Comparison Of Bebop Jazz And Hard Boop Jazz

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two jazz styles. Both styles will be described and the musicians that played these styles. The two styles I chose to discuss are bebop jazz and hard bop jazz. Bebop jazz was created in the early 1940’s and consisted of a smaller ensemble of musicians than the previous big bands of the swing era. The typical instruments used were the saxophone, piano, drums, trumpet, and bass. The style was characterized by complex chord progressions and melodies with a strong focus on the rhythm section (A History Of Jazz, n.d.). The groups of bebop would play together at the beginning and the end of each song, while featuring each musician in a solo throughout the song. This style of jazz was not suited for dancing like swing had been before it so that affected its popularity. A few of the most influential jazz musicians in bebop were Charlie Parker who played the alto saxophone, Dizzy Gillespie who played the trumpet, Bud …show more content…
The style was more rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues, especially with the saxophone and piano playing (AllMusic, 2017). Hard bop was considered more emotional and had a harder drive to the music. As in bebop, there was a large focus on improvisation. A few of the pioneers in hard bop were Art Blakey playing drums, Horace Silver on piano, Sonny Rollins playing saxophone, Miles Davis playing trumpet, and John Coltrane playing tenor saxophone.
Some differences between hard bop and bebop are that the melodies are much simpler and more soulful; there is a looser feel in the rhythm section with the bassist not limited to the four bar beats as in bebop (AllMusic, 2017). Bebop is energetic and hard bop is a more raw sound. Bebop has a fast tempo and hard bop uses fast and moderate tempos. Bebop has a blues influence and hard bop has blues and gospel influence. The ensembles were similar in both styles, having four or five members playing the same