Bebop!

From the advent of jazz, the piano had a crucial, yet ever-changing, role. In the beginning, the piano player was only there to keep rhythm and chord changes. This is seen easily from the piano players in New Orleans jazz bands. Ragtime showed that the piano had certain traits that could be integrated into jazz in a more interesting way. Stride allowed the piano to continue its important jobs in the rhythm section as well as become a solo instrument. Stride also provided a new type of driving force behind piano playing. Though stride in its original form would eventually fade from the limelight, portions of stride are still found in jazz piano today. Many great pianists before and in the Swing Era led their own bands or solo careers that cemented the place of a piano in a jazz band. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Luckey Roberts, and many others had pushed the piano to its limits and shown the country exactly what they could do.

All of these different discoveries and styles of playing would become intrinsically important as the Swing Era ended. After World War II came to an end, America changed and, as America's music, it was natural that jazz would change as well. The end of World War II had been accompanied by a great sense of American pride and victory, but that would soon change. Clashes with communist Russia, the possible infiltration of all levels of American society by those communists, and the ever more clear racial inequalities would cause this new America to be full of struggles and confusion and the new jazz form showed that. This new jazz was called bebop.

Bebop was (and still is) very different from the jazz that came before it. Instead of big bands, small groups were formed. Jazz was no longer a music meant for dancing, nor did it have that same comforting swing beat. Bebop was generally not based on popular tunes which was another big change. Bebop was more hard driving with fast tempos and abstract ideas. Harmonies were more complex and riffs less easy to follow.

The piano was suited for this new type of music. The ability of a pianist to see their entire instrument and most pianists natural grasp of their instrument in strange keys or rhythms made bebop a natural progression. Thelonious Monk once said, "Where is jazz going? I don't know. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens". Bebop seems to personify this idea--that the music had reached the top of an art (in regards to swing) and needed somewhere else to go.

Bebop would be the answer to the question, "Where is jazz going?". It's easy to trace its coming in hindsight. Ragtime and stride took the technique of different ideas in either hand of the pianist to a new level. Count Basie taught us about space and time, while Duke Ellington educated us on things like "jungle music". Art Tatum would prove to be extremely influential with his showy runs and quick fingers. Though the older generation would not accept bebop as readily as it had accepted swing, bebop was there to stay.