That's a VERY open-ended question.

If you're utterly unfamiliar with the style, a great place to start is with John Riley's series of books and CDs. Here's the first one:

The Art of Bop Drumming

And you'll need to do a LOT of listening to the style - if I remember correctly, the book includes suggestions for CDs you should listen to.

Good concept kohei.  I like that.    I learnt how to beebop by listening to that music alot!  Try some Pat Metheny as well!

There are guys who've been playing it for 50 years and are still asking this question. I second the reccomend for John Riley's book. It's a starting point.

You might already know this but here's something I think is important if you wanna learn to play jazz well.

Aside from mechanics of jazz playing, probably the biggest adjustment is to learn to play "behind the beat". It's almost as if you are stoned, and are playing a millisecond slower than being right on the beat.

NOTE: Playing "behind the beat" is something that can be difficult for some to learn so take your time and don't get frustrated if it takes some effort.

If you are accustomed to playing even 8ths/16ths etc right on the beat as a metronome would guide you to do, then you will need to make this adjustment to playing behind the beat in order to make a swing/blues tune feel good to those listening and playing w/you.

If for example,when playing a basic swing rhythm,the snare drops on the 2 and 4. Try to focus on playing the snare a millisecond late. Actually all limbs are playing behind the beat but when first learning I focused on the snare because to me it was a point of reference that I could hear easier in recordings of players who play this way.

I think this is the fundamental "feel" that makes good jazz sound the way it does. It's a looseness. Playing "behind the beat" can often sound better to most people even for rock and other idioms. If you are playing a real tight jazz fusion feel which requires snappy syncopation that needs to sync up with other instrumentation then playing "behind the beat" may not be ideal.

To me, if you can play behind the beat when appropriate it's a huge asset. The finest players IMO have developed that skill, especially in reference to various styles of jazz.

Once you learn to hear and feel "behind the beat" playing,you'll be critical of players when they lack that feel because it's really apparent.

If you like Bossa Nova/Samba feels,listen carefully to all the great stuff that Antonio Carlos Jobim did. The drummers play behind the beat. That's what is important to express the "ebb and flow" of the Bossa feel. The Bossa feel was inspired by the "ebb and flow" movement of the ocean. The bossa sounds UGLY played right on the beat. Playing bossas was what helped me learn to play behind the beat.

If not too daunting,try to play "behind the beat" from the getgo and lose the metronome at least at first. Many people,me included, think practicing w/a metronome when learning to play jazz can make you play too stiff.  Of course if your time feel is not already solid then well I guess use the metronome for awhile to get you grounded first.

Sorry for being so wordy.

Have fun! Playing jazz is addicting.

Yeah, I don't play much bop but when I do I never get yelled at for rushing.  I like it though.  We usually improvise on a theme and try to hit kicks together.  I really like fast jazz playing even though I'm not very good at it.  Any phrase you want to noodle on will work as long as it's swung and then it straightens out the faster you go  .

Behind the beat stuff to me is associated more with rock/ballads.  Subsequently 2007 I will probably revisit my jazz stylings- I really enjoy playing the stuff.

Regarding note placement as stated by AyotteTL (playing behind the beat, on top, etc.) I feel compelled to add my thoughts. First of all, playing behind or ahead of the beat is a very sophisticated and subtle technique that is seldom within the ability of a novice jazz player. I would respectfully disagree with the characterization of jazz as a whole or certainly bebop as being "behind the beat". As I was reading through this thread I just happened to be listening to a recording of Charlie Parker recorded live in 1950. Roy Haynes is so far ahead of the beat it's almost dangerous, verging on the edge of rushing. Roy is a master of the genre and knows how far he can push without going over that edge. I certainly would not encourage someone just learning the language of jazz to employ these techniques until he had a solid foundation and could understand and interpret intricate note placement accurately.
We should also note that not all be-bop music is played at fast tempos like those we associate with some of the classics like Ornithology, Salt Peanuts, Scrapple from the Apple etc. Be-Bop is a style not a tempo. Listen to some of the recordings and you will hear ballads and moderate tempo tunes as well.
In addition to the Riley book I would also suggest a lot of listening. Learn the tunes. Become conversant in the structure of the song and the feel the soloist imparts. When you are comfortable with knowing the song you will feel a lot more capable of adding your own voice to the ensemble.

Here's a list of Essential Jazz Standard CDs complete with the drummers name who played on the album. Check it out if you need some help with what albums to purchase or listen to. It's not an exhaustive list, just some essential albums that should be in every Jazz drummer's library.

I wouldn't characterize Tony or Elvin as "bop" drummers. Max, Roy, Stan Levey, Kenny Clarke, sure. But the sh*t had really opened up by the time you get to Elvin, Philly Joe, Shadow Wlilson etc. And then by the time you hit Tony, anything goes.

All the drummers mentioned so far are remarkably creative and had both the opportunity AND the ability to play a wide variety of music in a wide variety of situations. But stylistically bebop has some pretty specific things going on. And if what you want to do is "recreate" a specifically bebop feel, then you have to hit those benchmarks.

But most folks who play jazz aren't trying to recreate a performance, they're trying to create in the moment. And that performance is informed by pretty much every musical experience they (and you) have had up till that point. So even if you are playing DEWEY SQUARE, you are going to approach it from the standpoint of everything you've heard up to the point of downbeat. Rather than try to play an authentic recreation of something somebody else did.


Unless your last name is Marsalis....

Yeah but... In a recent interview in Modern Drummer Daduka Fonseca discussed the "Samba" feel. He described it as the ride cymbal and cross-stick/snare playing "on top" as they imitate the pandeiro, etc. The kick drum (imitating the surdo) tends to be rushed a little by North Americans, in his opinion, and we tend to interpret it as 16th notes, when he suggests it's closer to a 12/8 kind of feel. Now, he seems to be talking both about the RC/SD relative to the BD (a time relationship internal to the drummer/drum pattern), and about the drummer's position in time relative to other instruments in the groove.

In Bossa Nova, I agree, you can hear the drummers laying back a bit.  BUT, I think it's important to note that all of this implies an objective middle to the quarter note pulse rather than a relationship between the players in the band. That is, I don't suspect that the drummers were thinking "gee, I think I'll play on the back end of this one". Rather, they probably sussed out what felt best, and suited the needs of the style relative to the other musicians' concept of the groove and not an objective calculation of "perfect time". This relationship would change from ensemble to ensemble. Imagine a skipping rope pulled taut from both ends and compare that to two pieces of rope tied to a central stanchion. What I'm talking about is the former, not that latter.

This isn't to say that we all shouldn't learn to be able to interpret pulse in different ways. Even examining "time" in such a close way can open many doors in our playing leading to work on everything from metronomic time to interdependence, right down to the bare bones of technique - i.e. the rote physical motions that we use to strike objects. Heck, even equipment can effect time. I remember talking to one studio player about BD pedals, and he said he used different pedals depending on what feel he was looking for because the beater would land a little ahead or a little behind because of mechanics. And, I agree that it is important in some situations to be able to consciously manipulate the time feel. But we must remember that there isn't an objective standard for when to play behind or on top - it's about listening and reacting to what's happening to create a musical feel.

I wonder how much the supposed progenitors of "Bop" would resist our modern obsession with encycloperdic classification/genre-isation?