Essays on Charlie Parker

Bebop is a jazz style known for fast paces and complex improvisations based on playing off of harmonies. It developed in the 1940s in the United States of America and symbolized the new stage in the ideas about jazz music and its perception. This paper aims to discuss the history of bebop, its establishment as the major modern jazz movement around the days of the decline of big bands, its fragmentation into the styles of cool and hard bop, and the role African-American musicians played in its development. As Gioia writes, from its beginning, jazz was the genre of ...

Thelonious Monk is known as one of the most gifted jazz musicians. He was the pioneer of bebop and his influence as a pianist and composer had significant effects on different kinds of music (Monkinstitute). Music of Thelonious Monk is based on Ingrid Monson’s and Paul Berliner’s work (Solis 3). Nevertheless, Monk is famous for his improvisations, which are so outstanding that a jazz critic Whitney Balliett once pointed out “His improvisations were molten Monk compositions, and his compositions were frozen Monk improvisations.” (Deveaux 169) Thelonious was born in North Carolina on October 10, 1917, but his ...

Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin (1957) “Sonny's Blues” by James Baldwin is a popular story, in which are metaphorically emphasized musical elements. Closer consideration of blues and jazz forms application and use of musicians such as Creole, Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong by Baldwin shows that the basic motives of the story are supported by these themes. The blues, as music and state of being, can be considered as basic to story’s structure. Richard N. Albert says, “In this story, content (message) of the blues is all important,” because by a number of blacks they are considered to ...