Bebop Music Analysis

Music plays a big role in human society. It provides entertainment and emotional release and it is heard everywhere we go. Without music our life would be In music there are many genres. Jazz is one of the genre in music. Jazz is a music of West African influenced by European music and popular American music styles ( Lawn, 2007). “ Jazz can be described generally as a music rooted in improvisation and characterized by syncopated rhythm, a steady beat, and distinctive tone colors and performance techniques” (Kamien, 2015, p. 468). However, according to a journal by Megill and Demory(1989), Jazz music is not only an improvisation of melody and harmony, but the whole technique of presentation is of an improvisatory character. In general,
According to (Kamien, 2015, p. 550), “Bebop developed in the 1940s and meat for attentive listening rather than dancing.” Bebop are differ from Swing. (Yanow, 2000, p.3), “the emphasis is much more on the soloist’s creativity and inventiveness than on the melody or the song itself”. This small group might include trumpet or saxophone which supports by a rhythm section. Unlike Swing, the beat of Bebop music are very fast which not highlight by snare or bass drum, but mainly by pizzicato bass and ride cymbal (Kamien, 2007). (Kamien, 2015, p. 485) also explain that “ the drummer also supplied irregular accents, sometimes played with such power that they called bombs.”Charlie Parker considered as a genius in Bebop era due to his original style ( Yanow, 2000). However, Bebop were not as popular as Swing. (Yanow, 2000. p.43) explain that “Bebop players and jazz musician in general had a bad reputation by the mid-1940s”. Most of the musician become alcoholic and quite a few smoke marijuana ( Yanow,
According to Megill and Demory(1989), the blues is the root of jazz music. Indeed, without the blues there would be no jazz as we know it today. However, Kamien (2015) stated that blues are form of vocal and instrumental music style of performance. The development of blues music starting at “ African American folk music, such as work songs, spirituals,and the field hollers of slave” (Kamien, 2015, p. 474). He also mentioned that the characteristic of blues usually have twelve bars in length in terms of harmonic framework and it only consist of three basic chords : tonic (I), subdominant(IV), and dominant(V). Apart from that blues rhythm is also very flexible. This is because usually performers often sing or play around the with the beat by accenting the notes either just before the beat or after (Kamien, 2015). Blues jazz are still heard until today. There are few legendary blues musicians. Those famous musician and singers are B.B. King, Bessie Smith,Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker and Herbie Hancock. Megill and Demory (1989) also claim that blues singer were actually accompanied by pianist or small ensemble. He states that blues music are relatively unstructured and include a good deal of improvisation.

In conclusion, there are three types of jazz music which is swing, bebop and blues. Apart from that, jazz music were quite popular before until today. According to Megill and Demory(1989), Herbie Hancock which is