Think I’m gonna start a series of posts about famous jazz tunes. There’s so many great jazz standards with a so-called background, and there’s so many great performances, that I just can’t stop myself from writing about at least some of them.
Since we have an examination session in Poland now and I should obviously be studying, I’m listening to a lot of music instead. Last night I launched my media player and typed “bebop” into the search bar. A few records popped up, and I’ve chosen two of them to listen.
Bebop is a jazz style, we all know that. But I’m not sure if everyone knows, that there’s also a standard by Dizzy Gillespie that is titled “Bebop”. The name of the style (which was, by the way, developed by Gillespie and Bird) is derived from that very theme, and here’s what Dizzy once said about its origin:
In the Onyx Club, we played a lot of original tunes that didn’t have titles. We just wrote an introduction and a first chorus. I’d say, ‘De-da-pa-da-n-de-bop’… and we’d go into it. People when they’d wanna ask for one of those numbers and didn’t know the name, would ask for bebop and the press picked it up and started calling it bebop.
“Bebop” became one of the most known Gillespie’s tunes then, and was later played by numerous artists. It has a very fast and complicated line, which is usually performed by all musicians unisono in the beginning and then improvised by each one. “Bebop” was originally written for a big band (and indeed it does make the biggest impression when played by many musicians), but was also performed by quartets and trios.
Among all the performances I know, I’ve chosen one which I wanted to share with you. It’s played by Bags and ‘Trane, and was recorded somewhere around 1960. The quality of the record is quite poor, but the quality of music is by far the most impressive. Ladies and gentlemen, Connie Kay on drums, Paul Chambers on bass, Hank Jones on piano, Milt Jackson on vibraharp and John Coltrane on a tenor sax — “Bebop”.