ABSTRACT
Although some have dismissed hard-bop jazz as little more than an extension of bebop, there was more to it than that. Bebop had been a somewhat self-centered, egocentric music that was often both intellectually and technically demanding. To the listener, bop musicians often seemed
Among his many discoveries and theories, Sir Isaac Newton is known best for his three laws of physics. One of these principles often applies to the arts. He said that, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”2 Newton’s principle is sometimes referred to in the arts as the pendulum theory, implying that styles swing radically as a reaction and in opposition to one another. This principle is quite applicable to the jazz of the 1950s and 1960s. Cool had been a reaction to bebop. Hard bop, referred to at the time as mainstream jazz, was a reaction to the predominantly white jazz of the cool school, serving as a continuation of the bop tradition. Hard bop featured somewhat more aggressive horn and rhythm-section playing, with driving rhythm-section grooves and an overall harsher sound with heavier articulation from the horn players. The term “mainstream” is often used to define jazz from the 1950s and 1960s. Critic Stanley Dance first coined the term and, although the definition of this term is somewhat murky, it is usually applied to describe jazz that embraces key aspects of the jazz tradition. Mainstream usually refers to jazz based on typical harmonic schemes that follow tightly organized formal schemes.3
