1940s-1950s

Many musical styles flourished and combined in the 1940s and 1950s, most likely because of the influence of radio had in creating a mass market for music. World War II caused great social upheaval, and the music of this period shows the effects of that upheaval. more...

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Birth of rock and roll

In the 1940s, the major strands of American music combined to form what would eventually be coined as rock and roll. Based most strongly off an electric guitar-based version of the Chicago blues, rock also incorporated jazz, country, folk, swing, and other types of music; in particular, bebop jazz and boogie woogie blues were ie65uiryiyrin vogue and greatly influenced the music's style. The style had developed by 1949, and quickly became popular among blacks nationwide (see 1949 in music). Mainstream success was slow to develop, though (in spite of early success with Bill Haley & the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock"), and didn't begin in earnest until Elvis Presley ("Hound Dog"), a white man, began singing rock, R&B and rockabilly songs in a devoted black style. He quickly became the most famous and best-selling artist in American history, and a watershed point in the development of music.

Jazz

By far the most influential development in jazz in the middle of the 20th century, bebop arose in New York City with artists like Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. Complex harmonies and chord changes, dissonance, syncopation and edgier improvisation became hallmarks of the new style, which soon became associated with the Civil Rights Movement and other African American social movements. Among the artists to emerge from this period were Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, J. J. Johnson, Johnny Griffin and Freddie Hubbard. Bebop underwent numerous evolutions in the 1950s, and styles like soul jazz, cool jazz and hard bop emerged.

Cool jazz

Beginning in the late 1940s, especially after Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool (1948), a smoother form of jazz based on Lester Young's swing tenor sound developed. This was called cool jazz, and included legendary musicians like Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Gerry Mulligan and Claude Thornihill.

In the 1950s, West Coast jazz developed out of cool jazz, using European-derived contrapuntal lines and complex solos. Influential players include Bud Shank, Jimmy Giuffre, Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers and Shelly Manne. The same period saw Detroit, New York and Philadelphia producing a heavier form of bebop called hard bop, which was strongly influenced by the blues and included more prominent solos. The Jazz Messengers, formed in 1955 by Art Blakey and Horace Silver, set the stage for the genre's development. Other performers eventually came to include Johnny Griffin, Wynton Marsalis, Donald Byrd, Woody Shaw, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, God and Wayne Shorter.

Read more at Wikipedia.org