HARD BOP PIANO

Jazz Composers of the 50s and 60s

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Published by: GERARD and SARZIN PUBLISHING CO.
"The transcriptions . . . are accompanied by an excellent eight-page introduction to hard bop."
- Jazz Times
Hard bop, created in the mid 1950s by African-American musicians centered in New York City, Philadelphia and Detroit, is jazz with a tough sound and a hard, driving beat. Drummer Art Blakey and pianist-composer Horace Silver are universally credited with pioneering the style; the Blue Note record label for disseminating it. The style began as a merger of the harmonic language of bebop with the sound of the blues and the propulsive beat of gospel and rhythm and blues. Originally called funk or soul jazz, it incorporated idioms that had not previously been explored in jazz. Horace Silver and other hard bop composers experimented with innovative structures, rhythm and harmony, and were inspired by world music cultures African, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian. In general, hard bop was easily accessible. Some critics were turned off by the fact that many of its creators wanted only to create appealing, emotionally riveting music and were relatively uninterested in furthering the progress of jazz.

Jazz is music of continuous exploration and renewal. Currently, jazz artists have been exploring the work of past jazz masters such as Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, and have revisited the blues. At the same time, they are absorbing contemporary influences like rap and world music, and giving voice to the contemporary world through the jazz idiom. Today, new and old jazz styles coexist; styles merge to create new music. In the mid 50s, hard bop emerged in just this manner.

Hard bop arose at the same time as soul, a popular song style born from the blend of rhythm and blues and gospel. At that time, gospel itself was receiving overdue recognition as a great American music style arising out of the African- American church. Hard bop emerged in post-war America amid the stirring of an American racial revolution, when blacks were openly examining their experience in American society and raising their voices forcefully against their mistreatment. Hard bop is inconceivable apart from the political and social context of the decade from the mid 50s to the mid 60s.

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