"Bebop lives!" cries the newest generation of jazz players. During the 1980s, musicians like Wynton Marsalis revived public interest in bebop, the speedy, angular music that first bubbled up out of Harlem in the early 1940s, changing the face of jazz. That Marsalis and others thought of themselves as celebrating and preserving a noble tradition is, in one sense, inevitable. After the excesses of experimental or "free" jazz in the 1960s and the electronic jazz-rock "fusion" of the 70s, it is hardly surprising that people should hearken back to a time when jazz was "purer," perhaps even at the apex of its development. But the recent enthusiasm for bebop is also ironic in light of the music's initial public reception.
In its infancy, during the first two decades of the 20th century, jazz was played by small groups of musicians improvising variations on blues tunes and popular songs. Most of the musicians were unable to read music, and their improvisations were fairly rudimentary. Nevertheless, jazz attained international recognition in the 1920s. Two of the people most responsible for its rise in popularity were Louis Armstrong, the first great jazz soloist, and Fletcher Henderson, leader of the first great jazz band. Armstrong, with his buoyant personality and virtuosic technical skills, greatly expanded the creative range and importance of the soloist in jazz. Henderson, a pianist with extensive training in music theory, foresaw the orchestral possibilities of jazz played by a larger band. He wrote out arrangements of songs for his band members that preserved the spirit of jazz, while at the same time giving soloists a more structured musical background upon which to shape their solo improvisations. In the 1930s, jazz moved further into the mainstream with the advent of the Swing Era. Big bands in the Henderson mold, led by musicians like Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, achieved unprecedented popularity with jazz-oriented "swing" music that was eminently danceable.
Against this musical backdrop, bebop arrived on the scene. Like other modernist movements in art and literature, bebop music represented a departure from tradition in both form and content, and was met with initial hostility. Bebop tempos were unusually fast, with the soloist often playing at double time to the backing musicians. The rhythms were tricky and complex, the melodies intricate and frequently dissonant, involving chord changes and notes not previously heard in jazz. Before bebop, jazz players had improvised on popular songs such as those produced by Tin-Pan Alley, but bebop tunes were often originals with which jazz audiences were unfamiliar.
Played mainly by small combos rather than big bands, bebop was not danceable; it demanded intellectual concentration. Soon, jazz began to lose its hold on the popular audience, which found the new music disconcerting. Compounding public alienation was the fact that bebop seemed to have arrived on the scene in a completely mature state of development, without that early phase of experimentation that typifies so many movements in the course of Western music. This was as much the result of an accident of history as anything else. The early development of bebop occurred during a three-year ban on recording in this country made necessary by the petrol and vinyl shortages of World War II). By the time the ban was lifted, and the first bebop records were made, the new music seemed to have sprung fully-formed like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. And though a small core of enthusiasts would continue to worship bebop pioneers like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, many bebop musicians were never able to gain acceptance with any audience and went on to lead lives of obscurity and deprivation.
Based on the information in the passage comparing bebop to other movements in the history of Western music, it is reasonable to conclude that:
I). most movements in music history passed through a stage of experimentation before reaching mature expression.
II). World War II prevented bebop from reaching a more appreciative audience.
III). bebop did not go through a developmental stage before reaching mature expression.
- I only
- III only
- I and II only
- II and III only
Answer(s): A
Explanation:
This is in Roman Numeral format. It asks one to draw a reasonable conclusion from information in the passage "comparing bebop to other movements in the history of Western music". That phrase "Western music" appears only once in the passage. It's in the third sentence of the final paragraph. That's where the author compares bebop to "other movements in the course of Western music." The author says there that public alienation or estrangement toward bebop was intense because bebop seemed to have arrived "in a completely mature state of development, without that early phase of experimentation that typifies so many movements in the course of Western music". This not only indicates something about bebop, it educates about most movements in the course of Western music namely, that they go through at least two phases: an early, experimental phase, and a later, more mature, more fully developed phase. This is the substance of Roman Numeral statement I, which is a reasonable conclusion and therefore will be part of the correct answer. Notice that choices (B) and (D) do not include Roman Numeral Statement I; thus, they can be eliminated. Since either choice (A), which offers statement I only, or choice (C), which offers statements I and II, must be the correct answer. One can review only statement II to determine the right answer. Statement II says that W.W.II prevented bebop from reaching a more appreciative audience. This is a distortion of the fifth sentence of the final paragraph, which says that a petrol shortage during World War II necessitated a three-year ban on the making of records. But, according to the author, it was not the recording ban that prevented bebop from reaching a more appreciative audience.
Instead, the recording ban was responsible for making it seem to audiences as if bebop had bypassed that early, experimental stage and instantly achieved mature development. It was the radical elements of bebop itself that prevented the music from appealing to a wider audience. So statement II is false, and choice (A), statement I only, is the correct answer. Statement III says that bebop did not go through a developmental stage before reaching mature expression. This is not true. Bebop did go through a developmental stage, and it is discussed in the middle of the last paragraph. The key point here is that few people heard the music during this phase because of the ban on recording. Statement III is false.