Hard bop was an extension of
bebop (bop) music which incorporated influences from
soul music,
gospel music, and
blues. It used slower tempi and more complicated harmonic structures than bop, and was in part intended to be more interesting to audiences. It also was probably, as
David H. Rosenthal contends in his book
Hard Bop, to a large degree the natural creation of a generation of black
American musicians who grew up at a time when bop and
rhythm and blues were the dominant forms of black American music. Its practitioners included
Art Blakey,
Clifford Brown,
Donald Byrd,
John Coltrane,
Lou Donaldson,
Miles Davis,
Kenny Drew,
Dexter Gordon,
Freddie Hubbard,
Jackie McLean,
Blue Mitchell,
Thelonious Monk,
Lee Morgan, and
Horace Silver.
The Hard Bop Homepage (http://members.tripod.com/~hardbop/)