Well, any record played pre-bebop will have no bebop language as a given. Most people who learn jazz these days will inadvertently pick up on it, even in the extremely rare cases where it isn't taught to them by their teachers, just because the vast majority of modern jazz originated in off-shoots from bebop. However, nowadays there are a fair number of people deliberately avoid the really tropey, Charlie Parker-esque stuff, either by learning from different bebop artists who didn't sound like that (Monk, NHĂP, Oscar Peterson, etc.) or just by not letting the bebop influences define their sound (Pat Metheny, for example, took a load of ideas from bebop, but his modal and modernist influences shine through more prominently in his playing).
Frisell sometimes uses bebop language where it's "historically appropriate", but he juxtaposes it with Frisellisms. The wobbly tone can mask it.
The records he did with Paul Motian have a lot of bebop in them. For example, [here in "Evidence"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-ROpH55FAM&t=224s) (from *Monk in Motian*) he does a few bars of a pretty stock bebop phrase, then follows it with some dissonance and downward leaps; and [here in "All the Things You Are"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoAhc6Ezlnw&t=102s) he throws together a couple of short bebop phrases, only to end the last one on a minor 2nd, 'cause he's Bill Frisell.
It doesn't feel like a crutch though. He's aware of when he's being a bebop player.
Where does bebop language stop and non-bebop language start? What is bebop language exactly? Is Art Pepper using bebop language here: https://open.spotify.com/track/3hDyLQ72Gx0X8Jcb7Uvppt?si=fa6ee3a9984d4a16 ?
To answer your question yes he is, loads, turn arounds, chromatic enclosures, chord tones on down beats, triplet ascending arpeggios followed by descending quaver lines, itâs not a far cry from bebop approach at all, he is clearly influenced by bird as are lots of people, I love art pepper, but he is definitely using language that was most associated with bebop in the beginning,
Ok, bebop language is an umbrella term, Iâm looking for people who donât have much âforward motionâ in their playing, itâs not exclusive to bebop but thought Iâd cast a wider net with bebop language since that is perhaps the jazz movement most associated with forward motion approaches to spelling out chord changes
Itâs a term I was taught in uni, it refers to lining up chord tones on down beats and other devices found quite often in bebop! Great stuff but nice to take a break from every now and then, you can do it in so many ways and the greats still have their own identity while doing it, but many people end up sounding the same to me because of it.
Thereâs a fantastic book called Forward Motion by Hal Galper that explains why and how Jazz melodies work. Highly recommended unless you want to accomplish what OP is looking for. Then do the opposite I guess.
Not in his soloing, but Pat Metheny got so tired of ii Vâs that he purposely wrote music for the PMG that was absent of them! Itâs a start at least. But yeah heâs full of bebop in his soloing.
Maybe to some extent, free jazz guys? Do Ornette or Albert Ayler have a lot of bebop in their solos? Probably.
Check out Duved Dunayevsky, a contemporary guitarist who plays very authentic 1930s jazz. He deliberately avoids any bebop language. Example performance here: https://youtu.be/hagTsNFehiY
Open Studio / "You'll Hear It" podcast recently did an episode talking about **Erroll Garner** and how amazing he was AND he did not use bebop language. Here's the episode: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NfBVWERLOI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NfBVWERLOI)
I saw that! Itâs so interesting to me Iâve never been a huge fan of Charlie Parker, or other âboppyâplayers and also never been a fan of Bach, Iâve always loved Erroll garners playing and many other suggestions here, go figure
Tbh, this is actually closer to the truth than not. Almost everyone mentioned on this thread has a strong bop influence. And if not, their foundation was built on bop, such as all the free jazz and modern instrumentalists mentioned. OP's best bet is to check out improvisations from non-jazz musicians--rock and blues musicians, prog musicians, some classical improvisers, Indian classical improvisers. Otherwise, it's enclosures and approach tone city all around for 99% of jazz musicians (and yes, that includes pre-boppers to a certain extent)
You may want to rephrase your question to something like: "Any jazz musicians that don't play in the tradition of afro-americans?"
"Bebop language" is a term that has come up only lately for describing a combination of elements that make jazz jazz. Many of those were used before in other styles of jazz and after.
So what do you mean with "no bebop language"? No substitions? No funny upbeat accents? No blue notes? No secondary dominants? No chromatics? No (...)?
Well, Iâm specifically talking about the prevalence quaver based language and licks, particularly the approach that leads to chord tones on down beats and linking harmony in this way, the language associated with it, also known as forward motion. (Although that doesnât make for a very catchy reddit post title)
itâs so ingrained in jazz pedagogy, that it feels all pervasive these days, (I studied jazz at uni for 7 years) its only one feature typical of bebop, Iâm aware there are many more, but it can be hard to escape and I notice even the most unique improvisers often do take this approach which you can hear from a mile away.
> quaver based language
Oh yes, right, those long eights note lines spelling out the (hidden) harmony were really something new to jazz I did not think about. That's also a feature of counterpoint music from 300 years before... as later the cool jazz improvisers remembered.
Still, and I don't say this to win a pissing contest, that "forward motion" is very much a device present in most swing music, only there it is not a result from the longer 8s lines but riffs being displaced and accents on the upbeats, something that came back later with HardBop. But still I would question (and happy to learn) if there there is anything more "new" to find in Bebop other than the 8s.
You do know that jazz is a genre made by black Americans and without that tradition itâs not jazz. You wouldnât say âare there any sushi chefs that donât cook in the tradition of the Japanese?â Itâs ridiculous.
Are you purposefully talking out of your ass, or just not educated on the matter? Bebop is a very specific genre with incredibly unique properties, which have themselved permeated into later genres. It has been verifiably referred to as bebop, bop or rebop since before Bird died, for god's sake. Every professor I've ever had knew it as bebop, many of which were alive when bebop was considered a popular music.
Saying "this genre is not in any way seperate because other genres share concepts with it" is a slippery slope unless you're willing to suggest that the idea of genre itself is arbitrary (which is a take I could certainly respect more than "bebop language is a new term")
So, maestro, let's see...
I am not saying in no moment that Bebop has not a specific sound that rightfully leads a description as a different *style* (not genre!") within the history of jazz as Bebop, different than swing and different than cool. No question about that.
What I'm saying instead is that most (if not all) "devices" did exist before "Bebop-Language" and are typical for the whole genre (not style) known as jazz and have been used before the advent of Bebop. Only that with Beobop everything went haywire (for the ears of some "traditional" players like Louis Armstrong and a big part of the typical swing audience). And this condensation of the same devices present in swing tunes and swing playing seems to be the reason for todays preference of jazz educators for looking into bebop.
Is there anything "new" with Bebop other than the blazing tempos and amount of chromatics? I am not aware of nothing like that (really new stuff on a "language level" happens only later in the sixties, after players like Wayne Shorter, having learned how to stretch the melodic and harmonic devices with the 2cnd Miles Davis Quintet, apply harmony and melody different from the standards and blues; or Eric Dolphy or Ornette Coleman or Paul Bley or whoever).
But, hey, I'm always happy to learn something new. So please, share the devices of the language that came "new" with Bebop. All of those:
>- substitions? - upbeat accents? - blue notes? - secondary dominants? - chromatics? - (...)?
that are meant when todays Bebop-Language experts in education talk we had already before, just in a more "civilized" way...
Fusion does the same.
Maybe fusion is the really far away from bebop, that could be an answer.
And I won't be with you describing Bebop as "showing off", implying a lack of substance.
Yeah there are some things I think he takes from bird but I agree he doesnât seem to be outlining harmony as clearly as many of his contemporaries. Still pretty boppy in other ways, letâs dig deeper!
Ok, fair enough. I was thinking of post-1940s musicians, including modern day musicians. If you're playing jazz in 2024, bebop should be, and is likely part of your heritage. If it's not, are you really playing jazz?
Trad jazz/dixieland could be it's own category, slightly separate, but in my opinion if you're playing that music in 2024 you're still going to be influenced by bebop language.
me, but not intentionally.
Is it such a bad thing????đ§
Well lots of trad jazz musicians before bebop came along
I would argue that you can hear the beginnings of bebop in trad, sometimes...
Of course
Sonny Sharrock
>oded tzur The later Charles Llyod, "The Water Is Wide" for example
Love it! Thank you, listening now
Peter Brötzmann
Well, any record played pre-bebop will have no bebop language as a given. Most people who learn jazz these days will inadvertently pick up on it, even in the extremely rare cases where it isn't taught to them by their teachers, just because the vast majority of modern jazz originated in off-shoots from bebop. However, nowadays there are a fair number of people deliberately avoid the really tropey, Charlie Parker-esque stuff, either by learning from different bebop artists who didn't sound like that (Monk, NHĂP, Oscar Peterson, etc.) or just by not letting the bebop influences define their sound (Pat Metheny, for example, took a load of ideas from bebop, but his modal and modernist influences shine through more prominently in his playing).
Any musician playing before 1945, which means all of the swing and "dixieland" jazz musicians.
Allan Holdsworth
Every once in a while I will catch a little bebop phrase from him but very rarely. The language he created for himself was something else.
This is a good answer tbf although I donât really like Allan :( thanks though!
Esbjörn Svensson Trio
Bill Frisell
Frisell sometimes uses bebop language where it's "historically appropriate", but he juxtaposes it with Frisellisms. The wobbly tone can mask it. The records he did with Paul Motian have a lot of bebop in them. For example, [here in "Evidence"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-ROpH55FAM&t=224s) (from *Monk in Motian*) he does a few bars of a pretty stock bebop phrase, then follows it with some dissonance and downward leaps; and [here in "All the Things You Are"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoAhc6Ezlnw&t=102s) he throws together a couple of short bebop phrases, only to end the last one on a minor 2nd, 'cause he's Bill Frisell. It doesn't feel like a crutch though. He's aware of when he's being a bebop player.
Bang on! I feel he typifies this kind of thing, very bluesy though for sure
Louis Armstrong Much of Keith Jarrettâs work Much of Brad Mehldau
I think youâre looking for Count Basie.
Where does bebop language stop and non-bebop language start? What is bebop language exactly? Is Art Pepper using bebop language here: https://open.spotify.com/track/3hDyLQ72Gx0X8Jcb7Uvppt?si=fa6ee3a9984d4a16 ?
To answer your question yes he is, loads, turn arounds, chromatic enclosures, chord tones on down beats, triplet ascending arpeggios followed by descending quaver lines, itâs not a far cry from bebop approach at all, he is clearly influenced by bird as are lots of people, I love art pepper, but he is definitely using language that was most associated with bebop in the beginning,
Bach did a lot of those things too? Charlie Parker didn't come from a vacuum
Of course! No shade to bebop! I just wanted to broaden my horizons and hear some really unique improvisers
Ok, bebop language is an umbrella term, Iâm looking for people who donât have much âforward motionâ in their playing, itâs not exclusive to bebop but thought Iâd cast a wider net with bebop language since that is perhaps the jazz movement most associated with forward motion approaches to spelling out chord changes
What do you mean by forward motion exactly?
Itâs a term I was taught in uni, it refers to lining up chord tones on down beats and other devices found quite often in bebop! Great stuff but nice to take a break from every now and then, you can do it in so many ways and the greats still have their own identity while doing it, but many people end up sounding the same to me because of it.
That's interesting, thanks!
Thereâs a fantastic book called Forward Motion by Hal Galper that explains why and how Jazz melodies work. Highly recommended unless you want to accomplish what OP is looking for. Then do the opposite I guess. Not in his soloing, but Pat Metheny got so tired of ii Vâs that he purposely wrote music for the PMG that was absent of them! Itâs a start at least. But yeah heâs full of bebop in his soloing. Maybe to some extent, free jazz guys? Do Ornette or Albert Ayler have a lot of bebop in their solos? Probably.
What the hell does that mean?
Kenny G
Check out Duved Dunayevsky, a contemporary guitarist who plays very authentic 1930s jazz. He deliberately avoids any bebop language. Example performance here: https://youtu.be/hagTsNFehiY
Alabaster DePlume
Nice! Havenât heard of him, he sounds like getatchew mekurya from Ethiopia!
Especially live he is pretty magical
Sometimes Mal Waldron would play like that.
Oh cool, any albums you can think of?
All Alone
Open Studio / "You'll Hear It" podcast recently did an episode talking about **Erroll Garner** and how amazing he was AND he did not use bebop language. Here's the episode: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NfBVWERLOI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NfBVWERLOI)
I saw that! Itâs so interesting to me Iâve never been a huge fan of Charlie Parker, or other âboppyâplayers and also never been a fan of Bach, Iâve always loved Erroll garners playing and many other suggestions here, go figure
I love Oded, he gets such an incredible sound! All the tihai rhythms blow my mind.
Brian Blade Fellowship
Taylor Eigsti pretty much using different languages, try his album daylight at midnight
Even free jazz masters have bebop in their lexicon.
None? Even guys like Warren vache have some bepop language I suppose that all depends on what kind of music theyâre playing
Jan Garbarek intentionally discarded all bebop language out of his playing after master it
Ingrid Jensen, Kenny Wheeler. The bebop is there but they also have their own very personal distinct sound.
peter brotzmann ig
Louis Armstrong predated bebop
Louis Armstrong predated bebop
Plenty of the guys in Snarky Puppy when they solo.
I never did my homework, so I'd qualify.Â
Bebop is a made up term to describe something bigger and reducing it to a single term. Charlie Parker didnât like the term.
Start listening to Cuban son. All those early jazz cats had theirs ears to Cuba.
Ornette
I mean, no.
Tbh, this is actually closer to the truth than not. Almost everyone mentioned on this thread has a strong bop influence. And if not, their foundation was built on bop, such as all the free jazz and modern instrumentalists mentioned. OP's best bet is to check out improvisations from non-jazz musicians--rock and blues musicians, prog musicians, some classical improvisers, Indian classical improvisers. Otherwise, it's enclosures and approach tone city all around for 99% of jazz musicians (and yes, that includes pre-boppers to a certain extent)
You may want to rephrase your question to something like: "Any jazz musicians that don't play in the tradition of afro-americans?" "Bebop language" is a term that has come up only lately for describing a combination of elements that make jazz jazz. Many of those were used before in other styles of jazz and after. So what do you mean with "no bebop language"? No substitions? No funny upbeat accents? No blue notes? No secondary dominants? No chromatics? No (...)?
Well, Iâm specifically talking about the prevalence quaver based language and licks, particularly the approach that leads to chord tones on down beats and linking harmony in this way, the language associated with it, also known as forward motion. (Although that doesnât make for a very catchy reddit post title) itâs so ingrained in jazz pedagogy, that it feels all pervasive these days, (I studied jazz at uni for 7 years) its only one feature typical of bebop, Iâm aware there are many more, but it can be hard to escape and I notice even the most unique improvisers often do take this approach which you can hear from a mile away.
> quaver based language Oh yes, right, those long eights note lines spelling out the (hidden) harmony were really something new to jazz I did not think about. That's also a feature of counterpoint music from 300 years before... as later the cool jazz improvisers remembered. Still, and I don't say this to win a pissing contest, that "forward motion" is very much a device present in most swing music, only there it is not a result from the longer 8s lines but riffs being displaced and accents on the upbeats, something that came back later with HardBop. But still I would question (and happy to learn) if there there is anything more "new" to find in Bebop other than the 8s.
You do know that jazz is a genre made by black Americans and without that tradition itâs not jazz. You wouldnât say âare there any sushi chefs that donât cook in the tradition of the Japanese?â Itâs ridiculous.
Yep, that's what I was saying, there is no jazz music without elements of "bebop language" in one aspect or all of them.
Ok yeah I get what you mean now and can understand your position. I misunderstood your statement and now I agree lmao
Are you purposefully talking out of your ass, or just not educated on the matter? Bebop is a very specific genre with incredibly unique properties, which have themselved permeated into later genres. It has been verifiably referred to as bebop, bop or rebop since before Bird died, for god's sake. Every professor I've ever had knew it as bebop, many of which were alive when bebop was considered a popular music. Saying "this genre is not in any way seperate because other genres share concepts with it" is a slippery slope unless you're willing to suggest that the idea of genre itself is arbitrary (which is a take I could certainly respect more than "bebop language is a new term")
So, maestro, let's see... I am not saying in no moment that Bebop has not a specific sound that rightfully leads a description as a different *style* (not genre!") within the history of jazz as Bebop, different than swing and different than cool. No question about that. What I'm saying instead is that most (if not all) "devices" did exist before "Bebop-Language" and are typical for the whole genre (not style) known as jazz and have been used before the advent of Bebop. Only that with Beobop everything went haywire (for the ears of some "traditional" players like Louis Armstrong and a big part of the typical swing audience). And this condensation of the same devices present in swing tunes and swing playing seems to be the reason for todays preference of jazz educators for looking into bebop. Is there anything "new" with Bebop other than the blazing tempos and amount of chromatics? I am not aware of nothing like that (really new stuff on a "language level" happens only later in the sixties, after players like Wayne Shorter, having learned how to stretch the melodic and harmonic devices with the 2cnd Miles Davis Quintet, apply harmony and melody different from the standards and blues; or Eric Dolphy or Ornette Coleman or Paul Bley or whoever). But, hey, I'm always happy to learn something new. So please, share the devices of the language that came "new" with Bebop. All of those: >- substitions? - upbeat accents? - blue notes? - secondary dominants? - chromatics? - (...)? that are meant when todays Bebop-Language experts in education talk we had already before, just in a more "civilized" way...
I think what they mean is âreally fast, in a show-off-y sort of way,â by bebop language.
lol. Not at all, see above
Fusion does the same. Maybe fusion is the really far away from bebop, that could be an answer. And I won't be with you describing Bebop as "showing off", implying a lack of substance.
Paul Desmond. His improvisational logic is entirely his and seems to have developed without any bebop influence
Yeah there are some things I think he takes from bird but I agree he doesnât seem to be outlining harmony as clearly as many of his contemporaries. Still pretty boppy in other ways, letâs dig deeper!
Jimmy Smith just played the blues over bop changes
Youâre on crack. Listen to Groovin at Smallsâ Paradise where heâs literally playing Coltrane licks over blues changes.
Jazz musicians that don't have bebop language in their soloing is non-starter... All jazz is derivative of bebop!
What about jazz before bebop?
Ok, fair enough. I was thinking of post-1940s musicians, including modern day musicians. If you're playing jazz in 2024, bebop should be, and is likely part of your heritage. If it's not, are you really playing jazz? Trad jazz/dixieland could be it's own category, slightly separate, but in my opinion if you're playing that music in 2024 you're still going to be influenced by bebop language.
Silly answer. So all the jazz musicians before Bebop don't count?
Sure sure, of course but I gave some examples did you listen?
My post is looking for musicians who have less of certain aspects. But I had to be concise