Portal:Jazz/Selected article/16

Dizzy Gillespie, at the Downbeat Club, NYC, ca 1947

Bebop or bop is a style of jazz characterized by a fast tempo, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on the combination of harmonic structure and melody. It was developed in the early and mid-1940s. It first surfaced in musicians' argot some time during the first two years of American involvement in the Second World War. This style of jazz ultimately became synonymous with modern jazz, as either category reached a certain final maturity in the 1960s.

The term "bebop" is derived from nonsense syllables (vocables) used in scat singing, and is supposed to have been first attested in 1928. Some researchers speculate that it was a term used by Charlie Christian, because it sounded like something he hummed along with his playing. Dizzy Gillespie stated that the audiences coined the name after hearing him scat the then-nameless tunes to his players and the press ultimately picked it up, using it as an official term: "People, when they'd wanna ask for those numbers and didn't know the name, would ask for bebop." (Full article...)