Реферат: The JAZZ Story

the public seemed to want romantic ballads more than swinging dance

music.

The big bands that survived the war soon found another form of

competition cutting into their following--television. The tube kept people

home more and more, and inevitably many ballrooms shut their doors for

good in the years between 1947 and 1955. By then it had also become too

expensive a proposition to keep 16 men traveling on the road in the big

bands' itinerant tradition. The leaders who didn't give up (Ellington, Basie,

Woody Herman, Harry James) had something special in the way of talent

and dedication that gave them durability in spite of changing tastes and

lifestyles.

The only new bands to come along in the post-war decades and make it

were those of pianist-composer Stan Kenton (1912-1979), who started his

band in 1940 but didn't hit until `45; drummer Buddy Rich (1917-1987), a

veteran of many famous swing era bands and one of jazzdom's most

phenomenal musicians, and co-leaders Thad Jones (1923-1990), and Mel

Lewis (1929-1990), a drummer once with Kenton. Another Kenton

alumnus, high-note trumpeter Maynard Ferguson (b. 1928), has led

successful big bands on and off.

THE BEBOP REVOLUTION

In any case, a new style, not necessarily inimical to the big bands yet very

different in spirit form earlier Jazz modes, had sprung up during the war.

Bebop, as it came to be called, was initially a musician's music, born in the

experimentation of informal jam sessions.

Characterized by harmonic sophistication, rhythmic complexity, and few

concessions to public taste, bop was spearheaded by Charlie Parker

(1920-1955), an alto saxophonist born and reared in Kansas City.

After apprenticeship with big bands (including Earl Hines'), Parker settled

in New York. From 1944 on, he began to attract attention on Manhattan's