View source for Post-bop

{{Short description|Genre of small-combo jazz}}

'''Post-bop''' is a [[jazz]] term with several possible definitions and usages.<ref name="Yudkin p. 125">Yudkin, Jeremy (2007), p. 125</ref> It has been variously defined as a musical period, a musical genre, a musical style, and a body of music, sometimes in different chronological periods, depending on the writer. Musicologist [[Barry Kernfeld]] wrote in ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'' that post-bop is "a vague term, used either stylistically or chronologically (with divergent results) to describe any continuation or amalgamation of [[Bebop|bop]], [[modal jazz]], and [[free jazz]]; its meaning sometimes extends into [[Swing music|swing]] and earlier styles or into [[Jazz fusion|fusion]] and third-world styles."<ref name="Grove">{{Cite encyclopedia |date=2001 |title=Post-bop|encyclopedia=[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians|Grove Music Online]] |series=Oxford Music Online |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|author-link=Barry Kernfeld|first=Barry|last=Kernfeld|doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.J752800}}</ref>

==Definitions and uses==
The term post-bop has a variety of usages which vary widely.<ref name="Grove"/> Jazz historian [[Stuart Nicholson (jazz historian)|Stuart Nicholson]] wrote that "The term post-bop is a wonderful catch-all, used not so much to describe what a style of music is, but more what it isn't. Post-bop isn't [[Free jazz|free]] or [[Fusion jazz|fusion]] or [[hard-bop]] or [[Modal jazz|modal]] or [[Avant-garde jazz|avant-garde]]."<ref>{{cite book|title=Jazz, the Modern Resurgence|page=157|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|year=1990|isbn=9780671710125|author-link=Stuart Nicholson (jazz historian)|first=Stuart |last=Nicholson}}</ref> Some writers have defined post-bop with specificity, but these sources conflict with one another.<ref name="Yudkin p. 125" /> One potential definition of post-bop is a musical period in which modern jazz was at its greatest mainstream popularity extending from the mid-1950s through to the mid-1960s.<ref name="Yudkin p. 125" /><ref>{{cite work|title=A Jazz Improvisation Primer|first=Marc |last=Sabatella|url=http://outsideshore.com/primer/post-bop/|chapter=Post-bop|publisher=Outside Shore Music}}</ref> Others have written that post-bop is not a musical period but a specific body of music that emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s that combined principles of bebop, [[hard bop]], [[modal jazz]], [[avant-garde jazz|avant-garde]] and [[free jazz]], but also departed from earlier traditions in jazz.<ref name="Waters 2019">{{Cite book|last=Waters|first=Keith|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1104790682|title=Postbop jazz in the 1960s : the compositions of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea|date=2019|isbn=978-0-19-060460-8|location=New York, NY|oclc=1104790682}}</ref> 

Still other writers have defined post-bop as a genre of small-combo jazz that evolved in the early to mid 1960s in the United States that was pioneered by [[Miles Davis]] (the central figure in the development of this genre), in conjunction with [[Charles Mingus]], [[Wayne Shorter]], [[Herbie Hancock]], [[John Coltrane]] and [[Jackie McLean]], which crafted syntheses of hard bop with contemporaneous developments in [[avant-garde jazz]], modal jazz and free jazz that resulted in music with a complex and experimental flavor though still rooted in bop tradition, featuring less of the [[blues]] and [[soul music|soul]] leanings predominant in hard bop. The movement had a significant impact on subsequent generations of both acoustic jazz and [[jazz fusion|fusion]] musicians.<ref name="Yudkin p. 125" />

According to [[musicology|musicologist]] Jeremy Yudkin, post-bop does not follow "the conventions of bop or the apparently formless freedom of the new jazz".<ref name="Bailey"/> He wrote in his definition of the subgenre:

{{blockquote|[[Form (music)|Forms]], [[tempo]]s, and [[meter (music)|meters]] are freer, all the compositions are new, and the band members themselves are featured composers.... [A]n approach that is abstract and intense in the extreme, with space created for rhythmic and coloristic independence of the drummer&mdash;an approach that incorporated [[mode (music)|modal]] and chordal harmonies, flexible form, structured choruses, melodic [[Variation (music)|variation]], and [[free improvisation]]."<ref name="Bailey">{{cite web|last=Bailey|first=C. Michael|date=April 11, 2008|url=http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=28959&pg=1|title=Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, and the Invention of Post Bop|work=[[All About Jazz]]|access-date=February 23, 2013}}</ref>}} According to scholar Keith Waters, some of the traits found in post-bop recordings are: a slower harmonic rhythm characteristic of modal jazz, techniques for playing "inside" and "outside" the underlying harmonic structure, an interactive (or conversational) approach to rhythm section accompaniment, unusual harmonic progressions, use of harmonic or metric superimposition, unusual underlying formal designs for head statements and chorus structure improvisation, or the abandonment entirely of underlying chorus structure beneath improvisation.<ref name="Waters 2019"/>

[[Miles Davis]] was particularly influential in the development of small-combo jazz post-bop in the 1960s. His second quintet was active during 1964 to 1968 and featured pianist [[Herbie Hancock]], bassist [[Ron Carter]], saxophonist [[Wayne Shorter]], and drummer [[Tony Williams (drummer)|Tony Williams]]. They recorded six studio albums that, according to [[All About Jazz]]'s C. Michael Bailey, introduced post-bop: ''[[E.S.P. (Miles Davis album)|E.S.P.]]'' (1965), ''[[Miles Smiles]]'' (1967), ''[[Sorcerer (Miles Davis album)|Sorcerer]]'' (1967), ''[[Nefertiti (Miles Davis album)|Nefertiti]]'' (1968), ''[[Miles in the Sky]]'' (1968), and ''[[Filles de Kilimanjaro]]'' (1968).<ref name="Bailey"/>

==See also==
* [[:Category:Post-bop jazz musicians]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9hiwDQAAQBAJ&dq=Post-bop&pg=PA125|title=Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, and the Invention of Post Bop|page=125|first=Jeremy |last=Yudkin|year=2007|publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|isbn=9780253027818}}
==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080730085617/http://www.indiejazz.com/page.aspx?page=genre_detail&GenreID=9 "Post Bop"], Indie Jazz.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080209211406/http://www.rhapsody.com/jazz/bop/postbop/more.html "Post Bop"], Rhapsody.com.
* [http://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/subgenre/post-bop "Post Bop"], Jazz Music Archives.
* [http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/post-bop-ma0000005010 "Post-Bop"], [[AllMusic]]
* [http://www.allaboutjazz.com/post-bop-records-of-the-modern-era-by-aaj-staff.php "Post-Bop Records Of The Modern Era"], ''[[All About Jazz]]'', August 16, 2005.

{{Jazzfooter|state=collapsed}}

[[Category:Post-bop| ]]
[[Category:Jazz genres]]