'Hard bop' is a style of
jazz that is an extension of
bebop (or "bop") music. Hard bop incorporates influences from
rhythm and blues,
gospel music, and
blues, especially in the
saxophone and
piano playing.
Its bass playing is more varied than bop's, in part because of the prominence of such virtuosos as
Charles Mingus and
Ray Brown; it is in part intended to be more accessible to audiences unfamiliar with or not fond of bop.
David H. Rosenthal also contends in his book ''Hard Bop'' that it is to a large degree the natural creation of a generation of black
American musicians who grew up at a time when bop and
rhythm and blues were the dominant forms of black American music and prominent jazz musicians like
Tadd Dameron worked in both genres.
Hard bop was developed in the mid-
1950s, partly in response to the vogue for
cool jazz that became popular in the early 1950s. A simplistic definition states that cool jazz, or "west coast" jazz, emphasized the more
European elements of the music, deriving to a great extent from the "chamber jazz" experiments of the
Miles Davis nonet, while hard bop brought the church and gospel music back into jazz, emphasizing the
African elements. In fact, both cool and hard bop contain European and African elements, but the simplistic definition offers a short-hand way of addressing the difference. The hard bop style coalesced in
1953 and
1954, paralleling the rise of rhythm and blues, the latter developed by African-American musicians in part as a means of giving their audiences
dance music in the wake of the decline of the
swing bands, and the abandonment of jazz as a music to dance by as bebop emerged, with its intricacies and emphasis on being a serious listening experience.
The performance by Davis of his composition "
Walkin'," the title track of his
album of the same year, at the very first
Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, announced the style to the jazz world. Davis would form his first great quintet with
John Coltrane later in the year to play hard bop, before moving on to other things. Other key documents were the two volumes of the
Blue Note albums ''
A Night at Birdland'', also from 1954, recorded at the legendary
jazz club months before the Davis set at Newport. The quintet by
Art Blakey featured pianist
Horace Silver and trumpeter
Clifford Brown, all of whom would be leaders in the hard bop movement along with Davis. Blakey and Silver would start the seminal band
The Jazz Messengers, although Silver would leave to front his own hard-bop groups in
1956, and Brown formed the other trend-setting hard bop band with drummer
Max Roach, the Brown-Roach Quintet.
The hard bop style enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1950s and
1960s, but hard bop performers, and elements of the music, remain popular in jazz. According to
Nat Hentoff in his 1957 liner notes for the Blakey Columbia LP of the same name; the phrase "hard bop" was originated by critic-pianist
John Mehegan, jazz reviewer of the
New York Herald Tribune at that time.
Soul jazz developed from hard bop.
Other musicians who contributed prominently to the hard bop style include
Cannonball Adderley,
Donald Byrd,
Sonny Clark,
Lou Donaldson,
Kenny Drew,
Benny Golson,
Dexter Gordon,
Joe Henderson,
Andrew Hill,
Freddie Hubbard,
Jackie McLean,
Charles Mingus,
Blue Mitchell,
Hank Mobley,
Thelonious Monk,
Lee Morgan, and
Sonny Rollins.
Noteworthy performances
★ ''Walkin', Miles Davis
★ ''Miles Smiles'', Miles Davis
★ ''Blue Train'', John Coltrane
★ ''Night in Tunisia'', Art Blakey
★ ''Hush'', Donald Byrd
Samples
★ of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" by
Sonny Rollins from ''
The Sound of Sonny''
★ of "Traneing In" by
John Coltrane from ''
Traneing In''
Other hard bop musicians
''For more information, see
List of Hard bop musicians''.
★
Eric Alexander (jazz saxophonist)
★
Carl Allen
★
Gary Bartz
★
Walter Bishop, Jr.
★
Art Blakey
★
Tina Brooks
★
Paul Chambers
★
Thomas Clausen
★
Bob Cranshaw
★
Steve Davis
★
Walter Davis, Jr.
★
Kenny Dorham
★
Ray Draper
★
Kenny Drew
★
Art Farmer
★
Curtis Fuller
★
Hotep Idris Galeta
★
Red Garland
★
Jimmy Garrison
★
Grant Green
★
Johnny Griffin
★
Herbie Hancock
★
Bill Hardman
★
Roy Haynes
★
Billy Higgins
★
Elmo Hope
★
Bobby Hutcherson
★
Clifford Jarvis
★
LaMont Johnson
★
Philly Joe Jones
★
Pete La Roca (Pete Sims)
★
Harold Land
★
Herbie Lewis
★
Hank Mobley
★
Tete Montoliu
★
Dick Morrissey
★
Lewis Nash
★
David Newman
★
Art Phipps
★
Dizzy Reece
★
Larry Ridley
★
Larry Ritchie
★
Pete Sims
★
Art Taylor
★
Bobby Timmons
★
Charles Tolliver
★
Stanley Turrentine
★
Tommy Turrentine
★
Mal Waldron
★
Cedar Walton
★
Wilbur Ware
★
Butch Warren
★
Doug Watkins
★
Tony Williams
★
Larry Willis
See also
External link
★
The Hard Bop Homepage