Bebop Blues

Bebop Blues is the twelve-bar blues transformed by bebop: fast tempos, altered chords, chromatic lines, substitute changes and compact heads designed for improvisers. It rarely sounds like rural blues, but the blues form remains the frame that lets players test harmonic ideas in a familiar structure. The style is essential because many jazz musicians first learn to improvise by playing bebop blues heads.

Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and their peers kept blues forms at the center of bebop even while changing the language around them. Tunes such as "Now's the Time," "Billie's Bounce," "Birk's Works" and "Straight, No Chaser" proved that modern jazz could be intellectually advanced and still rooted in blues structure. Later players used these heads as common ground in jam sessions and teaching studios.