists sound as if they were quite familiar with early rhythm and blues.
Since the prime time period of hard bop (1955-70) was a decade later than bop, these differences were a logical
evolution and one can think of hard bop as bop of the 50's and 60's. By the early '60s, the music had already
splintered into a number of different styles, notably Modal Jazz, Post-Bop and Soul-Jazz. By the second half of
the 1960's, the influence of the avant-garde was being felt and some of the more adventurous performances of the
hard bop stylists (such as Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan) fell somewhere between the two styles. With the rise of
fusion and the sale of Blue Note (hard bop's top label) in the late 1960's, the style fell upon hard times although
it was revived to a certain extent in the 1980's. Much of the music performed by the so-called Young Lions during the
latter decade (due to other influences altering their style) can be said to play Modern Mainstream although some
groups (such as the Harper Brothers and T.S. Monk's Sextet) have kept the 1960's idiom alive.
(Scott Yanow)
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| Art Blakey - Au Club St. Germain Listen to: Politely Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Morgan, Lee (tp); Golson, Benny (ts); Timmons, Bobby (p); Merritt, Jymie (b); Blakey, Art (dr) Recorded: Dezember 1959 | Your rating | No ratings |
[...Wikipedia] |  |
| Art Blakey - Free For All Listen to: Free For All Hubbard, Freddie (tp); Fuller, Curtis (tb); Shorter, Wayne (ts); Walton, Cedar (p); Workman, Reggie (b); Blakey, Art (dr) Recorded: 10-02-1964 | Your rating | No ratings |
[...Wikipedia] |  |
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