Be-bop

The popular big band sounds of the 20s and 30s changed as musicians began exploring and developing individually, thus moving jazz away from large ensembles with strict scores (charts) towards a musician-driven style. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were key figures in the emergence of a new, complex style of jazz known as be-bop that experimented with melody, rhythm and structure.

This fast, sometimes frenetic music did not please all fans nor critics, yet by the 1950s be-bop was a central part of the jazz scene. Significant players included drummer Art Blakey, pianists Bud Powell and Horace Silver, Dexter Gordon (saxophone), vibraphone master Milt Jackson and guitarists Kenny Burrell and Joe Pass.