BEBOP STORY

knowledge. The titles have been carefully chosen and compiled, discographies are
accurate and complete. Great pains were taken over the technical quality, especially
when very old records were re-mastered.
Bebop was developed at the Harlem Club Minton’s Playhouse. Black musicians met
there to jam after they had finished their routine in a band. Tired of playing swing
standards, they were looking for new possibilities to express themselves in their
music. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were the key figures, attracting other
musicians. Pianist Thelonious Monk and drummer Kenny Clarke were there as a
rule because they were members of the house band. Among the musicians who
helped to lift jazz to new hights was pianist Bud Powell, who appeared at Minton’s
as a very young man, when he was just seventeen, for the first time. His playing
reminded admirers of the flowing melodies on Charlie Parker’s alto.
At first the music scene did not know what to make of the new, unfamiliar sound.
Not only jazz fans who had gotten used to the pleasant swing melodies seemed
to be scared. The big companies of the music industry did not dare to bring bop
musicians into the recording studios. All the important bebop recordings were at
first published under small labels such as Manor, DeLuxe, Dial, Savoy and Blue
Note. The new music was mainly disseminated via concerts and found a rapidly
growing crowd of fans. When bebop conquered Europe, the big music companies
finally saw their chance.
It is quite natural that the works of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker
dominate the recordings of the bebop era. Both can be heard on many titles
under their own names and as participants in live concerts. They often
performed with Jazz At The Philharmonic, organized by Norman Granz, and
played in the company of jazz greats such as Lester Young, Oscar Peterson,
Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge. The impresario Gene Norman also organized
bebop concerts and produced the recordings under his label Just Jazz. Many concerts
were recorded on the American Westcoast, featuring musicians like Chet Baker,
Gerry Mulligan and Wardell Gray.
First there were only black musicians experimenting in Minton’s Playhouse, but in
the course of time white musicians arrived, listened and picked up new harmonies
and tones. Musicians like Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn and Kai Winding became
protagonists of a white bebop, and many recordings demonstrate that all the
outstanding musicians speak the same language.
Peter Bölke
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