Lennie Tristano - What's Right With The Beboppers

After two and a half years I have finally gotten my hands on the July 1947 issue of Metronome Magazine, which has the sequel to Tristano's What's Wrong With The Beboppers. It provides an interesting glimpse into the pianist's thought process. Tristano's characterization of "Dixieland" is unfair, but it gives us an idea of how sharply divided some members of the jazz community were over the new music of Parker, Gillespie, Davis, and Tristano.

In this installment, Tristano foreshadows free improvisation: "Perhaps the next step after bebop will be collective improvisation on a much higher plane because the individual lines will be more complex."

What's Right With The Beboppers

the provocative pianist concludes his evaluation of a provocative school of jazz

by Lennie Tristano

Tristano, mid 1950's. Source: www.lennietristano.com

The music of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker constitutes the first major break with Dixieland. While bebop is not an end in itself, it is unquestionably a great means.

Though Dixieland presents a single and crude form of counterpoint, its contrapuntal development ends in a blind alley. Each line is governed by the end result which is collective improvisation. Collective improvisation is limited by a small number of chords, perhaps six or seven. A good melodic line is sacrificed completely. The music strives to induce an aphrodisiac mood which for many years has been considered the essence of jazz. Anything that requires a degree of intelligent comprehension is ruled out. Therefore the means becomes the end. Artistic development is unnecessary - in fact, detrimental. This is precisely why Dixieland music is so appallingly stagnant. Like French Impressionism, it destroys itself.

The soloist emerging from this idiom plays with the same disregard for artistic development. Though his style is somewhat individualized, and his facility is increased, his music is merely an elaboration of the part he played in collective improvisation.

The boppers discarded collective improvisation and placed all emphasis on the single line. This is not unfortunate, since the highest development of both would probably not occur simultaneously. Perhaps the next step after bebop will be collective improvisation on a much higher plane because the individual lines will be more complex.

Charlie Parker, late 1940's

Bebop has made several contributions to the evolution of the single line. The arpeggio has ceased to be important; the line is primarily diatonic. The procedure is not up one chord and down another, nor it is up one scale and down another; the use of skips of more than a third precludes this seesaw motion. The skillful use of scales fosters the evolution of many more ideas than does the use of arpeggios, since an arpeggio merely restates the chord. Instead of a rhythm section pounding out each chord, four beats to a bar, so that three or four soloists can blow the same chord in arpeggio form in a blast of excremental vibrations, the bebop rhythm section uses a system of chordal punctuation. By this means, the soloist is able to hear the chord without having it shoved down his throat. He can think as he plays. A chorus of bebop may consist of any number of phrases which vary in length. A phrase may consist of two bars or twelve bars. It may contain one or several ideas. The music is thoughtful as opposed to the kind of music which is no more than an endless series of notes, sometimes bent.

The Dixieland idea of a ballad is a hot melody with the bends. The tempo ranges from just a little to slow to just a little too fast, generally skipping the happy medium. When Diz plays a ballad, he makes full use of altered chords and substitutions in a series of well-articulated phrases. This is not to be confused with a superficial use of altered tones which results in an embellishment rather than an integral part of the style. His complex melodic structure becomes more intense because of the intricate rhythm patterns which are its basis. The melody does not bog down under a vulgar load of sentiment, bravado, and vibrato.

Given a long series of eighth notes, the Fig would play them as dotted eighths and sixteenths, which effects an underlying shuffle beat. A bopper would accept every up-beat, producing a line which pulsates with a modern, a more exciting feeling. This type of accenting also prevents the soloist from stumbling into a boogie groove, a musical booby-trap.

Thelonious Monk, ca. 1947

Bebop is a valiant attempt to raise jazz to a thoughtful level, and to replace emotion with meaning. It is successfully combatting the putrefying effect of commercialism. It has been called mechanical, "over-cerebrative," sloppy, technical, and immoral. Beboppers have been accused of willfully promoting juvenile delinquency. These studied inanities of the pseudo-psychiatrist have created ill-feeling against musicians. All this prattle is due to a lack of understanding not only of the musicians who play bebop, but of the emotionally immature listeners.

It is true that the younger musicians have gone overboard in attempting to emulate their idols, the originators. They need re-direction and guidance. On the other hand, with few exceptions, the so-called giants of jazz have remained untouched. They have absolutely refused to be influenced. The feeling of security which comes from playing in a well-worn and worn-out groove, and an unwillingness to admit that jazz has advanced beyond their personally-generated auras suggest an imminent degeneration. The big names are important because they command large followings. If they persist in retrogressing, the inevitable result is the concomitant stagnation of the listeners.

The development of jazz must be the concern of every musician who attempts to play it. Jazz is not a form of popular entertainment; it is art for its own sake. Its popularity or unpopularity is coincidental. The man who plays to entertain is not as objectionable as the man who plays to entertain and at the same time protests that he is playing jazz. This overwhelming pleasure that some bandleaders experience in pleasing the people is a rather poor camouflage for their desire to increase their bank accounts. Perhaps if the people had more opportunity to hear good jazz, they might learn to like it.

And here society has a real obligation. It must foster the arts and encourage the artists even if understanding is not immediate. Bebop, one of the more mature levels of jazz, must be listened to, scrutinized, supported. That way it will assure progress and all the inevitable maturation of jazz will be one large step further along. 𝄇

Lennie Tristano - What's Wrong With The Beboppers

In the late 1940's, Lennie Tristano was receiving roughly similar commercial success as the young trumpeter Miles Davis. He was performing on major radio shows, winning awards from magazines, and was recording for Capitol records. For more about Tristano in this period, read my previous article about his innovative Intuition and Digression recordings.

In 1947, Tristano was named “Musician of the Year” by Metronome magazine, and was invited to write two articles for the monthly periodical. These articles were critiques of modern jazz, one describing the pros and one describing the cons of the "bebop" movement. In the first article, "What's Wrong with the Beboppers", Tristano criticizes those who thoughtlessly copycat the style and mannerisms of Dizzy Gillespie and others.

What's Wrong With The Beboppers

a great musician analyzes, defines and questions

by Lennie Tristano

BEBOP is a definite step forward in the art of jazz. As with any art form, this progress has met with multiple and varied opposition. Jazz has not yet found acceptance with the American public; and bebop, an advanced and complex outgrowth of that jazz, exists precariously above the uncomprehending ears of the average person. But it is the musicians themselves, the vendors of jazz, who in many cases make their own lives difficult. The protagonists of Dixieland regard bebop as a war-time fad. However, the supercilious attitude and lack of originality of the young hipsters constitute no less a menace to the existence of bebop.

An approximation of Tristano's pseudo-hip bopper. Source.

These young boppers spend most of their time acquiring pseudo-hip affectations instead of studying and analyzing modern jazz with the aim of contributing something original to it. A typical manifestation peculiar to them is their effort to appear completely relaxed. Sitting implies muscular tension, so they slouch. They don't walk; they amble—with a delayed beat. They gaze indifferently at the uninitiate through drooping lids, muttering, “It's cool, Daddy-o.”

There is an unfortunate belief that to play like the great jazzmen, you must live like them. Close examination might reveal that the productivity of these creative minds has often been stagnated by self-destructive habits.

"Dizzy" Gillespie

Artistically the situation is just as deplorable. These little monkey-men of music steal note for note the phrases of the master of the new idiom, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie. Their endless repetition of these phrases makes living in their midst like fighting one's way through a nightmare in which bebop pours out of the walls, the heavens, and the coffeepot. Most boppers contribute nothing to the idiom. Whether they play drums, saxophone, piano, trombone, or glockenspiel, it still comes out Gillespie. Dizzy probably thinks he's in a house of mirrors; but, in spite of this barrage of dead echoes, he still sounds great. They manage to steal some of his notes, but his soul stays on the record.

A better approach for boppers would consist of studying, then analyzing the idiom. This would determine its harmonic structure, unique inflections, and phraseology. The next step is the use of these components in improvisation. Since lightness, fleetness, and facility are attributes of modern jazz, they should be integrated with originality and knowledge to form an expression which may be similar in style but different according to individual personalities. Even the phraseology may be utilized if it is done with inventiveness rather than through plagiarism.

Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and others. Source.

A fashion of present-day erudition is the procedure of pigeon-holing. People and things are divided and sub-divided and placed in groups, classes, and categories. Accordingly, this idiom had to be labeled. It was tagged “bebop.” For the purpose of identification and articulate discussion, this labeling is helpful if not accurate. It must be understood that bebop is diametrically opposed to the jazz that preceded it (swing as applied to large groups, and Dixieland as applied to small ones). Swing was hot, heavy, and loud. Bebop is cool, light, and soft. The former bumped and chugged along like a beat locomotive; this was known in some quarters as drive. The latter has a more subtle beat which becomes more pronounced by implication. At this low volume level many interesting and complex accents may be introduced effectively. The phraseology is next in importance because every note is governed by the underlying beat. This was not true of swing; for example, the long arpeggios which were executed with no sense of time, the prolonged tremolos, and the sustained scream notes.

There are many people who refuse to let jazz grow beyond their capacity to hear and understand it. There are others whose response to jazz is so completely emotional that they are unwilling to concede the aesthetic and intellectual progress that is demonstrated in bebop. There is a group of critics whose inability to understand and discuss bebop forces them to cling violently to the old familiar patterns. This is the most difficult group to combat in the battle to educate the public. They prove their vulgar and unintelligent approach by the innocuous patter they inflict on the trade papers. The musicians who refuse to yield to the new are a little less objectionable since a feeling of security forms such an important part of any man's existence. On the other hand, if these same musicians deny the validity and the necessity of progress, then they must be ruthlessly disregarded.

Jazz will eventually become an art form which will be taken seriously by those hitherto unappreciative of it. It will not be held back by the dancing public, profaned by the deified critics, or restricted in its growth by its poor imitators, even when they imitate jazz at its best.

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I'll make another post soon, when I have access to the second article, "What's Right with the Beboppers". To make sure you see the post when it's made, make sure to subscribe to this blog.