How Did Jazz Become More Popular During The 1940's

During World War II, with an increasing number of musicians being sent over to fight in Europe, the war began to take its effects on popular jazz bands, as they had begun to become less popular. As this new form of jazz, consisting of smaller ensembles, began to emerge, an increase in the amount of improvisations did too. This new style, which we know today as bebop, started a new experience that also led to the creation of cool and hard bop jazz. Bebops began to become more popular during the 1940’s, this was said to come from a reaction to “Swing” music. It also was a way for African-American youth, who were interested in jazz, to express their musical innovation. Big clubs in the city of Harlem began to offer free bands for the artist to use due to the interest the owners of these clubs began to develop by their pure enjoyment of this new kind of music. With the musicians playing this popular new for of Jazz in these big clubs, owners began to benefit from this with all the people coming to these open mic nights and all the other musicians who were trying to get on the stage and perform for these
New York became a key area for the creative minds in African-American culture going all the way back to the Harlem Renaissance and 1920’s. With this, musicians had a lot of chances to earn a living and practice this new style and work on their technique. This gave the musicians lots of opportunities to play and earn a good living, while still having less formal options in which they could practice new techniques and styles. With Harlem being the center of Jazz since the 1920’s, the neighborhoods of Harlem became the center of this bebop movement with artist such as Dizzy Gillespie coming from here. The most popular spots in Harlem for performing and meeting up were Minton’s and Clark Monroe’s Uptown