Bebop and Charlie Parkers Version of Summertime
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Bebop emerged in the early and mid 1940's. It developed as a jazz style in great contrast to the music of the big bands. Musicians felt that the music of the day needed to progress in a new direction. They were not satisfied with the rules regarding big band music. They wanted more opportunities for personal creative expression, improvisation, and musical experimentation. They began to break those rules regarding how music in the jazz style should be created and how it should sound. For them the big band music with it's written out charts and brief solos were not harmonically, rhythmically or melodically challenging. The musicians wanted to play music for listening, not for dancing. The term "Bebop" came from jazz musicians' practice of vocalizing or singing instrumental melodic lines with nonsense syllables (scat singing). It began in New York at clubs like Minton's Playhouse; Monroe's Uptown House, Birdland, and the Royal Roost where the musicians experimented with new rhythms, melodies and lightening fast tempos in their improvising...