This blog post is about bebop, which is a form of jazz that evolved during the 1940s and 1950s. It covers how bebop changed the jazz genre, and it examines how Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell contributed to this change.
This blog post offers a synopsis of jazz history. It covers the origin, character, and trajectory of the genre, and it briefly describes the context in which jazz music evolved.
This blog post introduces three influential musicians who were operating in New Orleans during the earliest years of jazz: Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong. It covers the contributions each man made to jazz music.
This blog post covers Avant-garde music. It discusses the definition of that term, the concept of Modernism, and three important composers operating within the genre: John Cage, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) invented the Impressionist style of Western art music. For this accomplishment, he is usually considered to be France’s greatest composer. Listening to his music is like hearing the auditory component of a unicorn’s dream about clouds. Debussy’s approach to composition was beset by vague suggestion and a tendency to wander without destination.
This blog post covers Polish piano virtuoso, Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849). Chopin had a distinct piano style that was nothing like the pounding triumph and brilliant glory of Beethoven and nothing like the macho bravado and miraculous virtuosity of Franz Liszt. Instead, Chopin’s piano style possessed a different sort of virtuosity, one marked by a delicate and soft touch.