bebop
A virtuosic, harmonically complex style of jazz that emerged in the early 1940s.
In Depth
Bebop was a revolution led by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell. They transformed jazz from dance music into an art music demanding intense listening. Bebop features blazing tempos, complex chord substitutions, angular melodies, and extended improvisations. The small combo replaced the big band as the primary jazz ensemble. Bebop established the template for all modern jazz that followed.
The word bebop likely comes from the nonsense syllables jazz musicians used to sing fast melodic lines, a practice called vocalese or scat singing.