Post-bop Explained

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This Jazz Piano Tutorial is about Post-bop.
By the mid 1960’s the rise of Free Jazz had shaken the very foundation of Jazz. So Mainstream Jazz had to somehow find a way to respond to the avant-garde - and this response was a genre called Post-bop. Post-bop mixes elements of bebop, hard-bop, modal and free jazz without necessarily being any one of these style.
Post-bop was more or less invented by Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet, so a lot of what I’m going to say here relates directly to this group.
The way that Post-bop responded to this attack by Free Jazz was with ambiguity - writing songs that were:
Harmonically ambiguous
Metrically and Rhythmically ambiguous
Formally ambiguous
So, in effect, Post-bop sits half way between Free Jazz and Tonal Jazz. If Free Jazz was ‘complete freedom’; Post-bop is ‘controlled freedom’. Post-bop breaks some musical rules but retains others, and still maintains much more structure and form than Free Jazz. Post-bop took on some elements and ideas from Free Jazz but retained others from Traditional Jazz
Post-bop straddles the grey area between Traditional Jazz and Free Jazz. And it’s worth noting that the line between Post-bop and Free Jazz is fuzzy - John Coltrane, for example, sat on both sides of the fence (it’s sometimes hard to classify his music - it’s often a mix of Modal Jazz, Free Jazz and Post-Bop).
If you enjoyed this Jazz Piano Tutorial on Post-bop, please subscribe.

[@BopWalk]

My favorite post bop pianist will always be McCoy Tyner, his work with the Classic Quartet of John Coltrane and the years after Coltrane's death was phenomenal. His choice of chords and his commanding style puts him up there in the lists with high originality.

[@WalkThatBass]

Yep, most definitely. Hugely influential. Agreed.

[@raginbakin1430]

May he rest in peace.

[@nathanjoy06]

I got here through the sims, and i don't regret it

[@wangyiming3341]

THANK YOU SO MUCH MAN. YOUR VIDEO INSPIRED ME SO MUCH BLESS YOU

[@mediocreburger2893]

*I'm just here tryna figure out wtf post bop is after seeing my spotify wrapped*

[@interpassivity]

listening to some BADBADNOTGOOD?

[@Streux]

Wonderful lesson and explanation! I learned a lot!

[@jemoff]

your're doing a great job making these videos. thanks a lot!

[@WalkThatBass]

Thanks, Jemoff. Appreciate the vote of confidence :)

[@johnpiettro4644]

Interesting! In your description of the video you mentioned Mainstream. That's a very interesting term in itself, isn't it? To the best of my knowledge the first mentioning of Mainstream referred to Jazz musicians of the 1950-s who were direct descendants from Swind era Big Bands and who didn't progress into new idioms such as Bop or Cool. To name just a few musicians of then 'Mainstream' as far as I know it included Buck Clayton, Coleman Hawkins, Harry Sweets Edison, Benny Carter and other seasoned cats of the Swing era. SInce they stayed in their old style idiom and remained in it as they grew older the 'Mainstream' label could be presumably applied to them collectively however I think that is not overall correct. You correctly mentioned another meaning of the 'Mainstream' term by connecting it with the type of Jazz being accepted at any historic period by the majority of 'Jazz listeners'. I hope I'm correct on that either. However as far as I know the older 'Mainstream' heros of the Swing era almost completely lost their popularity in the 1960's. So in the 1960's we could possibly observe only one Mainstream style being based on Bop and being Post-Bop in effect. However as they say in the 1970's the older Swing-based Mainstream reemerged again with such figures as Scott Hamilton and Warren Vache to name just a few. So in the 1970's we could alredy have 2 types of Mainstream: the older Swing-based one and another one associated with Post-Bop. What is more interesting both styles can be implemented by small combos and have their distinct features obviously exposed. What do you think of that?

[@iagocatette]

this is a great channel!! congrats

[@lookwhoneedsahobbie]

Great video as always. unrelated, but are there any jazz history books you would recommend?

[@WalkThatBass]

Thanks :) I haven't gotten around to reading it yet (it's waiting patiently on my bookshelf) but I hear good things about 'Jazz' by Giddins & DeVeaux.

[@lookwhoneedsahobbie]

I'll check it out. Thanks! :)

[@elijahstepaniuk2223]

@@WalkThatBass have you gotten around to reading it yet?

[@darioferni6566]

I read that in USA only 2% of people listen Jazz. This should not surprise or worry. Since the modern Jazz emerged, this genre was no longer popular. It became music with greater richness and complexity that can only be tasted by a minority group of people, as with classical music. This may sound unfriendly to most, but this is so.

[@WalkThatBass]

Sad but true.

[@hiddenblade999]

I once saw a documentary on bebop which claimed that jazz was never a popular genre of music since the swing era dance halls. I've also heard interviews with Bill Evans where he discusses the nature of more prominent beats in rock/pop vs jazz which he describes as "more subtle," his point being that most people want music that they can dance to. I think this holds true. As American culture progressively favors the superficial, art and music with real depth continuously take a backseat to profitable, commercial music. Jazz grammys aren't even televised. However, here's the trade-off: commercial music is boring, pathetic, and rote. The only innovation in music is being pushed forward by true artists. I'm just discovering post-bop but holy shit, this music is so fresh and real. Imagine artists who play an instrument and aren't limited to auto-tune? What a concept!

[@WOWTODAZ]

i like it that your adidas jogging pants is corresponding with the piano keys

[@quisowens8025]

Literally explaining Wayne shorter personality

[@enudenud]

great video as always!!! i have a question though, what would be the harmonic analysis of such a postbop song? if you could make a video on the topic ill be very interested :) thanks again

[@WalkThatBass]

haha. Whoa. I might need a few beers before I attempt to answer that one...That is an incredibly difficult question. 'Traditional' Music Theory is not build to cope with these types of chords and progressions. - Is a Maj7b9 chord really still a Maj7 chord, even though it doesn't sound 'happy' like a major chord should? - How do you analyse a non-functional chord progression? Are the chords related to each other in any way or just independent entities? - How do you discuss scales or keys or tonal centres? Do these ideas even apply? - Should we consider the bass line, melody and chord progression independently or together? I plan to raise these issues in a future video on non-diatonic chord progressions, but answering them concretely is a whole other thing. You need to use more contemporary 'post-tonal' music theory like set theory and transformational theory and Neo-Riemannian theory - all of which is pretty abstract... Maybe I'll do a video on some of these at some stage in the future, but there's still a lot of 'standard' music theory and jazz stuff I want to cover first. I'll keep it in the back of my mind though, and see what I can think of :) Apologies for the long non-answer - but some questions are just inherently hard to answer - 'what is the meaning of life?'

[@BrunoWiebelt]

thank you short consisted explanation ! I like that

[@originaljazzgirl]

Really well done

[@Heller86]

I recommand Andrew Hill for good piano-centered post-bop :-) (at least the earlier albums, e.g. Black Fire)

[@WalkThatBass]

Seconded. And, of course, the classic Point of Departure album.

[@Heller86]

It depends on what you're looking for. On Point of Departure he moved more towards group arrangements, having two horns in his lineuo; whereas in Black Fire there's only a saxophone which plays the melody straight and Hill's piano does 100% of the harmony etc so if you want to focus on piano, that's where it's at. Listen to Subterfuge from Black Fire, if I remember right he doesn't even have the saxophone playing on that one, and it's such a killer tune.

[@user-iv5wn1su4c]

7:25. I Think post bop still using functional harmony. It use both of them

[@ThomasHope73]

Love it!

[@nitaigauranga3849]

good lesson thanks

[@WalkThatBass]

No worries :)

[@firelioness363]

Man you must have a second set of ears cause you have to listen seriously as well as appreciate all that stylized rhythm and poly rhythms...that's creativity and don't forget call and response...👍....good stuff...

[@robdarimartin]

Muy bueno, gracias.

[@damoncook383]

Awesome video

[@user-iv5wn1su4c]

ok.. modal is right here.. thanks

[@TheBassMan533]

Also known as "weird chords". Lol

[@sethjohnston2331]

Any idea where I can find a good post bop backing track? As a Saxophone player in a town where nothing happens it's nearly impossible for me to find other folk interested in Jazz alone, therefore I end up either using Quist's stuff or IrealPro... which is good n all, for regular Jazz... if you have any recommendations I would be eternally thankful!

[@sirdavidalot]

Search for Jamie Aerbersold. Should be hundreds of play-alongs

[@toodietoodieomg]

have you got any examples of songs using the whole tone scale as its base scale?

[@WalkThatBass]

Yep. I will make a lesson on that at some stage in the future but for the moment check out: - 'One Down, One Up' by Coltrane - The first half of 'Juju' by Wayne Shorter

[@vikgrig8015]

What albums would you recommend?

[@flectoz]

Are there some minims missing dots or some bars missing 3/4, or something else going on in the transcription that I'm not understanding?

[@WalkThatBass]

Yeah, fill in the missing dots. The dots either aren't visible or just got lost somewhere.

[@normanspurgeon5324]

Each musician is attempting to make a product out of his own command of the materials, which are scales, chords, etc. I don't see any congregation around "movements", which would imply some sort of organizing force. Musicians relate 1st and last to the audience- I don't believe that any musician sees himself in these categories. There is no unification among artists- they are each independent. I can see the necessity to label such players as Sam Rivers or Ornette Coleman as free players- Each player is only true to their craft, their abilities, and their audience, not to any category.

[@A.ChristopherJohnson]

Hard Bop & Post-Bop are almost synonymous bro, , it's not "weird" my man, Black Codes is considered Post-Bop, & is in the Library of Congress, & swings hard af, just like Hard Bop my dude !!!

[@monsieurshade4104]

Centrist jazz

[@luigicapola9373]

what avant garde means ? yku

[@WalkThatBass]

Hi, It means experimental music (music that is unusual or new). :)

[@luigicapola9373]

Walk That Bass tku so much

[@luigicapola9373]

tku again for your answer.

[@cemardayakut3486]

Great explaining but... Please stop calling instrumental pieces as song.

[@mariasoleada2337]

You might have played the piano more or played clips of recorded audio files to help use connect your message to real musical examples ... and done .... s l o w l y so we can see what is happening on the keyboard, small screen ipad, slow down he keyboard actions, thanks

[@Darmonia1]

A lot of talking but not so much playing. Too bad

[@popwittenino7411]

WIERD has a very negative connotation. If you want to analyse post bop as a sort of jazz from an objective standpoint it might be better not to use the word.

[@WalkThatBass]

Noted. For the purposes of this video consider it a synonym for 'unusual' or 'non-traditional'. Something can be weird without being bad. I think we should reclaim the word.

[@Munenushi]

If I may, he did say/mean "awkward" a couple times I think - that is, he meant the concept of 'non-standard' - at least, in the realm of music from this geographical region/time. Perhaps it can be suggested that he say "non-standard" or "awkward" in the future, but I think he did a good job expressing the concept, regardless Take care ~M