Música do CPE: O tema que mudou a história do Jazz
Tirado do album que é considerado por muito poucos como o melhor album da história do Jazz, está ali na grafnola o tema "Be Bop" (vá lá ponham a tocar que vale bem a pena). É uma composição e uma interpretação daquele que é muito discutivelmente o mais influente músico da história do Jazz (e que bem merecia ter-se tornado num Icon). No dito album, uns bons vinte e cinco anos mais tarde Dizzy Gillespie revisita o tema que fica como uma lição do que foi a revolução do BeBop como estilo musical. O próprio Gillespie, mais que provavelmente, discordaria desta minha opinião, costumava dizer que "A night in Tunisia" foi a sua única composição. Em minha defesa, vou socorrer-me novamente das "notas introdutórias" de Benny Green ao "Dizzy's Big 4". Green conta-nos uma estória bem engraçada passada com ele próprio a respeito deste tema, e explica porque razão se gravaram tão poucas versões de "Be Bop", em comparação com outros standards.
Back in the days when modern jazz was still new enough and strange enough for all kinds of charlatans to take advantage of it, somebody published a volume, pirated I think, of jazz themes of the new school. These themes on paper looked reassuring enough, especially the first composition in the book, a piece in G minor whose melody rose in the kind of neat geometric progression which an instrumental student might associate with the formal exercises of Klosé or Lazarus. I soon learned to play the piece at roughly the regulation of quick-step tempo and privately wondered to myself what was supposed to be so revolutionary about it. The piece was called "Be Bop", and was a source of considerable desapointment to me. I had expected it to reveal the secrets of the new jazz to me and it had revealed nothing at all. Some months later I heard "Be Bop" played on a recording and realised that like all jazz themes "Be Bop" has its ideal tempo and that I had been playing it at roughly quarter-speed, which meant that my version bore about as much resemblance to the real thing as painting-by numbers version of "The Leaping Horse" would bare to an authentic Constable. Only rarely I heard "Be Bop" played since, no doubt because the prohibitive nature of that ideal tempo, and its reapperance now on this album my serve as a timely reminder of one aspect of early modernism which, in the rush of the gadarene swine towards the precipice of formelessless, is usually overlooked, the amazing standard of musicianship among the breakers of new ground in the 1940s.
When Dizzy Gillespie plays "Be Bop" at the pace he originally had in mind when he wrote it the listner realizes that there comes a point where tempo becomes so fast as hardly to be tempo at all so much a constant stream of sound. This is a dangeraous illusion which the musician cannot afford, for unless he retains complete control of pulse of his performance the result is chaos and anarchy. That the effort required is physical as well as mental and musical is a point well known to anybody who has observed the movements of the fingers and feet of musicians operating at this pace.
"Be Bop" was manufactured specifically for a new era and has never strayed beyond the specialist for which it was conceived.
P.S. - Só não sei, e gostava de saber, se foi este tema que deu o nome ao "Be Bop" como estilo musical, ou se foi o contrário.
Back in the days when modern jazz was still new enough and strange enough for all kinds of charlatans to take advantage of it, somebody published a volume, pirated I think, of jazz themes of the new school. These themes on paper looked reassuring enough, especially the first composition in the book, a piece in G minor whose melody rose in the kind of neat geometric progression which an instrumental student might associate with the formal exercises of Klosé or Lazarus. I soon learned to play the piece at roughly the regulation of quick-step tempo and privately wondered to myself what was supposed to be so revolutionary about it. The piece was called "Be Bop", and was a source of considerable desapointment to me. I had expected it to reveal the secrets of the new jazz to me and it had revealed nothing at all. Some months later I heard "Be Bop" played on a recording and realised that like all jazz themes "Be Bop" has its ideal tempo and that I had been playing it at roughly quarter-speed, which meant that my version bore about as much resemblance to the real thing as painting-by numbers version of "The Leaping Horse" would bare to an authentic Constable. Only rarely I heard "Be Bop" played since, no doubt because the prohibitive nature of that ideal tempo, and its reapperance now on this album my serve as a timely reminder of one aspect of early modernism which, in the rush of the gadarene swine towards the precipice of formelessless, is usually overlooked, the amazing standard of musicianship among the breakers of new ground in the 1940s.
When Dizzy Gillespie plays "Be Bop" at the pace he originally had in mind when he wrote it the listner realizes that there comes a point where tempo becomes so fast as hardly to be tempo at all so much a constant stream of sound. This is a dangeraous illusion which the musician cannot afford, for unless he retains complete control of pulse of his performance the result is chaos and anarchy. That the effort required is physical as well as mental and musical is a point well known to anybody who has observed the movements of the fingers and feet of musicians operating at this pace.
"Be Bop" was manufactured specifically for a new era and has never strayed beyond the specialist for which it was conceived.
P.S. - Só não sei, e gostava de saber, se foi este tema que deu o nome ao "Be Bop" como estilo musical, ou se foi o contrário.
Arquivado em:Música
Escrito por Zèd à s 12:15 da manhã
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