"Formulaic" Hard Bop/Blue Note ...

[Larry Kart]

My real point in all this, though was a simple one - the music(s) under discussion here are at root languages. So of course there's going to be formulas, and patterns, and all that stuff, just as in any language, and no, nobody will say "stop me if you've heard this one before", because even if you have (and of course, you more than likely have, nobody even thinks about saying that if they're certain of their originality, they just say it and let you get to it when and how you can, if you can), they're hoping that you'd like to hear it again (at least from them), and reality proves that they are not completely off-base in that hope.

No, music is not quite a language in the way that verbal languages are (as I've tried to explain above -- assuming I know what I'm talking about).

About your "We can hear something we've never heard before and understand it right away, no codification involved.

Then as more people get hold of it and use it to represent at least as much as to present, it gets codified" -- focusing on your "as more people get hold of it and use it to represent at least as much as to present" (which fits some but certainly not all of what happens; there'd be, for one, no Ben Webster without Coleman Hawkins, but was Webster representing at least as much presenting? no way), our immediate understanding of something we've never heard before becomes over time, under circumstances that frequently occur, a different understanding. Think of codification not as finger-wagging but as an organic elaboration of what's potentially, often irresistibly there. I know, "codification" can be and has been both, but ... as that old commercial says, it's a life form AND a disease.

[BruceH]

Isn't it the nature of language to become codified over time?

Indeed, but much of this has to do with listening habits and past experiences. You, for example, have experience with "modern" big bands and color your opinions with that knowledge. On the other hand, many fans don't listen to that stuff as closely. One can listen to Kind of Blue from about 1000 directions and get different results - when does Cobb play sticks, and why. This sort of detail flies past folks without personal experience. There many levels of listening here.

Indeed. I'm just saying that anybody who listens to anything with attentiveness long enough will begin to recognize the codification aspect of whatever language it is that is being listened to. Whatever "emotion" one then brings into the mix upon this recognition is probably going/likely to be more variable than the music itself.

Myself, I think that "jaded" is an early phase, understandable, quite useful even, but one to be moved past if one is to be anything other than a dilettante or a thrill-seeker.

Hey, I'm a proud dilettante!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Isn't it the nature of language to become codified over time?

Surely language doesn't exist UNTIL it's codified.

MG

Not sure I agree with that...

Surely (and don't call me "Shirley") the truth lies somewhere in between -- that is, if we're talking about literal (spoken, then in most cases written-down) verbal languages. The most "expressive" (in itself) sound or series of would-be communicative sounds doesn't really work until others get and agree that that sound or series of sounds means whatever it means or is supposed to mean. In particular, such codification means that, say, what "take my chair" indicates doesn't depend that heavily on my "performance" of "take my chair." Now, if you're talking analogously, and want to bring into the tent other non-verbal languages, like music, their "languageness" is a good deal looser and different than that of verbal languages. We are, at least in my experience, prepared to deal with pleasure and interest with large swatches of music whose principles of order we don't readily detect. Nor is the language of any music that I'm aware of -- even the simplest, most direct, and most familiar -- as enclosed by the "this means that" process as is the case with verbal languages. Musical sounds can always be taken as "just sounds," while the sounds that make up words can always be understood as words, which accumulate into discourse, unless one consciously or inadvertently disguises those sounds, or one is not engaging in discourse (i.e. words are being used but one has no intent to shape them into sentences), or the auditor doesn't know the language.

I'm reminded BTW of the brutal running battle in language affairs between prescriptivists (that would be, among others, people who write usage guides and who say that there are right and wrong ways to use the language), and descriptivists (that would be most professional linguists, who say that there are no right and wrong usages, only usages -- e.g. "Descriptive grammar has nothing to do with telling people what they should say." "Languages are self-regulating systems that can be left to take care of themselves"). A wise man on the prescriptive side notes that no descriptivist linguist writes or publicly speaks other than in some version of standard English (or whatever language the linguist is using).

You're too damn good at this, Larry

MG

[blajay]

My real point in all this, though was a simple one - the music(s) under discussion here are at root languages. So of course there's going to be formulas, and patterns, and all that stuff, just as in any language, and no, nobody will say "stop me if you've heard this one before", because even if you have (and of course, you more than likely have, nobody even thinks about saying that if they're certain of their originality, they just say it and let you get to it when and how you can, if you can), they're hoping that you'd like to hear it again (at least from them), and reality proves that they are not completely off-base in that hope.

No, music is not quite a language in the way that verbal languages are (as I've tried to explain above -- assuming I know what I'm talking about).

About your "We can hear something we've never heard before and understand it right away, no codification involved.

Then as more people get hold of it and use it to represent at least as much as to present, it gets codified" -- focusing on your "as more people get hold of it and use it to represent at least as much as to present" (which fits some but certainly not all of what happens; there'd be, for one, no Ben Webster without Coleman Hawkins, but was Webster representing at least as much presenting? no way), our immediate understanding of something we've never heard before becomes over time, under circumstances that frequently occur, a different understanding. Think of codification not as finger-wagging but as an organic elaboration of what's potentially, often irresistibly [always already] there. I know, "codification" can be and has been both, but ... as that old commercial says, it's a life form AND a disease.

[BruceH]

I've been thinking about this topic for a while ... and the recent threads about BN recordings that aren't reaching some people anymore, or comments about the BN "formula" for recordings makes me think this is a good time to bring it up.

If hard bop recordings got overly formulaic, with a "Sidewinder" type number, maybe a gospel-inflected number, a couple of standards, a modernist original or two, can the same be said of swing recordings? I think of the things Norman Granz put out, and you could say that there was a similar formula at work, just with different ingredients.

So - is it possible to get "bored" by those records too? Why is it that it seems that more people need breaks from hard bop but no one says "I listened to a Ben Webster Verve yesterday and it just didn't reach me."

Is it all individual taste or is there some qualitative difference?

I don't know what the answer is but it does seem that there is a difference in response, for those whose listening encompasses both sub-genres. Dyed-in-the-wool hard boppers never tire of it, but it seems like for some who've enjoyed hard bop in the past end up needing a break or suddenly come to the realization, like Vic seemed to, that the music isn't as special as they thought.

Well, it seems very clear to me that "swing" jazz surely had its own set of formulas, and these hardened over time. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that ONE of the reasons that the classic swing era (1935-1945) ended, aside from some very important economic and social reasons, was that people were increasingly bored with a commercial formula that seemed spent, and they just wanted to move on. One of the reasons jazz musicians invented bebop was their rebellion against a big band swing orthodoxy that had come to seem like a straightjacket. Of course, in forging bop, they simply created a new formula, one that soon enough would seem more and more, well, FORMULAIC (in the pejorative sense) and so hardbop came along, which was very refreshing at first but soon became it's own formula, and so on, iterating up to now. (Always keeping in mind, naturally, that bop never really appealed to the large audience that swing had, but rather to a smaller, "hipper" audience and to other musicians.)

For myself, I've long found that I go through what I call "cycles" with some types of music. Periods of intense, almost constant listening (to swing, hardbop, whatever) then a saturation point is reached and I "give it a rest" for 6 months, a year, two years, whatever, during which I listen to other things for the most part. Then something causes my itch to listen to swing or hardbop to return, and I go back to the apogee of the listening cycle, often with an enriched appreciation. It's like crop rotation. Fields that were played out lie fallow for a while until they're fertile ground for listening again. Or something like that.

Although I've noticed this board over the last few years giving me the increasing urge to listen to EVERYTHING at once. But never mind that. You get the idea.

[papsrus]

Isn't it the nature of language to become codified over time?

Surely language doesn't exist UNTIL it's codified.

MG

Not sure I agree with that...

Surely (and don't call me "Shirley") the truth lies somewhere in between -- that is, if we're talking about literal (spoken, then in most cases written-down) verbal languages. The most "expressive" (in itself) sound or series of would-be communicative sounds doesn't really work until others get and agree that that sound or series of sounds means whatever it means or is supposed to mean. In particular, such codification means that, say, what "take my chair" indicates doesn't depend that heavily on my "performance" of "take my chair." Now, if you're talking analogously, and want to bring into the tent other non-verbal languages, like music, their "languageness" is a good deal looser and different than that of verbal languages. We are, at least in my experience, prepared to deal with pleasure and interest with large swatches of music whose principles of order we don't readily detect. Nor is the language of any music that I'm aware of -- even the simplest, most direct, and most familiar -- as enclosed by the "this means that" process as is the case with verbal languages. Musical sounds can always be taken as "just sounds," while the sounds that make up words can always be understood as words, which accumulate into discourse, unless one consciously or inadvertently disguises those sounds, or one is not engaging in discourse (i.e. words are being used but one has no intent to shape them into sentences), or the auditor doesn't know the language.

I'm reminded BTW of the brutal running battle in language affairs between prescriptivists (that would be, among others, people who write usage guides and who say that there are right and wrong ways to use the language), and descriptivists (that would be most professional linguists, who say that there are no right and wrong usages, only usages -- e.g. "Descriptive grammar has nothing to do with telling people what they should say." "Languages are self-regulating systems that can be left to take care of themselves"). A wise man on the prescriptive side notes that no descriptivist linguist writes or publicly speaks other than in some version of standard English (or whatever language the linguist is using).

Fascinating discussion.

How does one account for the less codified uses of language? I'm thinking of poetry, for instance, which can be studied intensively to extract its precise meaning. Or scat? Or how about primal screaming? (late-period Coltrane?). Or even the howling emanating from one of the 100 best vocalists of all time at rock 'n' roll concerts? The rules of language don't strictly apply, yet communication is achieved.

I guess I'm trying to sharpen the point that while rules and "codification" of languages are necessary, it's also necessary to break those rules. The English language itself, is a constantly evolving thing, is it not? The rules, in other words, are constantly changing.

[Neal Pomea]

If hard bop recordings got overly formulaic, with a "Sidewinder" type number, maybe a gospel-inflected number, a couple of standards, a modernist original or two, can the same be said of swing recordings?

"Recordings" in this context seems to mean albums, i.e. collections of songs on lp or cd, because you are talking about the sequence of songs in a collection. It seems like you are saying that hard bop albums were formulaic. What about swing? Well, swing was not recorded on albums in its heyday. Songs came out as singles mostly. So no, not forumlaic in the same sense.

[blajay]

For a brilliant discussion of all of the scope of this topic, I highly recommend Fred Moten's book In The Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition.

Be warned that it is extremely dense, full of theory, and largely written in a post-structuralist style. If you consider parts of George E. Lewis' book intellectual masturbation, then you will certainly not benefit from this. However, it is exactly about this topic, and if you come from a philosophy, rhetoric, or ethnomusicology background, you will be thrilled at its clever discoveries.

[Dan Gould]

If hard bop recordings got overly formulaic, with a "Sidewinder" type number, maybe a gospel-inflected number, a couple of standards, a modernist original or two, can the same be said of swing recordings?

"Recordings" in this context seems to mean albums, i.e. collections of songs on lp or cd, because you are talking about the sequence of songs in a collection. It seems like you are saying that hard bop albums were formulaic. What about swing? Well, swing was not recorded on albums in its heyday. Songs came out as singles mostly. So no, not forumlaic in the same sense.

I did make specific reference to the Verve LPs by swing stars like Webster and Hawkins, and that it seems to me that while there was a formula at work, that formula doesn't inspire some listeners to eventual boredom the way hard bop recordings seem to.

I thought the point made about "exuberance" vs "anger" was a pretty good one. Exuberance and good feelings may be easier to listen to on an ongoing basis.

[Dan Gould]

I really wish Lon would jump into this at some point, as he was the first guy I knew who dug the classic era of BNs and hard bop who eventually discovered that he liked less of it, particularly as he dug into the earlier eras and styles.

[blajay]

If hard bop recordings got overly formulaic, with a "Sidewinder" type number, maybe a gospel-inflected number, a couple of standards, a modernist original or two, can the same be said of swing recordings?

"Recordings" in this context seems to mean albums, i.e. collections of songs on lp or cd, because you are talking about the sequence of songs in a collection. It seems like you are saying that hard bop albums were formulaic. What about swing? Well, swing was not recorded on albums in its heyday. Songs came out as singles mostly. So no, not forumlaic in the same sense.

I did make specific reference to the Verve LPs by swing stars like Webster and Hawkins, and that it seems to me that while there was a formula at work, that formula doesn't inspire some listeners to eventual boredom the way hard bop recordings seem to.

I thought the point made about "exuberance" vs "anger" was a pretty good one. Exuberance and good feelings may be easier to listen to on an ongoing basis.

You mean exuberance vs. aggression, not anger. Important distinction. It is overly simplistic to say Swing=good feelings and Hard Bop=anger. You can feel "good" listening to both styles, regardless of exuberance or aggression.

[Big Beat Steve]

If hard bop recordings got overly formulaic, with a "Sidewinder" type number, maybe a gospel-inflected number, a couple of standards, a modernist original or two, can the same be said of swing recordings?

"Recordings" in this context seems to mean albums, i.e. collections of songs on lp or cd, because you are talking about the sequence of songs in a collection. It seems like you are saying that hard bop albums were formulaic. What about swing? Well, swing was not recorded on albums in its heyday. Songs came out as singles mostly. So no, not formulaic in the same sense.

Not formulaic in the same sense - no, but formulaic insofar as a certain (completist?) species of collectors has been complaining ever so often about those 78 rpm-era recordings being rather repetitive when listened to today (remember that recent Slim & Slam discussion in another subforum here? Same for many early 20s or 30s blues recordings). Technically speaking and on superficial listening this may be so, but after all those recordings were NOT meant to b elistened to in a chronological run over 2 or 3 entire CDs. They were issued two (fromt and flip) sides at a time over a more or less longish span of time. That makes the listening experience quite different.

Not so with albums. This can be rather formulaic in its own way right from the outset if you stick to the same type of programming such as described above.

But again - could it be that the "feel" or the "message" of the music also is a key factor in making you tire of it or not? Some hard bop just is more demanding to lisen to than swing, and if on top of this the "angry young men of jazz" overtones (that I feel exist in some - though certainly not all - hard bop recordings) are perceived exactly as such by some listeners then you can only take so much of that. But will you tire just as easily of swing-era (or post-swing era mainstream jazz) recordings that certainly never tried to express such anger but rather more joyful vibes?

Just wondering ...

BTW, getting back to the 78 rpm era recordings again, what I said above is why I sometimes do feel slightly underwhelmed by those completist reissues and don't always find strictly chronological programming of the reissues such a great idea. It just might make you tire of that music more rapidly too.

In fact there are LP reissues of some 78-rpm era artists or orchestras that I feel to be rather more rewarding to listen to than many of those strictly chronological A and B-side completist reissues because those LPs are only in very rough chronological order and apparently were compiled with more emphasis on coming up with a sequence of tracks that is interesting to listen to.

[Big Beat Steve]

@zanonesdelpueblo:

I see you picked up that "exuberance" vs. "aggression"/"anger" comparison I made earlier in that discussion (and in my latest statement again).

To get this straight: Of course I am not equalling Hard Bop with aggression but a certain kind of its output just might be perceived easier that way than a lot of swing-style jazz will ever be.

And there is a limit of how much anger or aggression or whatever on that level you can take.

I know there are a lot of people out there who'd never dig R&B sax men or Illinois Jacquet's JATP sax antics the way I do (when I feel like it) because they find it just monotonous honking. Technically speaking it probably is but to me it conveys sheer excitement and exuberance and you can picture yourself in a crowd that just goes wild to the music and you ... just let yourself go.

On the other hand, while I do enjoy listening to a lot of Hard Bop horn men too there is a kind of Hard Bop where from a certain moment you just ask yourself "How much more of your anger or aggression (or whatever) do you want to belt out?" No doubt to the musicians it was a sincere way of expressing their feelings at that moment, but as a listener (especially as a listener TODAY) you can and want to take only so much of it and you feel it's all been said so it becomes formulair and repetitive to your ears too.

See what I mean?

(BTW - @all, and because I can sense that question coming up, please don't ask me to name specific examples. I can tell when I hear it - but most of the Miles Davis Quintet's music from the 50s Prestige era, for example, does NOT fall into that category, simply for Miles' playing).

[Larry Kart]

Isn't it the nature of language to become codified over time?

Surely language doesn't exist UNTIL it's codified.

MG

Not sure I agree with that...

Surely (and don't call me "Shirley") the truth lies somewhere in between -- that is, if we're talking about literal (spoken, then in most cases written-down) verbal languages. The most "expressive" (in itself) sound or series of would-be communicative sounds doesn't really work until others get and agree that that sound or series of sounds means whatever it means or is supposed to mean. In particular, such codification means that, say, what "take my chair" indicates doesn't depend that heavily on my "performance" of "take my chair." Now, if you're talking analogously, and want to bring into the tent other non-verbal languages, like music, their "languageness" is a good deal looser and different than that of verbal languages. We are, at least in my experience, prepared to deal with pleasure and interest with large swatches of music whose principles of order we don't readily detect. Nor is the language of any music that I'm aware of -- even the simplest, most direct, and most familiar -- as enclosed by the "this means that" process as is the case with verbal languages. Musical sounds can always be taken as "just sounds," while the sounds that make up words can always be understood as words, which accumulate into discourse, unless one consciously or inadvertently disguises those sounds, or one is not engaging in discourse (i.e. words are being used but one has no intent to shape them into sentences), or the auditor doesn't know the language.

I'm reminded BTW of the brutal running battle in language affairs between prescriptivists (that would be, among others, people who write usage guides and who say that there are right and wrong ways to use the language), and descriptivists (that would be most professional linguists, who say that there are no right and wrong usages, only usages -- e.g. "Descriptive grammar has nothing to do with telling people what they should say." "Languages are self-regulating systems that can be left to take care of themselves"). A wise man on the prescriptive side notes that no descriptivist linguist writes or publicly speaks other than in some version of standard English (or whatever language the linguist is using).

Fascinating discussion.

How does one account for the less codified uses of language? I'm thinking of poetry, for instance, which can be studied intensively to extract its precise meaning. Or scat? Or how about primal screaming? (late-period Coltrane?). Or even the howling emanating from one of the 100 best vocalists of all time at rock 'n' roll concerts? The rules of language don't strictly apply, yet communication is achieved.

I guess I'm trying to sharpen the point that while rules and "codification" of languages are necessary, it's also necessary to break those rules. The English language itself, is a constantly evolving thing, is it not? The rules, in other words, are constantly changing.

I would say that there two kinds of "broken" rules (though I don't like the term "rules" because it quite rightly puts so many peoples' backs up). If a broken rule (how about habit or formula?) is broken because someone has in effect proposed a new habit or formula that then is felt by the community (such as it is) to be coherent and useful, nothing really was broken, just changed. On the other hand, some people say that it's "necessary to break the rules" because they like to/need to break things, as in "destroy" them. And there is, I believe, such a thing as negative creation -- where, when the time is right, the outright destruction of a whole bunch of artistic habits that does nothing but destroy those habits is just what is needed, even though nothing comes from it other than the fact of bare, cleared ground.

As for poetry, I don't see where it's a less codified way of using language for any poet who's any good. It's just that every good poet is more likely to be using a "code" that's a good more personal than the codes that are being used by, say, good expository writers. The work of most good poets is more codified (as in "highly worked in a personal manner"), especially in terms of rhythm and sound, than the work of most expository writers; the nature of the medium (it's closeness to song, its tendency to communicate things that don't, or don't yet, fall within the bounds of rational discourse, etc.) seems to demand that.

[Dan Gould]

Good point Jay, I couldn't think of the word that had been used and went with "anger".

[JSngry]

No, music is not quite a language in the way that verbal languages are...

You are speaking for yourself, & I for me.

Actually, again, for me, verbal languages are a cheapening of the non-verbal languages (including music). These cheaper versions are certainly utilitarian and not without their own potential artfulness, but they inevitably give us a limited dimensionality that the non-verbal languages take over and run with as a matter of course.

Would I be happier in a world where nobody spoke or wrote "words", but communicated only through sight, gesture, touch, scent, and "non-verbal" sounds? To automatically assume yes might be a little too "Romantic", but to automatically assume no might bespeak to a cynicism rooted in a lack of imagination, or maybe just an inability to conceive of the abstract actually becoming/being specific, that the perceieved "limitation" is in fact mine.

"music is not quite a language in the way that verbal languages are". well. a sequoia is not quite a tree in the way that a bonsai is either. Let us not attempt to see justify the ultimately small scope of the verbal by using the strengths of its limitations to pretend that those strengths carry the day outside of their own immediate realm.

Because they do not. When it comes to fully conveying the infinite fullness of life, verbal languages are ultimately verylimited languages.

[Larry Kart]

No, music is not quite a language in the way that verbal languages are...

You are speaking for yourself, & I for me.

Actually, again, for me, verbal languages are a cheapening of the non-verbal languages (including music). These cheaper versions are certainly utilitarian and not without their own potential artfulness, but they inevitably give us a limited dimensionality that the non-verbal languages take over and run with as a matter of course.

Would I be happier in a world where nobody spoke or wrote "words", but communicated only through sight, gesture, touch, scent, and "non-verbal" sounds? To automatically assume yes might be a little too "Romantic", but to automatically assume no might bespeak to a cynicism rooted in a lack of imagination, or maybe just an inability to conceive of the abstract actually becoming/being specific, that the perceieved "limitation" is in fact mine.

"music is not quite a language in the way that verbal languages are". well. a sequoia is not quite a tree in the way that a bonsai is either. Let us not attempt to see justify the ultimately small scope of the verbal by using the strengths of its limitations to pretend that those strengths carry the day outside of their own immediate realm.

Because they do not. When it comes to fully conveying the infinite fullness of life, verbal languages are ultimately verylimited languages.

Just to be clear -- I'm not saying that music and other non-verbal languages are lesser languages than verbal languages, not at all; they're just different in some key respects. As for the "smaller," "very limited" scope of the verbal, I like your phrase the "strengths of its limitations," which gets right down to what I'm talking about, but think you underrate the reach of those strengths. If what can be said and understood in words is logically less than the infinite fullness of life -- because the universe includes all words and many more things besides -- I've yet to see that there's any conflict or contest, or even fundamental lack of contact, between the verbal and the non-verbal. Yes, there's the Tower of Babel, but the cosmic "all" really likes verbal language, I think, or at least finds it and our use of it to be touching/amusing; otherwise we wouldn't be allowed to proceed as we do.

[JSngry]

... the cosmic "all" really likes verbal language, I think, or at least finds it and our use of it to be touching/amusing; otherwise we wouldn't be allowed to proceed as we do.

...the cosmic "all" really likes verbal language because it's the best privacy guard that it has.

[JSngry]

Just to be clear -- I'm not saying that music and other non-verbal languages are lesser languages than verbal languages, not at all; they're just different in some key respects.

Indeed, but the appearance of "formula" through "codification" is not one of them, nor is the appearance of "cliche" in the eyes of certain beholders of these formulae.

Dig?

[Larry Kart]

Just to be clear -- I'm not saying that music and other non-verbal languages are lesser languages than verbal languages, not at all; they're just different in some key respects.

Indeed, but the appearance of "formula" through "codification" is not one of them, nor is the appearance of "cliche" in the eyes of certain beholders of these formulae.

Dig?

I'm not sure. If you think you're playing back to me something that I said, I don't recall saying anything like that.

[JSngry]

No, not doing anything like that, just pointing out that imo, my initial noting of music=language was of a piece with the initial premise/thrust of this thread, and then capping it off with a one-word (Dig?) example/summation of the whole invention/codification/formula/cliche evolution that was intended as a little bit of wryness, but was perhaps either too clever or not clever enough to make its intended point.

Too much talk!

[danasgoodstuff]

I find many swing or mainstream recordings (on Verve fer instance) to be evry bit as formulatic as any hard bop/BN. I'm pretty much a descriotive not prescritive guy on language. and I think verbal language has enriched nonverbal at least as much as the other way round...

[papsrus]

I'm pretty much a descriotive not prescritive guy on language.

[Victor Christensen]

I second most of the opinions, my own collection spans from Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Early Armstrong, all of Ellington and up to

Andrew Hill, Cecil Taylor, Vienna Art Orchestra and everything in between, so there is a variety, so I can always find something to listen to, depending on my mood.

Here is a little funny one from the new book about "Jazzhus Montmartre":

Ben Webster was playing one night, and Richard Boone sat in, and Ben was pissed off about Boone's playing, so in the middle of a tune, he turned(hand over mouth) and said very loudly "Boone, you have my telephone number. Boone said Yes of course I have it, then Ben said FORGET IT"

Vic

[ghost of miles]

What works for me is to listen to a variety of jazz styles. Though I am an avid fan of Hard Bop, I also listen to a lot of other styles as well. It is not uncommon for me to play a CD by Johnny Griffin followed by an Eddie Condon session followed by a Dave Brubeck album, followed by Johnny Hodges, followed by Jimmy Smith, followed by Buck Clayton, followed by Bill Evans, followed by Louis Armstrong, followed by Charlie Parker, etc.

That sort of listening prevents a sense of boredom with a particular formula associated with one style.

I do this as well. As far as hardbop goes, I've been listening more lately to 1970s hardbop--which may not seem all that different at first, but there are inflections and influences there that are somewhat different from 1950s/60s hardbop--at least, IMHO and all that.