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Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in saxophone and piano playing.
David H. Rosenthal contends in his book Hard Bop that the genre is, to a large degree, the natural creation of a generation of African-American musicians who grew up at a time when bop and rhythm and blues were the dominant forms of black American music. Prominent hard bop musicians included Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino and others.
Hard bop has been seen by some critics as a response to cool jazz and West Coast jazz. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill explain, "the hard bop school...saw the new instrumentation and compositional devices used by cool musicians as gimmicks rather than valid developments of the jazz tradition." However, Shelly Manne suggested that cool jazz and hard bop simply reflected their respective geographic environments: the relaxed cool jazz style reflected a more relaxed lifestyle in California, while driving bop typified the New York scene. Some writers, such as James Lincoln Collier, suggest that the style was an attempt to recapture jazz as a form of African American expression. Whether or not this was the intent, many musicians quickly adopted the style, regardless of race.
Michael Cuscuna maintains that Silver and Blakey's efforts were in response to the New York bebop scene:
Both Art and Horace were very, very aware of what they wanted to do. They wanted to get away from the jazz scene of the early '50s, which was the Birdland scene — you hire Phil Woods or Charlie Parker or J. J. Johnson, they come and sit in with the House band, and they only play blues and Jazz standard that everybody knows. There's no rehearsal, there's no thought given to the audience. Both Horace and Art knew that the only way to get the jazz audience back and make it bigger than ever was to really make music that was memorable and planned, where you consider the audience and keep everything short. They really liked digging into blues and gospel, things with universal appeal. So they put together what was to be called the Jazz Messengers.
David Rosenthal sees the development of hard bop as a response to both a decline in bebop and the rise of rhythm and blues:
The early fifties saw an extremely dynamic Rhythm and Blues scene take shape.... This music, and not cool jazz, was what chronologically separated bebop and hard bop in ghettos. Young jazz musicians, of course, enjoyed and listened to these R & B sounds which, among other things, began the amalgam of blues and gospel that would later be dubbed 'soul music.' And it is in this vigorously creative black pop music, at a time when bebop seemed to have lost both its direction and its audience, that some of hard bop's roots may be found.A key recording in the early development of hard bop was Silver's composition "The Preacher", which was considered "old-timey" or "corny", such that Blue Note head Alfred Lion was hesitant to record the song. However, the song became a successful hit.
Miles Davis, who had performed the title track of his album Walkin' at the inaugural Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, would form the Miles Davis Quintet with John Coltrane in 1955, becoming prominent in hard bop before moving on to other styles. Other early documents were the two volumes of the Blue Note LP album A Night at Birdland, also from 1954, recorded by the Blakey's quintet at Birdland months before the Davis set at Newport. Clifford Brown, the trumpeter on the Birdland albums, formed the Brown-Roach Quintet with drummer Max Roach. Among the pianists in the band were Richie Powell and Carl Perkins, both of whom died at a young age.
A critical album that cemented hard bop's mainstream presence in jazz was A Blowin' Session (1957), including saxophonists Johnny Griffin, John Coltrane, and Hank Mobley; trumpeter Lee Morgan; pianist Wynton Kelly; bassist Paul Chambers; and Art Blakey. Described by Al Campbell as "one of the greatest hard bop jam sessions ever recorded" and "filled with infectious passion and camaraderie," it was the only studio session ever recorded including all three saxophonists. It cemented "Coltrane's ability to navigate complex chord changes over a fast tempo" and is associated with Griffin's reputation as "the world's fastest saxophonist." In 1956, The Jazz Messengers recorded an album titled Hard Bop, which was released in 1957, including Bill Hardman on trumpet and saxophonist Jackie McLean, with a mix of hard bop compositions and . Shortly after, in 1958, The Jazz Messengers, with a new line-up including Lee Morgan on trumpet and Benny Golson on saxophone, recorded the quintessential hard bop album Moanin', with the album pioneering in soul jazz. Golson and Morgan formed their own bands and produced further records in the hard bop genre: Golson's Jazztet with Art Farmer on trumpet recorded the album Meet the Jazztet in 1960, which was given a five-star rating by AllMusic, and Morgan explored hard bop and sister genres in records like The Sidewinder, known for its "funky, danceable groove that drew from soul-jazz, Boogaloo, blues, and R&B." Morgan's albums attracted rising stars in the jazz world, particularly saxophonists Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter; Morgan formed a "long-standing partnership" with the latter.
Meanwhile, in the late 1950s to early 1960s John Coltrane was a prominent saxophonist within the hard bop genre, with albums such as Blue Train and Giant Steps exemplifying his ability to play within this style. His album Stardust (1958), for instance, included on trumpet a young Freddie Hubbard, who would go on to become "a hard bop stylist." Blue Train was described by Richard Havers as "Coltrane's Hard-Bop Masterpiece," although an edit made to one of the album's tracks caused controversy following disapproval from sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder. In the early to mid-1960s, prior to his death, Coltrane experimented in free jazz but again drew influences from hard bop in his 1965 album A Love Supreme. Coltrane was a longtime member of Miles Davis' band, which bridged the gap between hard bop and modal jazz with albums such as Milestones and Kind of Blue. These albums represented a transition toward more experimental jazz, but Davis maintained core ideas of hard bop, such as the "call-and-response theme" found on one of Kind of Blue
In the early 1960s, Joe Henderson formed a band with Kenny Dorham, which recorded for Blue Note Records, and played extensively as a sideman in the bands of Horace Silver and Herbie Hancock; however, he received less recognition after he moved to San Francisco and began recording for Milestone. Other hard bop musicians went to Europe, such as pianist Bud Powell (elder brother of Richie Powell) in 1959 and saxophonist Dexter Gordon in 1962. Powell, a bebop pianist, continued to record albums in the early 1960s, while Gordon's Our Man in Paris became "one of his most iconic albums" for Blue Note.
Other musicians who contributed to the hard bop style include Donald Byrd, Tina Brooks, Sonny Clark, Lou Donaldson, Blue Mitchell, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt.
David Rosenthal considers six albums among the high points of the hard bop era: Ugetsu, Kind of Blue, Saxophone Colossus, Let Freedom Ring, Mingus Ah Um, and Brilliant Corners, referring to these as being some of the genre's "masterpieces."
Davis led other jazz musicians toward the fusion genre, particularly other trumpet players. For example, Donald Byrd's shift toward commercial fusion and smooth jazz recordings of the early 1970s, while celebrated within some circles, was considered a "betrayal" by fans of hard bop. His album Black Byrd (1973), Blue Note's most successful album, neared #1 spot on the R&B charts despite the opposition of jazz purists. However, in 1985, the filmed concert One Night with Blue Note brought together thirty predominantly hard bop musicians including Art Blakey, Ron Carter, Johnny Griffin, and Freddie Hubbard.
Following fusion's decline, younger musicians started a bop revival, the best-known proponent of this being trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. The revival was a "resurgence" by the 1990s, and by the 1990s, hard bop's revival had become so prominent that Yanow referred to it as "the foundation of modern acoustic jazz."Joe Henderson, for instance, was described by Yanow as a "national celebrity and a constant poll winner" in jazz circles after signing for Verve Records in the 1990s, largely due to changes in marketing.
Although the hard bop style enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, hard bop performers and elements of the music remain present in jazz.
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