redbeansandricegute frage – ich hätte jetzt gesagt, es meint, dass der groove massiver, solider, fühlbarer ist – also härter…
Das hätte ich auch gesagt. Weiss es aber auch nicht wirklich… woher stammt überhaupt die Bezeichnung?
Nat Hentoff schrieb in den Liner Notes zu Art Blakeys Album „Hard Bop“ (Columbia CL 1040, 1957):
The term „hard bop“ appears to have been originated by critic-pianist John Mehegan, jazz reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune. Like all labels applied to as assertively individualistic a medium as jazz, the term should be utilized with caution as indicating only a general direction whose practitioners also are apt to wander into other frames of jazz reference.
Among the qualities that might be said to identify „hard bop“ is its direct continuation, as the term indicates, of the early modern jazz language first self-discovered and deepened by the late Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke and others. The softer, cooler developments of modern jazz, as were exemplified for a time by musicians like Stan Getz and the Gil Evans-infused Miles Davis sessions for 1949-50 (with influential instrumentation of trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba, alto, baritone saxophone and rhythm) seem to have affected the hard boppers relatively little. Nor certainly is the increased emphasis on exploring the possibilities of more challenging written jazz – as in the current work of George Russell, Charles Mingus, John Lewis, Jimmy Giuffre, Teddy Charles, etc. – reflected among the hard boppers.
Improvisation remains the essential concern of the hard boppers. For the most part, such originals as those which they write are rather slight and are actually basing-points for extended improvisation. (A cautionary sentence is in order here to indicate again that there are musicians who may have begun as „hard boppers“ and may still play occasionally in that context, but tho whom much of this definition does not apply. I mean men like Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk. Monk, in fact, has never been categorizable. In any case, the responsibility of the listener is to listen to each musician and each group as individual jazzmen and individual units, and not to prejudge by label. Labels are only conveniences, and should not be abused.)
Hentoff beschreibt dann, wie Hardbopper üblicherweise Balladen spielen: „taken at medium tempo or up-tempo, or often at explosive tempos“ – „there is often minimal softness or tone and minimal romantic expansiveness of conception“ (ich nehme an „of tone“, aber in der Mosaic-CD, aus der ich die Liners zitiere, steht „or“) und dass „the kind of rich, breathy and unabashedly enveloping ballad playing that characterizes a swing era master like Ben Webster is largely alien to the hard boppers“. Aber:
The hard boppers are not without lyricism, but there is a leaping, raw ardor that is impatient with rounding the corners or searching out the more shaded and the more convoluted areas of expression. Their music is „hard,“ not in the sense that it lacks emotion, but in the sense that it is, or intends to be, as unsentimental and as spontaneously direct emotionally as it is possible to be.
Hentoff bezieht sich dann auf Raymond Horricks, der in einem Essay im Melody Maker (gibt’s den online irgendwo?) den Einfluss Charlie Parkers auf die Hardbopper hervorgehoben hat, auch was die schlanken Line-Ups betrifft: Blakey, Dorhams Jazz Prophets, Roachs Quintett, die Adderleys und viele andere haben die Quintett-Formation mit Trompete/Sax übernommen.
Ich finde diese Aussagen von Hentoff gerade im Lichte dessen, dass sie 1957 niedergeschrieben wurden, erstaunlich luzide und auch fair im Urteil. Klar, man kann sagen Leute wie Mobley oder Clark hätten die dunkleren Ecken des Lyrizismus ausgeleuchtet… haben sie auch, Hentoff verbietet sich ja jegliches Generalisieren sowieso. Aber dass zwischen dem Balladenspiel eines Hodges, eines Lawrence Brown, eines Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins oder Ben Websters und demjenigen der Hardbopper wesentliche Unterschiede bestehen, wird wohl niemand leugnen – und die finde ich, hat Hentoff schon 1957 ganz gut in Worte gefasst.
--
"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #151: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv – 09.04., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba