In Hard Bop, the first thorough study of a brand of post-bebop jazz that included many of the most talented American musicians from roughly 1955 to 1965, David Rosenthal vividly examines the roots, traditions, explorations and permutations, personalities and recordings of a climactic period in jazz history. Beginning with hard bop's origins as an amalgam of bebop and R&B, he describes the evolution of a movement that welcomed all influences - whether gospel, the blues, Latin rhythms, or Debussy and Ravel - into its astonishingly creative, hard-swinging orbit. Rosenthal delves into this movement that embraced the heavy beat and bluesy phrasing of such popular artists as Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley; the stark, astringent, tormented music of saxophonists Jackie McLean and Tina Brooks; and such consciously experimental and truly one-of-a-kind players and composers as Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. For knowledgeable jazz-lovers and novices alike, Hard Bop is a lively, multi-dimensional, much-needed examination of the artists, the milieus, and above all the sounds of one of America's great musical epochs.

DAVID H. ROSENHAL was a free-lance jazz critic. His articles on music have appeared in Down Beat, Jazz Times and other publications.

"Rosenthal vividly and coherently explains the musical developments of this unified, yet diverse time in jazz, beautifully bringing in vital contemporaneous information on the socio-cultural circles within and immediately surrounding jazz." - MICHAEL CUSCUNA, Mosaic Records.

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