Bebop: not that you couldn’t dance to it,

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I got a cheap boxed set of CDs by Machito early this year. There’s a lot of great Bebop in there. A lot of ordinary stuff, too, but live broadcasts with Brew Moore, Milt Jackson and Howard McGhee in the band, as well as a long suite with Charlie Parker. So the question that hit me was, if you could turn on your radio and hear this, how come it wasn’t more popular than it was? Well, they said you couldn’t dance to it. Amiri Baraka’s response – YOU can’t dance to it – was unsatisfactory. How anyone couldn’t dance to that music, I simply can’t understand. It’s tremendously exciting dance music. And so was a lot of Bebop. But…

Dancing fulfils lots of different needs; it’s not a generalised activity. Dancing may be religious, callisthenic, sexual or many other things. In the ghetto, there’s been a tradition of very athletic dancing forever, it seems; a tradition that continues, of course. And Bebop played into that tradition admirably.

The kind of dancing that Bebop wasn’t very good for is where you hug your partner, put your tongue in his/her mouth, squeeze his/her bum and grind your hips together to a slow/medium rocking and rolling rhythm that is a kind of vertical sex, or stand still, swaying to a sultry ballad by Charles Brown or Nat Cole. Sure, there were Bebop recordings that were ideal for this kind of dancing; “Bird of paradise”, “Moody’s mood for love” and “Parker’s mood” all qualify. And there were others. But the predominant tempo for bop was UP – breakneck UP in many cases.

On the other hand, the music of Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, Amos Milburn, as well as blues ballad singers, was replete with such tempos. And people wanted to dance at these easy rocking tempos, and for reasons that should be obvious. The most significant social trend of the day was a baby boom.

So, in picking fast tempos, Beboppers were turning their backs on the most life-affirming element in contemporary black social behaviour.

Discuss.

MG

[paul secor]

More to discuss than anyone (everyone?) can answer.

There are many answers - musical and sociological. I imagine that there are books out there on WWII and post WWII music and society to be read. Perhaps part of the answer is that what Ornette later called "dancing in your head" occurred. There have been many kinds of dancing - that's one of them.

There are others here who have the sort of minds to tangle with the consequences of the draft, gas rationing, societal changes in both the black & white communities, natural evolvement of musics etc. I'm sure they'll do that. I'd rather experience the music - in my head and otherwise.

Edited August 28, 2010 by paul secor

[AllenLowe]

somewhere I actually have a taped interview of Percy France in which he talks a fair amount about playing with bebop bands for dancing.

Unfortunately I have no idea where this tape is. Still, Percy was quite convincing.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

somewhere I actually have a taped interview of Percy France in which he talks a fair amount about playing with bebop bands for dancing.

Unfortunately I have no idea where this tape is. Still, Percy was quite convincing.

I'm sure it's true. Bird took string & rhythm sections out on a tour of dance halls in 1952 with Willis Jackson. I have the gig at Rockland Palace Dance Hall, Harlem on LP and it's good dancing music. Bish, Max, Mundell Lowe, Kotick were the rhythm section. Not bad

MG

[jeffcrom]

I know (or I think I know) from our discussions that you view music as a largely social phenomenon, and your post here seems to confirm this. That's one way to look at it. I would suggest that musicians who play music that doesn't seem to adequately meet larger social needs are simply playing the music they need to play for themselves. That's not to say that they don't want people to listen, to dance, to smooch, whatever - but that their music is a personal expression, a personal need. The music of the boppers was, at least partly, an artistic expression rather than a music created to meet the needs of society at large. Of course, it reflected what was going on in society at the time, as well.

There's always going to be music for the masses, and there are always going to musicians whose music is for a smaller audience. I'm glad that, 60 years later, I can listen to both Roy Milton and Charlie Parker. And today, I'm grateful for both Cecil Taylor and the Treme Brass Band.

I'm not totally satisfied that I'm expressing myself clearly, but there you go.

[A Lark Ascending]

And there are lots of listeners who feel uncomfortable, embarrassed gyrating on a dance floor (I'm one!). I'm always envious of those who can do it unselfconsciously, wish I could take part in all the pleasures it clearly holds!

So we demand another type of music, where we can feel a bit superior, to paper over our social inadequacies.

[AllenLowe]

re: Jeff's point -

yes, I basically agree though I think it's a complicated story, especially given the nature of African American music, which doubles in a unique way as both art and entertainment. This parallels a lot of the way African American culture has evolved, even in regard to religion. As Lawrence Levine (essential reading on all of this) points out, the slaves adapted Christianity in their own unique way, as a spiritual expression with utilitarian practices - just like in jazz, I would add.

on the other hand, Julius Hemphill told me years ago that he was never so bored as when he worked in Ike and Tina Turner's band, and he had pithy things to say about the whole fetishization of the blues, which he felt was just another box that black people were being put into under pressure by people like Crouch and Marsalis. And of course, if we're going to talk about dance, than we have to talk about not only black vernacular dance but black art dance, vis a ve Katherine Dunham and Bill T Jones.

and then....there's my whole theory that Prez stood the way he did to emulate the angled way in which black dancers, retaining in an uncanny way the old African practices, took to the dance floor.

Edited August 28, 2010 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

re: Jeff's point -

yes, I basically agree though I think it's a complicated story, especially given the nature of African American music, which doubles in a unique way as both art and entertainment. This parallels a lot of the way African American culture has evolved, even in regard to religion. As Lawrence Levine (essential reading on all of this) points out, the slaves adapted Christianity in their own unique way, as a spiritual expression with utilitarian practices - just like in jazz, I would add.

I agree with you, Allen, but I think that reducing the issue to a dialectic between art and entertainment is unhelpfully over-simplifying. It may be shorthand, but most people wouldn't understand it as standing for a large number of different aspects, all with their individual range of separate purposes.

So, who is Lawrence Levine? Would you please post the details of the book you're recommending?

on the other hand, Julius Hemphill told me years ago that he was never so bored as when he worked in Ike and Tina Turner's band, and he had pithy things to say about the whole fetishization of the blues, which he felt was just another box that black people were being put into under pressure by people like Crouch and Marsalis.

Yes, I agree, though it's quite possible that Hemphill was a square peg in a round hole in that band. I can also imagine that there would have been many sax players who wouldn't have been bored. But I can also see why one might have been, since the accent in that band was not greatly on sax solos and saxes were a (very) basic horn section.

And of course, if we're going to talk about dance, than we have to talk about not only black vernacular dance but black art dance, vis a ve Katherine Dunham and Bill T Jones.

Quite right, but did that have something to contribute to the baby boom?

and then....there's my whole theory that Prez stood the way he did to emulate the angled way in which black dancers, retaining in an uncanny way the old African practices, took to the dance floor.

I can definitely get with that, Allen. Please expand.

MG

[AllenLowe]

1) Lawrence Levine Black Culture and Black Consciousness - I've mentioned it before, a brilliant look at the expansion of black life in America. Essential book.

2) Hemphill was bored, and I can understand, having worked in rock and roll bands, because the parts were repetitious and proscribed - he didn't say the music was bad, only that he felt that a certain type of creative person would feel naturally constricted. He had other things he wanted to do, and he felt he had the right to do them, sociologically correct or not.

3) as for that dialectic, I think it's everywhere in jazz and American music; I find nothing more entertaining than really smart and difficult improvised music. Not everybody feels this way. But as I said the essential strength of African American music, to me, is that's it's so damn smart AND so much fun.

4) I had that epiphany about Prez while reading Jacqui Malone's book on black dance - the title escapes me right now (she's married to Bob O'Meally). She talks about the neo-African ways of dancing of black people in the 19th and 20th century, and that off-centered but balanced method of standing is essential to the way she describes it. Given some of Prez's comments about following the dancers, I think it's a strong theory.

She also, by the way, talks about the concept of the solo-dance, in which, in the midst of the group movement, the rest stop and one person does his/her thing. This is parallel to JR Morton's comments about the "break" representing the origin of the concept of the jazz solo.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

1) Lawrence Levine Black Culture and Black Consciousness - I've mentioned it before, a brilliant look at the expansion of black life in America. Essential book.

Thanks.

3) as for that dialectic, I think it's everywhere in jazz and American music; I find nothing more entertaining than really smart and difficult improvised music. Not everybody feels this way. But as I said the essential strength of African American music, to me, is that's it's so damn smart AND so much fun.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make. I don't think there are two opposites, but more likely half as dozen, perhaps even more.

4) I had that epiphany about Prez while reading Jacqui Malone's book on black dance - the title escapes me right now (she's married to Bob O'Meally). She talks about the neo-African ways of dancing of black people in the 19th and 20th century, and that off-centered but balanced method of standing is essential to the way she describes it. Given some of Prez's comments about following the dancers, I think it's a strong theory.

That made me think of this:

She also, by the way, talks about the concept of the solo-dance, in which, in the midst of the group movement, the rest stop and one person does his/her thing. This is parallel to JR Morton's comments about the "break" representing the origin of the concept of the jazz solo.

You get that in West Africa still; in popular contemporary music as well as traditional.

MG

[Spontooneous]

One other thing. Bebop emerges in the 1942-45 period, when many of the most able-bodied and creative men in the United States were getting shot at abroad. So the art of dance probably fell behind the art of music in those years. Don't blame the musicians.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

One other thing. Bebop emerges in the 1942-45 period, when many of the most able-bodied and creative men in the United States were getting shot at abroad. So the art of dance probably fell behind the art of music in those years. Don't blame the musicians.

Yes, but it achieved its greatest popularity (not great popularity, obviously) a little later - '46-47, when Bird and Diz were having hit records. So the question I've always asked myself is, why wasn't it maintained?

MG

[JSngry]

Because people can stay serious about revolution for only so long...