Jazz is a musical genre that originated in the United States in the early 20th century with roots in African and European music. Jazz music uses a lot of guitars, trombone, piano, trumpet, and saxophone.
A critical element in jazz is syncopation. The jazz tradition developed from the lifestyle of the oppressed black community in America.
Initially, influences from tribal drums and gospel music, blues and field hollers. The process of its birth has shown that jazz music is closely related to the defense of life and the expression of human life. Interestingly, the origin of the word “jazz” comes from a vulgar term used for sexual acts. Some rhythms in jazz have been associated with brothels and women with a bad reputation
In the history of jazz music the word ‘bop’ is used for several styles of the jazz genre. Even though the four use the word ‘bop,’ it doesn’t mean they are directly related. But indirectly there is a connection between the ‘bop’ family. For example, hard bop or post-bop was born from criticism of the bebop trend. Even so, it cannot be said to be a direct cause because long before hard bop existed, there were already other colors that were directly ‘criticism’ of the bebop trend (late ’40s decade), namely ‘west coast jazz’ (another name for cool jazz). After all, most of the musicians are from Los Angeles, California (US west coast area).
Jazz Music and What it’s influenced?
But here I say the influence is indirect because some people claim that hard bop is the reaction of ‘East Coast’ jazz musicians (areas around New York) to the popularity of cool jazz. So it’s not a reaction to bebop itself. Hard bop began to rise in the mid ’50s and the interpretation of the new generation of jazz musicians at the time on bebop.
The characteristics of hard bop, not very fast tempo like bebop, chord progressions and melodies are simpler and more soulful (but not unlike current soul music), the bassline also doesn’t have to be a walking bass (I prefer to use a bassline patterned like soul music).
Problematic bop trend is more long-lived, namely from the mid ’50s to the late ’60s, and also had a considerable influence on the creation of later jazz styles. Its effect is still felt until the ’80s—the most obvious when the jazz musician of the ’80s era played the mainstream.
Hard bop itself is increasingly opening the gates to new forms of creativity, such as the modal style (Davis-Coltrane-Evans) and soul-jazz (Horace Silver cs) which are often referred to as part of the ‘big family of hard bop’. In this era, the term ‘standard jazz’ was born, performing non-jazz songs or pop songs in the form of jazz. (Don’t imagine pop songs nowadays, because pop songs are cabaret songs).
Era of the Bebop, Welcome to the New Kind of Sound
Amid the hard bop era (mid ’50s to late ’60s), some young jazz musicians tried to adopt some of the characteristics of hard bop into a new color. Many hard bop figures are behind these new colors. For example Coltrane, where the album ‘Love Supreme’ is often claimed to have caused the avant garde and free jazz to be born. Or Miles Davis with his ‘In A Silent Way’ which encouraged the birth of jazz-rock (some claim this album as the driving force behind the birth of jazz-rock).
Even when Bob James, Dave Grusin, and their other friends (from the West Coast gang) modified jazz-rock to be more poppish (to quote IBS or DownBeat referred to as ‘the 2nd generation of jazz-rock’, or now people prefer to call it fusion ), it is idioms from hard bop that are widely adapted.
