Babs Gonzales – Bips and Bops | Cool Scat from a Cool Cat

The introduction of bebop to the musical melting pot that was the jazz scene of the 1940s brought about a revolution in the way that genre of music presented itself to the public. A new school of young musicians turned the traditional form of jazz on its head and brought about a new way of presenting songs without words that would itself evolve into the vocalese of the likes of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Eddie Heywood and King Pleasure.
• The pioneer of this style – on record, at least, was Babs Gonzales who, with a few like-minded souls, created a vocal bebop where wordless singing gave voice to the kind of sounds that Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and others were creating instrumentally.
• On this new Jasmine collection, you can hear the evolution of this then-unique concept as it took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with Babs and his vocal cohorts supported instrumentally by some of the key musicians of the emerging
bebop scene.
• The titles might not always make much sense – but the music does, and it’s easy to see why this new style gripped the imagination of a new generation of jazz fans in the same way that rock ‘n’ roll would capture the imagination of a 1950s young America who were bored with traditional pop music.
• Babs would eventually go on to pioneer his own style of ‘rapping’ that would be the start of the road to hip hop. That’s another saga for another CD – but here Jasmine brings you more than two dozen examples of the work of the man who made vocalese sound easy, in chronological order and in the best sound of any Gonzales anthology so far.

Track Listing

1. OOP-POP-A-DA - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
2. STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
3. LOP-POW - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
4. PAY DEM DUES - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
5. DOB-BLA-BLI - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
6. BABS’ DREAM - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
7. 1280 SPECIAL - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
8. EVERYTHING IS COOL - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
9. PHIPPS’ DEEP - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
10. ROY’S GROOVE - Babs’ Three Bips And A Bop
11. LOOP-PLU-E-DU - Six Bips And A Bop
12. HONEYSUCKLE BOP - Six Bips And A Bop
13. A LESSON ON BOPOLOGY - Six Bips And A Bop
14. A CHOICE TASTE - Six Bips And A Bop
15. PROFESSOR BOP - Babs Gonzales and his Orchestra
16. CAPITOLIZING - Babs Gonzales and his Orchestra
17. ST LOUIS BLUES - Babs Gonzales and his Orchestra
18. REAL CRAZY - Babs Gonzales and his Orchestra
19. THEN YOU’LL BE BOPPIN’ TOO - Babs Gonzales and his Orchestra
20. SUGAR RAY - Babs Gonzales and his International Jazz Men
21. COOL WHALIN’ - Babs Gonzales and his International Jazz Men
22. GET OUT THAT BED - Babs Gonzales
23. THE BOSS IS BACK (Ornithology) - Babs Gonzales
24. STILL WAILIN - Babs Gonzales
25. SHUCKIN’ AND JIVIN’ - Babs Gonzales
26. BE BOP SANTA CLAUS - Babs Gonzales
27. HOUSE RENT PARTY - Babs Gonzales
28. SHE’S JUST RIGHT FOR ME - Babs Gonzales