bebop means an early form of modern jazz played by small groups and featuring driving rhythms and complex, often dissonant harmonies. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 73 out of 100.
bebop is pronounced /ˈbiːbɒp/.
Why “bebop” is a great word
BEBOP — [Noun] A style of modern jazz characterized by fast tempos, complex chord progressions, and improvisation based on harmonic structure. The word is an alteration of earlier 'rebop', nonsense syllables used in scat singing, imitative of the clipped, rhythmic phrasing of the music. First attested in the 1940s. Unlike "swing," which denotes a dance-oriented, big-band style built on steady, predictable rhythms, or "cool jazz," a later, more relaxed and arranged reaction with a subdued emotional tone, bebop is a complex, small-group art intended for cerebral listening. It is the flurry of notes cascading like shattered glass, the harmonic labyrinth navigated at breakneck speed, and the midnight smoke of a backroom club where the music turned inward—a revolution not of volume but of velocity, a coded language for those who chose to think, not move.
noun
- An early form of modern jazz played by small groups and featuring driving rhythms and complex, often dissonant harmonies.
verb
- To participate in bebop jazz, such as by dancing in a way associated with the genre.“Six months into their career, the Clash already showed themselves the equal of any rock band that had come before them, simply by assaulting the last frontier of rock mythology: the notion that the rock audience, like some sort of bebopping proletariat, was a receptacle of goodness and hope, and that rock 'n' roll offered redemption.”
- To walk in an easygoing, carefree manner.“Typically one could spot Chet bebopping down the sidewalk in an Amish hat, or hunched over a cafeteria table discussing Calvinism or the Vietnam war.”