Inside Jazz Inside Bebop

Critic Leonard Feather was one of the earliest and most persistent champions of bop. It was he who persuaded RCA Victor that the new music was worth recording. His Inside Jazz is a full-length account of bop: its origins and development and the personalities of the musicians who created it. Numerous photographs and anecdotes bring this innovative era in jazz history back to life once more.

Leonard Feather is one of the handful of indispensable jazz critics. His many books include From Satchmo to Miles, Inside Jazz, Laughter from the Hip (with Jack Tracy), and the Pleasures of Jazz, along with other works. Composer, pianist, record producer, critic, he remains a vital presence on the jazz scene.

A thorough technical explanation of bebop music with musical illustrations and biographies of musicians.

By 1940 the big band sound had grown stale, and jazz musicians began to search out new sounds and styles. At the Harlem nightclub Minton's Playhouse, a small group of musicians -- John Birks, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Beau Hawkins, and Thelonious Monk, among sounding blend of flatted fifths, unfamiliar chord lines, and accelerated offbeat rhythms. They were joined on 52nd Street by alto saxist Charles Bird Parker, and bop -- or bebop, as it was first called, from the triplet figure buh-BE-bop -- was born. Bop was aggressive, provocative, and belligerent, Its proponents wore gears and berets and refereed to the Dixieland and New Orleans diehards as moldy figs who in tureen labelled the new jazz the modern complex chord, and a new reperatory into jazz, and by the end of the forties the moldy figs were forced to concede that bop was indeed the harbinger of a new direction in American jazz. Critic Leonard Feather was one of the earliest and most persistent champions of bop. It was he who persuaded RCA Victor that the new music was worth recording. His Inside Jazz is a full-length account of bop: its origins and development and the personalities of the musicians who created it. Numerous photographs and anecdotes bring this innovative era in jazz history to life once more.

The richest place in America's musical landscape is that fertile ground occupied by jazz. Scott DeVeaux takes a central chapter in the history of jazz—the birth of bebop—and shows how our contemporary ideas of this uniquely American art form flow from that pivotal moment. At the same time, he provides an extraordinary view of the United States in the decades just prior to the civil rights movement. DeVeaux begins with an examination of the Swing Era, focusing particularly on the position of African American musicians. He highlights the role played by tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, a "progressive" committed to a vision in which black jazz musicians would find a place in the world commensurate with their skills. He then looks at the young musicians of the early 1940s, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, and links issues within the jazz world to other developments on the American scene, including the turmoil during World War II and the pervasive racism of the period. Throughout, DeVeaux places musicians within the context of their professional world, paying close attention to the challenges of making a living as well as of making good music. He shows that bebop was simultaneously an artistic movement, an ideological statement, and a commercial phenomenon. In drawing from the rich oral histories that a living tradition provides, DeVeaux's book resonates with the narratives of individual lives. While The Birth of Bebop is a study in American cultural history and a critical musical inquiry, it is also a fitting homage to bebop and to those who made it possible.

A fitting homage to bebop and to those who made it possible, DeVeaux shows that this uniquely American art form was simultaneously and artistic movement, an ideological statement, and a commercial phenomenon. Photos. 111 music examples.

Covering the vast and various terrain of African American music, this text begins with an account of the author's own musical experiences with family and friends on the South Side of Chicago. It goes on to explore the global influence and social relevance of African American music.