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The Piano |
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at one time with Gillespie, Parker or both: Al Haig, Duke Jordan, Lou Levy, George Wallington and Billy Taylor.*
Contemporaneous with Powell as an arbiter of bop, but more important as a uniquely creative composer than as a pianist, was Thelonious Monk, sometimes called the "high priest of bop*, whose approach in many ways was directly opposed to Bud's. Monk has always favored an economy of notes, a tendency to work along vertical lines t that are as thought-provoking as Powell's are numbing. Monk, like Powell, has composed melodies of great harmonic charm. In his improvisations he is given to the unpredictable use of two-part intervals and has a predilection for seconds; he has made frequent use of whole-tone scale runs and has an almost pathological aversion for playing the awaited chord at the expected moment. Though he has worked excluÂsively with bop musicians and is harmonically compatible with the hoppers, Monk is beyond classification as a pianist of any sect.
Since Monk and Powell there has been a plethora of jazz piano talent, but few of the newcomers show signs of becoming influential enough to start a school of imitators. Horace Silver, a Powell devotee, can claim to have produced a composing and improvising style that has earned many adherents. Quiet-mannered, personable, leader of his own quintet, he reflects in his single-note lines the more orderly nature of his mind while displaying an incisive touch that is instantly recognizable to his followers.*
* Among the more important pianists the origins of whose styles lie to some degree in bop are Barbara Carroll, Eddie Costa, Kenny Drew, Russ Freeman, Buddy Greco; the remarkable Bengt Hallberg, a hero of every American jazzman who has visited Sweden; Hampton Hawes, Elmo Hope, Dick Hyman, Ahmad Jamal, Pete Jolly, Hank Jones, Dick Katz, Wynton Kelly, Roy Krai, Wade Legge, John Lewis, Junior Mance, Marian McPart-land; Phineas Newborn, an exceptional technician and one of the most highly regarded of the younger school; Marty Paich, Carl Perkins, Terry Pollard, Andre" Previn, Ralph Sharon, Toshiko; Randy Weston, whose main influence is Monk; Gerald Wiggins and Claude Williamson.
f Definitions of the terms "vertical" and "horizontal" in their musical usage will be found in the Anatomy of Improvisation chapter, on Page 212.
* Others who have shown originality during this period include Jimmy Jones, the long-underrated accompanist to Sarah Vaughan; Dave McKenna and Herbie Nichols. |
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