Quotes & Sayings About Bebop

Musically, swing pretty much dominated in the '30s. And into the late '30s, swing is beginning to change over to bebop in the early '40s, which is exactly when this new science of theoretical physics, particularly theoretical atomic physics, was really coming to the fore. — Chris Eigeman

I still prefer the bebop of the '40s. The very stuff I started out with is still the best to me. I have come full circle. — Carla Bley

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop. — Donald Byrd

Many photographers are apt to confuse color with noise, and to congratulate themselves when they have almost blown you down with screeching hues alone-a bebop of electric blues, furious reds, and poison greens. — Walker Evans

But I am willing to bet that makes ol' Bebop and Rocksteady here our dastardly villains. And doing that basic math in my head, I'm saying it all adds up to the Russians. — J.M. Darhower

In those days before hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy, and before learning of the so-called bebop era
by the way, I have some thoughts about that word, "bebop"
my first jazz hero ever, jazz improvisor hero, was Lester Young. I was a big "Lester Young-oholic," and all of my buddies were Lester Young-oholics. We'd get together and dissect, analyze, discuss, and listen to Lester Young's solos for hours and hours and hours. He was our god. — J.J. Johnson

Angels banished from heaven have no choice but to become devils. — Vicious

Whatever happens, happens. — Keiko Nobumoto

it ain't as hard as picking cotton — Wynton Marsalis

My first love in music was jazz, but I like it all," "I reacted emotionally to Art Blakey and, of course, to Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery. I was all of 16 when I had my first guitar lesson with Joe. But I never focused on being a bebop player. I loved the harmony, rhythm and phrasing, but I wanted to apply them to my own concept and sound. — Larry Carlton

What Happens, Happens. — Spike Spiegel Cowboy Bebop

I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me. — Mose Allison

The word "holiday" comes from "holy day" and holy means "exalted and worthy of complete devotion." By that definition, all days are holy. Life is holy. Atheists have joy every day of the year, every holy day. We have the wonder and glory of life. We have joy in the world before the lord is come. We're not going for the promise of life after death; we're celebrating life before death. The smiles of children. The screaming, the bitching, the horrific whining of one's own children. The glory of giving or receiving a blow job. Sunsets, rock and roll, bebop, Jell-O, stinky cheese, and offensive jokes.
For atheists, everything in the world is enough and every day is holy. Every day is an atheist holiday. It's a day that we're alive. — Penn Jillette

[On bebop years] All I did was sing 'How High the Moon.' It seemed like the only song I ever sang. — Ella Fitzgerald

When I heard Charlie Parker, I knew that that was going to be the new wave, the new way to play jazz. From that point on, I was sold with ... the idea of bebop. — Buddy DeFranco

Early mornings were given over to Bartok and Schoenberg. Midmorning I treated myself to the vocals of Billy Eckstine, Billie Holiday, Nat Cole, Louis Jordan and Bull Moose Jackson. A piroshki from the Russian delicatessen next door was lunch and then the giants of bebop flipped through the air. Charlie Parker and Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and Al Haig and Howard McGhee. Blues belonged to late afternoons and the singers' lyrics of lost love spoke to my solitude. — Maya Angelou

They said Bird played bebop, but Bird could still swing. I've heard a lot of guys play bebop, but they wasn't swinging. — Jay McShann

Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging
but that weren't sweet. — Miles Davis

Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz. — Dave Van Ronk

I'm watching a dream I'll never wake up from.
-Spike Speigel — Keiko Nobumoto

MAMBO SUN"

"Beneath the bebop moon
I want to croon with you
Beneath the Mambo Sun
I got to be the one with you

My life's a shadowless horse
If I can't get across to you
In the alligator rain
My heart's all pain for you

Girl you're good
And I've got wild knees for you
On a mountain range
I'm Dr. Strange for you

Upon a savage lake
Make no mistake I love you
I got a powder-keg leg
And my wig's all pooped for you

With my hat in my hand
I'm a hungry man for you
I got stars in my beard
And I feel real weird for you

Beneath the bebop moon
I'm howling like a loon for you
Beneath the mumbo sun
I've got to be the one for you — Marc Bolan

Bebop has set music back twenty years. — Tommy Dorsey

You don't see the European classical musicians allowing the music of Bach, Brahms, or Beethoven to become extinct. That music has gone on for centuries and centuries. We have the same obligation. Why do we have to become so 'hip' that we can say, 'Bebop is square,' or New Orleans is square'? This, to me, is a shame. — Rahsaan Roland Kirk

And most of the time, when you're young and dumb - you know everything! Charles Freeman Lee bebop pianist and trumpeter — Annette Johnson

Bebop and hip-hop, in so many ways, they're connected. A lot of rappers remind me so much of bebop guys in terms of improvisation, beats and rhymes. My dream is to see hip-hop incorporated in education. You've got the youth of the world in the palm of your hand. — Quincy Jones

Radical Edwards's profile? He's a seven-foot tall ex-basketball pro hindu guru drag-queen alien.
-Jet Black, from the Cowboy Bebop anime script — Keiko Nobumoto

Oh yeah, that was the thing to do at that time. This was before the new wave of bebop started. — Martin Denny

When I was a little kid wanting to play music, it was because of people like Pete Johnson, Huey Smith, Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, James Booker, Art Neville ... there was so many piano players I loved in New Orleans. Then there was guys from out of town that would come cut there a lot. There was so many great bebop piano players, so many great jazz piano players, so many great Latin piano players, so many great blues piano players. Some of those Afro-Cuban bands had some killer piano players. There was so many different things going on musically, and it was all of interest to me. — Dr. John

Hackers are nerdy, pasty, tubby, little geeks with triple thick glasses and this is probably a demented otaku with smelly feet. So catching him will be a breeze! — Keiko Nobumoto

I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything. — Quincy Jones

Bebop is the music of the future (as soon as they learn how to play it). — Dexter Gordon

Spike Spiegel: Hey, Jet, did you know that there are three things that I hate?
Jet Black: Whatever ...
Spike Spiegel: Kids ... animals ... and women with atitude.
Jet Black: Oh?
Spike Spiegel: So why do we have all three neatly gathered on our ship! — Keiko Nobumoto

Basically my influences have been American influences. It's been blues, gospel, swing era music, bebop music, Broadway show music, classical music. It's like making a stew. You put all these various ingredients in it. You season it with this. You put that in it. You put the other in it. You mix it all up and it comes out something neat, something that you created. — Horace Silver

What makes bebop legitimate is the fact that when it was done, it was illegitimate. — Matthew Shipp

I have pretty ecumenical tastes. I'm interested in a lot of different kinds of music, so I don't listen with a jaundiced ear to music because it's in a certain category, whether it's country or opera or hip-hop or bebop or whatever it is. — David Sanborn

We may play in a contemporary rock vein, use standard bebop themes, and many other things besides. — Chuck Mangione

We are all in "the perpetual quest for keeping oneself occupied, entertained, and important - which burns at the edge of addiction. — Jana Richman

The 1988 biopic of bebop immortal Charlie Parker, 'Bird,' was the film that opened my eyes to Clint Eastwood's potential as a filmmaker. — Steve Erickson

Musically, the bebop route was magnificent, but businesswise, it was the dumbest thing I ever did. — Woody Herman

Everything has a beginning and an end. Life is just a cycle of starts and stops. There are ends we don't desire, but they're inevitable, we have to face them. It's what being human is all about. — Jet Black

The new music, the bebop and modern jazz, wasn't music to him. It was choppy noise pretending to make music out of traffic jams. — Richard Flanagan

Bebop was like humming along to Mitch Miller to me. — Albert Ayler

From folk to tribal to Cab Calloway, Cole Porter, Gershwin to the Rolling Stones, whose first record was all covers, to country-western, bebop, blues, and even the referencing in classic hip hop to cliched love ballads of the '80s or whatever - that is kinda gone, and that's just terrifying to me. — Cat Power