View source for Neo-bop

{{Short description|Jazz style}}
{{Infobox music genre
| name              = Neo-bop jazz
| etymology         = From "bop," "neo" referring to its revival
| other_names       = Neotraditionalist jazz
| image             = File:Joshua Redman et alii Victoria teater Nasjonal Jazzscene 2018 (211443).jpg
| caption           = Joshua Redman Quartet in 2018
| stylistic_origins = {{hlist|[[Straight-ahead jazz]]|[[Bebop]]|[[Hard bop]]}}
| cultural_origins  = c. 1980
| instruments       = {{hlist|[[Trumpet]]|[[saxophone]]|[[piano]]|[[acoustic bass]]|[[drums]]}}
| derivatives       = [[Continental jazz]]
| subgenrelist      =
| subgenres         =
| fusiongenres      =
| other_topics      = [[List of neo-bop musicians]]
}}
'''Neo-bop''' (also called neotraditionalist) refers to a style of [[jazz]] that gained popularity in the 1980s among musicians who found greater aesthetic affinity for acoustically based, swinging, melodic forms of jazz than for [[free jazz]] and [[jazz fusion]] that had gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s. Neo-bop is distinct from previous bop music due to the influence of trumpeter [[Wynton Marsalis]], who popularized the genre as an artistic and academic endeavor opposed to the [[Counterculture|countercultural]] developments of the [[Beat Generation|beat generation]].<ref name=":1" />
== Musical style ==
Neo-bop contains elements of [[bebop]], [[post-bop]], [[hard bop]], and [[modal jazz]]. As both "neo-bop" and "[[post-bop]]" refer to eclectic mixtures of styles from the bebop and post-bebop eras, the precise differences in musical style between the two are not clearly defined from an academic standpoint.{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}
In the [[United States]], [[Wynton Marsalis]] and "The Young Lions," for example, have been associated with neo-bop and post-bop.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Stein |first=Michael |date=2022-04-27 |title=The Young Lions brought bebop and swing roaring back |url=https://www.knkx.org/jazz/2022-04-27/the-young-lions-brought-bebop-and-swing-roaring-back |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231009050352/https://www.knkx.org/jazz/2022-04-27/the-young-lions-brought-bebop-and-swing-roaring-back |archive-date=2023-10-09 |access-date=2024-01-22 |website=KNKX Public Radio |publisher=[[KNKX]] |language=en}}</ref> Neo-bop was also embraced by established, [[straight-ahead jazz]] musicians who either abstained the avant-garde and fusion movements, or returned to music based on more traditional styles after experimenting with them.
The return to more traditionally-based styles earned both praise and criticism, with [[Miles Davis]] calling it "warmed over turkey"<ref>[http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,881770,00.html The Guardian]</ref> and others deeming it to be too dependent on the past. The movement, however, received praise from [[Time (magazine)|Time]] magazine and others who welcomed the return of more accessible forms of jazz.<ref>[http://www.case.edu/affil/sce/Texts_2001/McCombe.html University of Dayton]</ref>
== History ==
=== 1970s: Origins ===
Some bebop and post-bop musicians were lukewarm to the avant-garde explorations of the 1960s and rejected the electronically based, pop-influenced sounds of jazz fusion. Most prominent among these was the drummer [[Art Blakey]], whose Jazz Messengers group was a stylistic incubator for like-minded younger musicians. Drummer [[Cindy Blackman]] credited Blakey with keeping jazz from being completely eclipsed by fusion during the 1970s.<ref name=Blakey>{{Cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1D61030F934A25753C1A966958260|title=Art Blakey, Jazz Great, Is Dead; A Drummer and Band Leader, 71|work=New York Times article by Peter Watrous|date=October 17, 1990|access-date=April 25, 2010}}</ref>  Many of the younger musicians who went on to form the core of the neotraditionalist "Young Lions," including [[Wynton Marsalis]], were Jazz Messengers alumni.
[[Albert Murray (writer)|Albert Murray]], in his 1976 book ''Stomping the Blues'', contended that true jazz was based on three elements, swing, blues tonalities, and acoustic sounds.  His ideas influenced [[Stanley Crouch]] who, along with Marsalis, became a militant advocate of the core jazz elements as defined by Murray.  Crouch went on to contend that many of the devices of avant-garde and fusion were grandstanding and used as a cover for lazy-mindedness or lack of musicianship.<ref name="boynton">{{cite news| last=Boynton| first=Robert J.| title=The Professor of Connection| url=http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=30| access-date=May 26, 2011| newspaper=The New Yorker| date=6 Nov 1995| pages=97–116}}</ref> Crouch wrote, "We should laugh at those who make artistic claims for fusion."<ref>{{cite news| last=Crouch| first=Stanley| title=Four-Letter Words: Rap & Fusion| url=http://jazztimes.com/articles/20011-four-letter-words-rap-fusion| access-date=May 26, 2011| newspaper=JazzTimes| date=March 2002}}</ref>  In 1987 Murray, Crouch, and Marsalis founded the [[Jazz at Lincoln Center]] program in New York, where Crouch and Marsalis would serve as artistic directors.  JALC would become one of the main institutional promoters of the neotraditionalist movement.
=== 1980s: Young Lions ===
[[File:Bassist Christian McBride.jpg|thumb|Bassist Christian McBride in 2009]]
[[Wynton Marsalis]], son of jazz pianist [[Ellis Marsalis Jr.|Ellis Marsalis]], emerged on the jazz scene approximately 1980 and looked to late swing music and bop trumpet players for his main influences, from trumpeter [[Fats Navarro]] to [[Kenny Dorham]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Harrington |first=Richard |date=December 15, 1984 |title=Wynton Marsalis, Young Lion of Jazz |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1984/12/15/wynton-marsalis-young-lion-of-jazz/85901b90-3f36-4bd7-b300-0a9ca6e67240/ |access-date=July 16, 2022}}</ref> His album ''[[Wynton Marsalis (album)|Wynton Marsalis]]'' (1982) for the [[Columbia Records|Columbia]] label was, according to the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', called "the birth point of the Re-bop Renaissance." A crucial difference, however, between the neo-bop movement and its bop predecessors was that neo-bop had academic roots and rejected the "iconoclastic" and rebellious lifestyles of the bop era. Marsalis instead advocated that jazz could achieve "fine-art" status and be compared to classical music rather than rock music.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Guilliatt |first=Richard |date=September 13, 1992 |title=JAZZ : The Young Lions' Roar : Wynton Marsalis and the 'Neoclassical' Lincoln Center Orchestra are helping fuel the noisiest debate since Miles went electric |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-09-13-ca-1495-story.html |access-date=July 16, 2022}}</ref>
While his predecessors of the previous two decades had experienced financial success in fusion genres, his commitment to the traditional definition of "jazz" caught on with a school of musicians from Marsalis' age group, including [[Terence Blanchard]], [[Donald Harrison]], [[Wallace Roney]], [[Kevin Eubanks]], [[Stanley Jordan]], [[Kenny Kirkland]], and [[Jeff "Tain" Watts|Jeff Watts]].<ref name=":0" /> Marsalis later founded Jazz at Lincoln Center to promote jazz concerts, with further "Young Lions" becoming prominent jazz musicians including [[Christian McBride]], [[Marcus Roberts]], and [[Roy Hargrove]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Back to the Basics: Wynton Marsalis, the Young Lions and Preserving Jazz Traditions - Black Music Scholar |url=https://blackmusicscholar.com/back-to-the-basics-wynton-marsalis-the-young-lions-and-preserving-jazz-traditions/ |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=blackmusicscholar.com/ |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Burnim |first1=Mellonee |title=African American Music: An Introduction |last2=Maultsby |first2=Portia |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=2014 |isbn=9781317934424 |edition=2nd}}</ref>
=== 1990s: Distinct subgenre ===
With the revival of hard bop as mainstream jazz in the 1990s, neo-bop jazz began to form its own reputation as a distinct subgenre of jazz. According to critic [[Scott Yanow]], this new subgenre remained related to the broader straight-ahead category, but was no longer "recycling the past" as some claimed.<ref>{{Cite web |title=hardbopz |url=http://www.scottyanow.com/hardbopz.html |access-date=2022-07-16 |website=www.scottyanow.com}}</ref> Alternatively, neo-bop has been criticized for lacking the innovation of the pioneering beboppers of the 1940s and 1950s and for being too reliant upon the commercial success of CD sales.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Davis |first=Francis |date=1996-07-01 |title=Like Young |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/07/like-young/376628/ |access-date=2022-07-19 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}</ref>
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
{{Jazzfooter}}
[[Category:Jazz genres]]
[[Category:Jazz terminology]]