PrepTest 94+, Section 3, Question 17
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 author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements about the originators of bebop?
Their music was promoted by the music industry with the same vigor as swing music had been earlier.
They repudiated the notion accepted by swing musicians that jazz was a form of popular entertainment.
They regarded themselves as professionals and accepted commercialism as a central element of their profession.
They were better off financially than they would have been had they played only swing music.
They believed that bebop would appeal to as wide an audience as swing did.
Explanations
The question asks which answer choice provides a description about bebop's originators that the author's likely to agree with.
This will probably be something the author explicitly says about the originators. I doubt I'll need to re-read, but in the event I need to, I know we discussed them in the first and fourth paragraphs.
Let's take a look.
Nah, I don't have evidence for this. I know nothing about how the industry promoted their music. Didn't read? Don't pick.
Nah, this is a trap. We know historians claim this, but we don't know if the originators believed this themselves.
Perfect—this is stated explicitly about them in the last paragraph. "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."
Nope. We have no proof of this. Didn't read? Don't pick!
Nah. Once more, with feeling: Didn't read? Don't pick!
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