PrepTest 94+, Section 3, Question 16
In typical accounts of the beginnings of bebop—the first "modern" jazz style, which was originated in the 1940s by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk, among others—commercialism plays an important, though indirect, role. By the early 1940s, according to these histories, jazz had reached an impasse. The reigning jazz style, swing, had become "threadbare," a "harmonic and melodic blind alley," a formulaic popular music undergoing "death by entropy," a "billion-dollar rut."
These metaphors, sampled from various writings on jazz, echo the "crisis theory" of twentieth-century European classical music. Classical music history textbooks commonly impute the eruptions of modernity in the early 1900s to classical music's stubborn failure to move beyond the language of tonality worn out from overuse in the nineteenth century. Something similar is implied about jazz in the early 1940s. Musicians' failure to extend jazz's rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic language in directions plainly indicated by the music itself built up pressure resulting in the eruption of a new musical modernism.
But phrases like "billion-dollar rut" clearly suggest that these writers believe that the real culprit is commercialism—the commingling of art and commerce that had for a time allowed swing to become both an authentic jazz expression and a national fad. Even after swing had run its course, the theory goes, the machinery of the popular music industry continued to prop up the "threadbare" idiom, seducing musicians into going through the motions long after they had any legitimate artistic reason to do so. In other words, mass-market capitalism was a logjam in the path of musical evolution that could be removed only by explosive force. Bebop provided that force. In this version of jazz history there is an implicit teleology to the progression from early jazz through swing to bebop: the gradual shedding of jazz's associations with dance, popular song, and entertainment. Bebop is the logical culmination of this process—in it jazz became "art," declaring its autonomy by severing forever its ties to commerce.
This insistence that bebop is anticommercial may suit the needs of contemporary jazz discourse, but it is a poor basis for historical inquiry. It idealizes the circumstances of artistic creation and represses the unpleasant reality that commercial relations permeate all realms of musical entertainment. For the musicians who originated bebop, mass-market capitalism was not a prison from which the true artist was duty-bound to escape, but a system of transactions defining music as a profession, thereby making their achievements possible. By 1945, Parker, Gillespie, and Monk had indeed willed a new musical subculture into being. But they were not trying to disengage from the "commercial" music world so much as to find a new point of engagement with it—one that would grant them a measure of autonomy and recognition.
In typical accounts of the beginnings of bebop—the first "modern" jazz style, which was originated in the 1940s by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk, among others—commercialism plays an important, though indirect, role. By the early 1940s, according to these histories, jazz had reached an impasse. The reigning jazz style, swing, had become "threadbare," a "harmonic and melodic blind alley," a formulaic popular music undergoing "death by entropy," a "billion-dollar rut."
These metaphors, sampled from various writings on jazz, echo the "crisis theory" of twentieth-century European classical music. Classical music history textbooks commonly impute the eruptions of modernity in the early 1900s to classical music's stubborn failure to move beyond the language of tonality worn out from overuse in the nineteenth century. Something similar is implied about jazz in the early 1940s. Musicians' failure to extend jazz's rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic language in directions plainly indicated by the music itself built up pressure resulting in the eruption of a new musical modernism.
But phrases like "billion-dollar rut" clearly suggest that these writers believe that the real culprit is commercialism—the commingling of art and commerce that had for a time allowed swing to become both an authentic jazz expression and a national fad. Even after swing had run its course, the theory goes, the machinery of the popular music industry continued to prop up the "threadbare" idiom, seducing musicians into going through the motions long after they had any legitimate artistic reason to do so. In other words, mass-market capitalism was a logjam in the path of musical evolution that could be removed only by explosive force. Bebop provided that force. In this version of jazz history there is an implicit teleology to the progression from early jazz through swing to bebop: the gradual shedding of jazz's associations with dance, popular song, and entertainment. Bebop is the logical culmination of this process—in it jazz became "art," declaring its autonomy by severing forever its ties to commerce.
This insistence that bebop is anticommercial may suit the needs of contemporary jazz discourse, but it is a poor basis for historical inquiry. It idealizes the circumstances of artistic creation and represses the unpleasant reality that commercial relations permeate all realms of musical entertainment. For the musicians who originated bebop, mass-market capitalism was not a prison from which the true artist was duty-bound to escape, but a system of transactions defining music as a profession, thereby making their achievements possible. By 1945, Parker, Gillespie, and Monk had indeed willed a new musical subculture into being. But they were not trying to disengage from the "commercial" music world so much as to find a new point of engagement with it—one that would grant them a measure of autonomy and recognition.
In typical accounts of the beginnings of bebop—the first "modern" jazz style, which was originated in the 1940s by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk, among others—commercialism plays an important, though indirect, role. By the early 1940s, according to these histories, jazz had reached an impasse. The reigning jazz style, swing, had become "threadbare," a "harmonic and melodic blind alley," a formulaic popular music undergoing "death by entropy," a "billion-dollar rut."
These metaphors, sampled from various writings on jazz, echo the "crisis theory" of twentieth-century European classical music. Classical music history textbooks commonly impute the eruptions of modernity in the early 1900s to classical music's stubborn failure to move beyond the language of tonality worn out from overuse in the nineteenth century. Something similar is implied about jazz in the early 1940s. Musicians' failure to extend jazz's rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic language in directions plainly indicated by the music itself built up pressure resulting in the eruption of a new musical modernism.
But phrases like "billion-dollar rut" clearly suggest that these writers believe that the real culprit is commercialism—the commingling of art and commerce that had for a time allowed swing to become both an authentic jazz expression and a national fad. Even after swing had run its course, the theory goes, the machinery of the popular music industry continued to prop up the "threadbare" idiom, seducing musicians into going through the motions long after they had any legitimate artistic reason to do so. In other words, mass-market capitalism was a logjam in the path of musical evolution that could be removed only by explosive force. Bebop provided that force. In this version of jazz history there is an implicit teleology to the progression from early jazz through swing to bebop: the gradual shedding of jazz's associations with dance, popular song, and entertainment. Bebop is the logical culmination of this process—in it jazz became "art," declaring its autonomy by severing forever its ties to commerce.
This insistence that bebop is anticommercial may suit the needs of contemporary jazz discourse, but it is a poor basis for historical inquiry. It idealizes the circumstances of artistic creation and represses the unpleasant reality that commercial relations permeate all realms of musical entertainment. For the musicians who originated bebop, mass-market capitalism was not a prison from which the true artist was duty-bound to escape, but a system of transactions defining music as a profession, thereby making their achievements possible. By 1945, Parker, Gillespie, and Monk had indeed willed a new musical subculture into being. But they were not trying to disengage from the "commercial" music world so much as to find a new point of engagement with it—one that would grant them a measure of autonomy and recognition.
In typical accounts of the beginnings of bebop—the first "modern" jazz style, which was originated in the 1940s by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk, among others—commercialism plays an important, though indirect, role. By the early 1940s, according to these histories, jazz had reached an impasse. The reigning jazz style, swing, had become "threadbare," a "harmonic and melodic blind alley," a formulaic popular music undergoing "death by entropy," a "billion-dollar rut."
These metaphors, sampled from various writings on jazz, echo the "crisis theory" of twentieth-century European classical music. Classical music history textbooks commonly impute the eruptions of modernity in the early 1900s to classical music's stubborn failure to move beyond the language of tonality worn out from overuse in the nineteenth century. Something similar is implied about jazz in the early 1940s. Musicians' failure to extend jazz's rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic language in directions plainly indicated by the music itself built up pressure resulting in the eruption of a new musical modernism.
But phrases like "billion-dollar rut" clearly suggest that these writers believe that the real culprit is commercialism—the commingling of art and commerce that had for a time allowed swing to become both an authentic jazz expression and a national fad. Even after swing had run its course, the theory goes, the machinery of the popular music industry continued to prop up the "threadbare" idiom, seducing musicians into going through the motions long after they had any legitimate artistic reason to do so. In other words, mass-market capitalism was a logjam in the path of musical evolution that could be removed only by explosive force. Bebop provided that force. In this version of jazz history there is an implicit teleology to the progression from early jazz through swing to bebop: the gradual shedding of jazz's associations with dance, popular song, and entertainment. Bebop is the logical culmination of this process—in it jazz became "art," declaring its autonomy by severing forever its ties to commerce.
This insistence that bebop is anticommercial may suit the needs of contemporary jazz discourse, but it is a poor basis for historical inquiry. It idealizes the circumstances of artistic creation and represses the unpleasant reality that commercial relations permeate all realms of musical entertainment. For the musicians who originated bebop, mass-market capitalism was not a prison from which the true artist was duty-bound to escape, but a system of transactions defining music as a profession, thereby making their achievements possible. By 1945, Parker, Gillespie, and Monk had indeed willed a new musical subculture into being. But they were not trying to disengage from the "commercial" music world so much as to find a new point of engagement with it—one that would grant them a measure of autonomy and recognition.
The primary purpose of the reference to eruptions of modernity in classical music in the early 1900s (second sentence of the second paragraph) is to
provide evidence that undermines the typical accounts of the origins of bebop by suggesting that factors other than commercialism were at play
outline a theory of classical music history that the author claims is parallel to the typical accounts of the origins of bebop
suggest that typical accounts of the origins of bebop are based on an inaccurate understanding of the history of twentieth-century music in general
describe a movement in classical music that was part of the impetus behind the transition from swing to bebop in jazz
provide an example of a modernist movement in classical music that was motivated at least in part by commercial considerations
Explanations
The question asks us the primary purpose of the author's reference to "eruptions of modernity" in early 1900s classical music.
The author makes this reference to analogize what happened with swing music to what happened with 1900s European classical music. Both were in a sort of rut that created the conditions for a paradigm shift in music.
Let's go find it.
Not even close. This reference wasn't to undermine typical accounts. It was to analogize historical trends.
Bingo. The author was drawing a parallel between 1900s classical music and 1940s swing music's evolution to bebop.
No. The first half of this accurately describes something the author does throughout the rest of the passage, but the second half mischaracterizes the role of this particular reference.
Nope. The author isn't trying to say that 1900s European classical music was the catalyst behind the overall changes from swing to bebop.
No. If anything, the passage supports the idea that 1900s classical music evolved along artistic lines, not in response to commercialism.
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