Home » History of Jazz Timeline: 1945
History of Jazz Timeline: 1945
It still seems clear at this point that Swing will rule, but.
Bop hits with full force. The musicians union strike ended at the end of 1944 and a lot of Bop gets recorded in 1945.
Bop has broken into the open. It seems to have sprung up fully formed. This is not really the case. It just seems that way because of the musician's strike.
Bop players begin to dress like business men instead of popular performers. Cool becomes the word, not hot. Things become hip, not hep. Performers cooly bow at the end of a tune. They don't mug. They become aloof.
The Bop players have changed the music considerably. It is almost as if they have taken the New Orleans and Swing forms apart and reformed them in a manner similar to what Picasso did when he arrived at the idea of Cubism.
The clarinet has nearly disappeared from Jazz at this point courtesy of the saxophone. By now, the sax is king even forcing trumpeters to take notice.
Jazz is becoming the preferred music of white renegades (will be until the mid 60's).
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie become known as partners and the co-founders of Bebop. Diz and Bird and Bird and Miles Davis record a number of tunes in Feb, May and Nov which establish Bebop. These tunes which are the most influential sides since the Hot Fives and Sevens include Groovin' High, Salt Peanuts, Hot House, Koko, Billie's Bounce and Now's the Time. These and other tunes which mark the beginning of recorded Bebop can be found on several Savoy Jazz CD's including The Charlie Parker Story and The Genius of Charlie Parker as well the Stash CD The Legendary Dial Sessions: Vol 1.
Diz and Bird go to California to work in a small combo at a club called Billy Berg's. They had been booked by Parker's manager Billy Shaw. Parker is now getting very heavily into drugs. Parker takes up with a hat check girl named Doris Sydnor while he is still married.
Miles Davis graduates high school and moves to New York to become a musician. He enrolls in Julliard at his parents request.
John Coltrane is drafted and plays clarinet with the Navy Band in Hawaii.
Monk is too individualistic of a piano player to be pinned to one school. He is not really a Swing or a Bop player but he has elements of all styles. Monk is, ironically, not the Bopper's piano player of choice. His phrasing is unique and is considered to be perverse by many.
The Bop piano players of choice are Bud Powell, Al Haig and George Wallington.
Bud Powell has a mental breakdown at age 21 and is sent to Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island. He'll be in and out of institutions for the next four years.
Fats Navarro replaces Dizzy Gillespie in the Eckstine Band.
Clifford Brown's father gives him a trumpet.
Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis is leading the house band at Minton's Playhouse (until 1952).
Pianist Wild Bill Davis is currently working for Louis Jordan.
Soprano saxophone virtuoso Sidney Bechet continues to record. Check out The Sidney Bechet Sessions on Storyville CD.
Armstrong wins Esquire Gold award for vocal but Swing is going out of style with the musicians.
The Woody Herman big band is incorporating Bop in tunes such as Caldonia and Apple Honey.
Duke Ellington wins the Esquire Gold award for arranger and bandleader as well as the Metronome poll. Oscar Pettiford joins Duke on bass.
Roy Eldridge is in his mid-thirties, at the height of his magnificent trumpet playing powers, and he is becoming passe'. Musicians such as Roy are unfortunately being pushed out by the Boppers and their music.
Art Tatum is thrown into obscurity by the emergence of Bop (a music that he probably influenced substantially).
Lenny Tristano is currently one of the most thoroughly schooled musicians in Jazz.
Benny Carter moves to Hollywood and begins to write movie and TV scores.
The teenaged Art Farmer and his twin brother Addison spend their summer in Los Angeles just as Bop is breaking out.
The term "Moldy Fig" (sometimes "Mouldy Figge") appears for the first time in reference to the old school Jazz players in the Esquire letters column in a letter from a Navy man named Sam Platt.
Eddie Condon opens his Dixieland oriented Jazz club called Eddie Condon's in the Greenwich Village section of New York City.
Keyword Search
Disclaimer: Though we have checked our facts, this timeline may contain erroneous information. If you discover errors or omissions, please bring them to our attention.
Giveaway
Eligible winners: 15
Days remaining: 6
Days remaining: 6
