Bebop: Modern Author(s): Peter Rutkoff and William Scott Source: The Kenyon Review, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring, 1996), pp. 91-121 Published by: Kenyon College Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4337359 Accessed: 10/01/2009 22:03

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http://www.jstor.org PETER RUTKOFF WILLIAMSCOlT

BEBOP: MODERN NEW YORK JAZZ

from NEW YORKMODERN: THE ARTSAND THE CITY

O N November 26, 1945, six young African-Americansentered the recordingstudios of radio station WOR in New York., artists and repertoireman for , had engaged Charlie Parkerand his Beboppersfor the session. Parker'sgroup, the first that he directed,had played togetherfor barelya month,performing at the Spotlight, one of Fifty-secondStreet's many jazz bars, in the eveningsbefore moving to Minton's,a musicians'after-hours club in Harlem.' Savoy paid two hundreddollars for the studio time and Parkerearned threehundred dollars for the four compositions.2The second cut recordedthat day, "Ko-Ko,"whose jagged Parkerconstructed over the harmonic structureof anothertune, "Cherokee,"would become Parker'sgreat contribu- tion to the bebop revolution.Energetic, sometimes frantic, and bluesy,bebop's incendiarystyle, pulsing ,and intensity contrastedwith the melodic, linear,and commercialqualities of swing. Yet the innovatorsof bop schooled themselvesin the jazz of the , and as they pushedswing to its limits they discovereda new , one which they could begin to call their own. Parker'sgroup began the firsttake of "Ko-Ko"with a tight andfast chase betweenParker's and 's ;the taut harmonic statementwould become a hallmarkof bebop expression.After the opening eight bars, even as the group maintainedits breakneckspeed, the musicians driftedback, as if by habit,to the originalmelody of "Cherokee"that Parker had been determinedto leave behind.After less than forty secondsParker lowered his mouthpiece,clapped his hands,whistled, and said, "Hey,hey. Hold it."3 Whenthey resumed,they clearlyconformed to Parker'svision. In placeof the danceableand melodicallystraightforward "Cherokee," they playedbebop. The harmoniccomplexity, rhythmic drive, and above all the improvisational

9I 92 THE KENYON REVIEW gestures of "Ko-Ko,"built on Parker's mastery of the , distinguished it from its swing predecessor.In the space of a few moments Parker's group grasped the difference between swing and bop, creating a new form of Americanjazz. , then only nineteen, joined fellow trumpetplayer Dizzy Gillespie,bassist , drummer ,pianist Argonne Thorn- ton, and Parkerin the historic session. Davis, however, found the opening section of "Ko-Ko"so dauntingthat he let Gillespie, who had been playing trumpetprofessionally for almost a decade, play in unison with Parker'salto saxophone.4 Gillespie'sand Parker's opening section burstfrom their instruments with controlledtightness and precision. The staccatonotes pushedforward, each one a sound in its own space, each separatefrom the next. Passingthe theme back and forththe playersresumed for a last measure,and thenpaused. The opening statementof "Ko-Ko"hid the innovativestyle of drummerMax Roach, who, along with KennyClarke, had begunto redefinethe jazz percussion,preferring to keep time with the cymbal,leaving the bass drumfree to accent irregularly. The Parker-Gillespieintroduction only hinted at Parker'sreformulation of modernjazz.5 Davis explained,"Bird was a fast motherfucker."Parker's solo became legendaryfor its intensityand its facility, and remarkablefor its combination of and lyricism.6In two minutes Parkerexplored every aspect of his alto's range.One momentscreeching as Parkerstretched to reachone note from inside the precedingone, anothersoaring melodicallythrough the notes of a chordprogression insinuated by the 's occasionalremnants of the original tune, Parkerplayed one of the "greatestsolos in the historyof jazz."7Based on a combinationof multiple key signaturescoexisting in a single, unified, yet, improvisedand finally linear melodic statement,Parker's work in "Ko- Ko" pushedmodern jazz towardatonality. As he careenedthrough the song's complex "labyrinth,"Parker created a "showpiece"and a masterpiece.8 As Parkerworked his way throughthe recording,his playing became both more complex and more lyrical. He moved his alto up and down the pathwaysof each phrase,creating a fluiditythat unitedharmonic and rhythmic experimentation.In contrastto the hard-edgedopening and closing sections of "Ko-Ko,"Parker and Gillespie, with close and tightly controlledmusical punches,first in unison,then in solo and once againin unison,played a swirl of almostpure abstraction. The atmosphericsof "Ko-Ko,"its color andmovement, its design and mood, becameits content.Yet, despiteParker's ferocious speed and virtuosity,the roots of "Ko-Ko"lay in the blues, reachingback to the "tragicaccent" reminiscent of .9 In contrast,in the midstof an inventiveriff, as his alto movedin andout of an almostperceptively recognized melodic figure,Parker disclosed the tune of "Teafor Two"imbedded in the patternof his musicalideas. That remnant served as pun andevidence, a displayof a realitythat Parker's invention had displaced, PETERRUTKOFF and WILLIAMSCOYT 93 a reminderthat a representationalworld lay just beyondhis music'sabstraction. In the fall of 1945, CharlesParker, age twenty-six,broke into a parallelrealm of musicalabstraction. Framed by the chordalharmonic structure of "Cherokee," Parker'scomposition "Ko-Ko" centered on new jazz ideas. The suggestionof "Teafor Two," however, attractedattention and demandedexplanation. Jazz musicians,Parker included, had played this commercialsnippet for a decade as they elaboratedthe harmonicstructure of "Cherokee."Parker acknowledged the song's short, but importanthistory, and revealedthe extent to which the apparentsudden revolution of bebop was simultaneouslya painstakingprocess of musical innovation.It also implied a social world beyondjazz. Previously Parker and other African-Americanmusicians played and composedjazz only to have white musiciansclaim creditand financialrewards throughthe processof "covering."With bebop, Parker and his groupcreated a form of jazz they regardedas uncoverable.In "Ko-Ko,"Parker used the pasted scrapof "Teafor Two"to tauntthe white dominatedmusic business."Ko-Ko" had begun, here, with laughter,moved to derision,and culminatedin anger. Parkersought to sabotageTin Pan Alley with his virtuosoperformance and inimical composition. The shortphrase from popularmusic's most easily recognizedtune also served as an ironic to a shift in the politics of the music business. Frommid-1942 to 1944 a ban on recordinghad left jazz performerswithout a mass audience.Denied access to recordingand radio,jazz musiciansscratched out livings, playing in small clubs and for each other. The emergence of bebop was, in part, a consequence of the commercialexile of jazz during World WarII. The curious of "Ko-Ko"reminded audiences and promotersthat things had changed. Parkerleft standingonly a fragmentof jazz's past. In revolutionizingthe form of modem jazz, Parkerand others threatenedto revolutionizethe business of jazz, liberatingit from commer- cial entertainmentand establishingit as art, controlledand defined neither by popular-tastecommercial producers,but by its artists, most of whom were black. Parkerclosed "Ko-Ko"with the structureit opened with, the pushing trumpet-altorestatement of the "Cherokee"-derivedtheme. He broughtthe tune back to its immediatehistorical roots, acknowledgingits jazz heritage. Long considereda "mystery"session, the Savoy recordingof "Ko-Ko," which Gillespie regardedas "just perfect, man," revealed how innovatively challengingthe musiciansjudged the piece. Davis, still in awe of Parker, knew that he couldn'thandle the opening section, and he realizedthat Parker knew it as well. "I wasn't ready for the tempo,"he said, "it's the damndest introductionI ever heardin my life."10Bebop's requirementof extraordinary virtuosity,both tempo and technique,represented yet anotherbarrier against expropriation.That Gillespie slipped into the pianist'sslot later,feeding Parker the harmonicoutlines of his solo, testifiedto his musicianship.Parker's genius for improvisationalspontaneity found in Gillespie a thoughtfuljazz performer. 94 THE KENYON REVIEW

As Gillespie recalled, "Yardand I were like two peas. We played all our regularshit."" JohnBerks Gillespie, called Dizzy because,it was said, he was "dizzyas a fox," understoodthe significanceof the bebop revolution."Our music," he wrote, "emergedfrom the war years-the Second WorldWar, and it reflected these times... fast and furious."The sheer speed of bop, which intimidated the otherwisearrogant Davis, who hadjust declaredthat Juilliardhad nothing moreto teachhim, was a breathless,even desperateattempt to createsomething unique,inimical. "Sometimes," Gillespie continued, "when you know the laws you can break them."'2 The economiclaws of the recordbusiness also challengedthe youngjazz revolutionaries.When Savoy producerReig approachedParker to composefour original tunes, he thought"'Ko-Ko' wasn't nothing but 'Cherokee."",13Reig pulled the new name out of the air. "I told them 'Ko-Ko' to make sureCharlie didn't have to pay seventy-five dollars (in royalties). OtherwiseLubinsky, the owner, would have had a baby."'4In fact, Teddy Reig's attributionof the song's title was deceptive. "Ko-Ko,"a compositionby , had been performedby the Ellington orchestrafive years earlier, in 1940. Ellingtoncredited the title to Congo Squarein New Orleanswhere, explained Ellington,nineteenth-century African-Americans convened to talk and dance, and thatwas where,some thought,"jazz was born."'lThe changein the tune's title did protectthe new owners/producers/composersfrom paying royaltiesto the music factory.But changingthe song, restructuringa new melody on top of the original'sharmony, involved much more than changing the name. The middle section, the bridge of "Ko-Ko,"animated the song's new structure,demonstrated Parker's musicianship, that he had "woodsheddedhis chordsand scales,"and servedas a testingground for a generationof musicians to come.'6 Parker'ssolo codifiednot just a new approachto playingjazz, but his extraordinaryvirtuosity institutionalized, unintentionally, an aspect of jazz culturethat Parker had brought with him fromhis musicalroots in KansasCity. Therein the 1930s, as in Harlemin the ,jamming musicians participated in a competitiveritual, the , a proving ground for individual improvisationaltalent designed to demonstratewho blew best. Parker'swork on "Ko-Ko"said no contest. Because bebop placed such a high value on the improvisational,the gestural,on the process of discovery, many of the musicians,Parker notoriously, avoided rehearsal and took the into the studio.Savoy's recordingof Parker'ssolo on "Ko-Ko"froze a momentof unparalleledjazz improvisation. Even Parker'scontracts were original.Parker created a publishingcom- pany in his own nameto copyrightthe newjazz pieces whichhe hadcomposed, manyon the same harmonic-melodicbasis as "Ko-Ko."His companypaid him two cents a side for his rightswhen othermusicians recorded his work.Parker also agreedto allow his company,called Parker-Dial, to pay half of his royalties PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT 95 to one EmeryBryd, a Los Angeles drug dealerwhom Parkerimmortalized as "Moosethe Mooche".'7Parker's notorious drug habit killed him in 1955. In the aftermathof World War II CharlieParker and Dizzy Gillespie revolutionizedjazz. Abandoningcommercialized music of the swing erawith its conventionalharmonic structure, they turned inward, discovering new harmonic relationshipsand creatinga fast, dissonant,improvisational jazz that exceeded the ability and understandingof most conventionaljazz musicians. Bebop emphasizedvirtuosity, individuality, and artisticinnovation suitable to small groupsplaying to informedaudiences in intimatesettings. Modem jazz divorced itself, self-consciously,from commercialentertainment. Bebop's liberationof jazz fromshow business,however, represented more than a musicalrevolution. By assertingits artisticidentity and drawingon African-Americanblues, bebop enabledblack jazz musiciansto liberatethemselves from white controlas they revitalizeda jazz that had become stagnantand formulaic. On the eve of World War II the big bands of the "" found themselvescircumscribed by the tastesof theiradoring fans andthe demandsof theiragents, record companies, and theaterowners. Swing becamethe familiar musicof dancingat Savoy, its tunesa recastof the familiar.Parker and Gillespie restoredthe blues to jazz, reconnectingit with its African-Americanorigins. Bebop enabledthem to expresstheir cultural as well as theirartistic identities. They playedjazz that expressedtheir feelings and ideas; When Charlie Parkerrecorded "Ko-Ko" in 1945, he was a relatively unknownitinerant jazz musician with a certain insider's reputationfor im- provisationalgenius born of the after-hoursjam sessions that he irregularly frequented.Several years later,weighed down by the legend of his subsequent success-commercial, critical,mythical-Bird became the subject of intense scrutiny.When one interviewerlearned that Parker had been bornand schooled in KansasCity, he asked,"Did you ever listento LesterYoung?" Parker replied, "Everynight."'8

Before Bebop: Breaking the Rules with Hammond,Lady, and Prez

If swing was the midwifeof bebop,the processof transformationwhereby African-Americanmusicians reclaimed their artisticheritage was a complex one. Bebop was more than an expressionof racialpolitics. Nevertheless,race had a profoundeffect on jazz as it did on nearlyeverything else in American life, and its divisions offendedsensitive whites as well as blacks. Indeed,John Hammond,one of jazz's most importantfigures, was as motivatedby his sense of racialjustice as his love of jazz. Youngand wealthy, Hammond played a key role in the careersof , ,, , andCharlie Christian. Largely through his effortsNew Yorkin the 1930s becamethe focal point for the introductionof Southwestern,especially 96 THE KENYON REVIEW City style, into the city's jazz tradition.Together with club owner Barney Josephson,Hammond broke down the barriersof racial segregationin jazz. WithoutHammond's efforts in the 1930s bebop might never have evolved when and where it did, denying Parkerand Gillespie the occasion of artistic collaborationand creativity. Jazz had always been a "performer'sart," intimately connected with its audience.'9Yet, in the firstthree decades of the twentiethcentury jazz remained segregated. White musicians played, wrote, and arrangedjazz, organized orchestrasand tours, made recordings and performedon the radio, often borrowingthe most innovative styles and songs of African-Americansfor theirown, achievingcommercial success and popularity.During the heydayof Americanjazz, between the two world wars, the two racially divided aspects of Americanjazz culture existed side by side. In New Yorkjazz musicians recordedon "race"records and in Harlemperformed for black audiencesat the one-thousand-seatLincoln and the two-thousand-seatLafayette theaters, at the squareblock large Savoy Ballroomas well as at dozens of small clubs.20A few black ,like Duke Ellington'sand CountBasie's, playedat clubs for whites only in Times Squareor Harlem.But they traveledon segregated trains, stayed in segregatedhotels, ate in segregatedrestaurants, and played in segregatedbands. With few exceptions white bands received higher pay, played at better clubs and concert halls, received more publicity, and sold more records.2' In the 1930s this patternof racial segregationgave way in New York largely because of the efforts of John Hammondand then BarneyJosephson. Hammondhad been a regularvisitor to Harlemsince 1927 when, as a senior at Hotchkiss,he had decided to devote his life to jazz.22He droppedout of Yale two years later and began collectingjazz recordings.In 1931 he moved to an apartmenton SullivanStreet in the GreenwichVillage and had his name removedfrom the Social Register.With the onset of the depression,supported by his Vanderbiltfamily trust fund, Hammondworked as a disc jockey on WEVD,the radiostation of the JewishDaily Forward,where he playedrecords fromhis collectionand, out of his pocket,paid performersten dollarsfor guest appearances.23Tall, awkward,and sportinga crew cut that graduallygrew white with age, Hammondwrote for several small English music periodicals and then for the Nation, for which he coveredthe Scottsborocase.24 When the NAACP invited him to join its boardof directorsin 1935, he readily agreed. Wealthy,committed to racialequality, and fascinatedby jazz, Hammondused his social connectionsand money to promoteblack musiciansand to end the racial segregationof jazz in New York. Hammondadopted a two-frontstrategy. First, he actively searchedfor talentedblack jazz musicianssuch as Billie Holiday,Lester Young, and .Second, he persuadedwhite producers,club owners, and band leaderslike BennyGoodman to hire blackmusicians. Hammond's first musical discoveryoccurred in 1933 at Monette's in Harlem.The owner and featured PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT 97 singer,Monette Moore, asked a young singer,Billie Holiday,to substitutefor her on the evening Hammondcame around.Holiday had been working in Harlemclubs for two years, includingConvan's, the AlhambraGrill, and Pod and Jerry's, all clusterednear Seventh Avenue and 134th Street. Hammond describedthe young Holidayas a "tallself-assured girl with rich golden-brown skin, exquisitelyshown off by the pale blue of her... low cut evening frock. Billie was not the sort you could fail to notice. . . in the crampedlow-ceiling quartersof a Harlemspeak-easy ... she came over to your table and sang to you personally.I found her quite irresistible."25 So too did much of the jazz world. At age eighteen Holiday seemed to have lived a lifetime, experiencingthe dramaand scars of Harlemwhere she had workedsince her arrivalfrom Baltimoresix years earlier.When Holiday sang the blues, her audiencebelieved she had lived them. Hammondmarveled that she possessed the unteachablegift of making every song her own.26 Holiday's distinct, husky singing lent itself well to the swing bands of the 1930s. Barnstorming,or at city gigs, male colleagues admiredher abilities at music and cards. Holiday's delivery-dramatic and soulful-appeared "too artistic"for many of the music copyrighterswho determinedwhich bandsand artistsreceived exclusive rightsto popularsongs. Consequently,Holiday failed to achieve the commercialsuccess that she desired and many believed she deserved.27 Two years after her discovery by Hammond,Billie made her debut at the Apollo. In April 1935, quiveringfearfully in the wings, Billie was pushed onto the stage by comedian "Pigmeat"Markham. When she "brokeup the house"with her encorerendition of "TheMan I Love,"the Apollo management booked her for a two-week run.28That same year Billie worked with , who with Lionel Hamptonhad just joined and integratedGoodman's .Hammond had been forcefully instrumentalin that historic event, and togetherwith Goodmanprovided the social environmentin which manyof the majorAfrican-American jazz performersof the 1930s could demonstrate the vitalityof theirmusic and the virtuosityof theirmusicianship to theirwhite peers. Between 1935 and 1942 Holiday,working with Hammondand Wilson, recordedscores of records aimed at a black jukebox audience. She worked with Lester Young, with whom she had a special affinity,and then with the bands of Count Basie and Artie Shaw. In 1938 with Shaw she became one of the first black singers to star with a white swing band. Her classic jazz repertoirederived from her associationwith Hammond,moving from standard jazz balladssuch as "Did I Remember"to the Bessie Smith-inspiredblues of "Fine and Mellow." By 1935, when Holiday first workedwith Benny Goodman,Hammond and Goodmanhad been musicalpartners and friendsfor more thanthree years. Hammondhad not restrictedhis New Yorkjazz wanderingsto uptownclubs, and in 1933 he heardGoodman leading a groupat the Onyx, a speakeasyon Fifty-secondStreet. It was owned by Joe Helbock,a jazz fan who had placeda 98 THE KENYON REVIEW piano at the backof his place for the pleasureof the musicianswho stoppedby and announcedthemselves with a password,"I'm from 802," the musicians' union which Helbock supported.29Once his customer-playersbegan to jam regularly,Helbock, thanks to the repeal of prohibition,transformed the Onyx into Fifty-secondStreet's first jazz club.30Hammond believed in the talentof his friends,and under his guidanceGoodman attracted the talentsof manyof the best jazz performersof his era, black and white. In 1934 Goodmanorganized his firstbig band,a twelve-pieceensemble, and at Hammond'surging engaged ex-Ellingtoncollaborator, , as his arranger. For the big dance bands of the 1930s, a "drivingunaccented 4/4 that maintaineda steady pulse against varied melodic accents," provided the rhythmicessence of swing.31In Goodman'scase, however, the music owed its special drive to the tensionbetween the beat and the tendencyof Goodman to play just before the beat.32Compared with the jazz bands of the 1920s, swing bandsplayed more rhythmicfigures, leaving shortbursts of the melody to soloists whosephrases contrasted with the riffs of the reedand horn sections, which in turnpassed the tune's motifs back and forthbetween them.33 By and large, the swing bands emphasizedthe value and sound of the whole at the expenseof the virtuosityand spontaneity of the soloist.For the young musicians of the 1930s, however,the rigid organizationand structureof the swing bands becamesuffocating. Many found the freedomthey soughtby movingfrom band to band, serving as itinerantmusicians as the mood or the city suited them. Othersfound emotional and artisticsatisfaction by playinginformally for each other in after-hoursclubs, hotel rooms, or even on the roofs of tenements. As the "King of Swing," Goodman had embracedswing in 1934 at Hammond'surging, and begana long recordingcareer with Columbia.Thanks to Henderson'sreworking of jazz standardsand contemporarypopular tunes, Goodmanestablished a firm musical identity.In July 1935 he invited Teddy Wilson to form a trio with himself and drummerGene Krupa.The Benny Goodman Trio, the first integratedjazz group of the century, played fine, chamber-inspiredjazz, recordingan especially well-received "After You've Gone" in a July 1935 session. Goodmanexpanded the trio to a quartetwith the additionof a second black musician, ,with whom the group recorded"Moonglow" in August 1936. At the same time his acquirednational fame thanksto severalfilm appearancesand a series of radio broadcasts.By 1938 Goodmanhad achieved unparalleledstatus as a popular musical star and becamethe idol of legions of adoringteenage fans. Goodman's popularityreached its apex with his famous concert at CarnegieHall on January16, 1938. Goodman,who played,so to speak,at his own coronation,"rocked the hall," while his exuberantfans danced as if the aisles they appropriatedbelonged to the Paramount."Swing today," the Times proclaimed,"is the most widespreadartistic medium of popular emotional expression."34Again, at Hammond'surging, Goodmaninvited Count Basie and five membersof his bandto join the concerttoward the end of the session. PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT 99

Togetherthe two groupsjammed an extendedversion of "HoneysuckleRose," providingmany in the CarnegieHall audiencewith theirfirst extended exposure to Basie and, perhaps,to his form of blackjazz. The spontaneityof the jam session providedone of the emotionaland musical,and for Hammond,social highlightsof the evening when Goodmandrummer, ,joined the Basie rhythmsection for the rest of the historicoccasion. Late that evening membersof Goodman'sband went to the Savoy in Harlem where they watched Chick Webb's band engage Count Basie in a cuttingcontest that lasted through the night.News of the bands'contest spread throughoutHarlem, forcing the Savoy to turn away an estimatedtwenty-five thousandfans. Late that morningWebb outdrummed Krupa, still playing with Basie, to the pleasureof those lucky enough to get inside, while the rest of Goodman'smusicians jammed in their hotel room as the sun rose.35 A yearlater Hammond himself commandeered for a concert "FromSpirituals to Swing"that demonstrated the role of African-Americansin the historyof jazz.36Hammond unsuccessfully approached first the NAACP, whichfound his concepttoo daring,and thenthe InternationalLadies' Garment WorkersUnion to sponsor the concert. Finally, Hammondconvinced Eric Bernay,a financialbacker of the New Masses, to fund the program,booking CarnegieHall for December 23, 1938. Hammondspent the summer lining up his performers,finding folk-blues singer Sonny Terry,fashioning a Benny Goodmansextet with a very young and innovativeelectric guitarist,Charlie Christian,and engagingthe KansasCity Six, a segmentof the Basie bandthat featuredsaxophonist Lester Young.37 Hammondhad heardBasie as early as 1932 at Covan's when the young pianist played for the KansasCity band of Benny Moten. Covan's had been one of the first Harlemjazz spots that Hammondvisited, an experiencehe owed to muralist/painterCharles Alston. By 1935 Basie assumedleadership of Moten's band, and Hammond,constantly on the lookout for new talentin the Midwestand Southwest,heard Basie, then playingat the Reno Club in Kansas City, over his car radio. Hammondcalled MCA's WillardAlexander in New York, arrangedfor the two of them to fly to Kansas City, where Alexander signed Basie on the spot. Hammondthen set up a recordingdate in and a headlinerengagement at the RoselandBallroom in New York.38Under Hammond'sguidance Basie reshapedhis quintessentiallyKansas City blues- based band into one of the three majorblack jazz bands of his time, gaining initial nationalrecognition with the 1937 classic "OneO'Clock Jump."39 The Basie band, which featuredLester Young on saxophone,rivaled Goodman'sin commercialappeal. By the late 1930s, however,no one in jazz rivaledYoung. By his twentiethbirthday in 1929, the youngtenor saxophonist, then with 's band, had already developed a highly individual, harmonicallyadvanced style of playing. Yet, as the most influentialartist between Armstrongand Parker,Lester Young remainedan introspectiveand fundamentallyprivate person.40 100 THE KENYON REVIEW

As a teenagerYoung played the drumsand the alto sax before switching to the clarinetand then tenorsax, which he played in a rangewhich embraced the sonorityof the alto. Young spent his twenties moving, itinerantly,from town to town throughoutthe Midwestand Southwest.Electric guitarist Charlie Christian,who playedwith Youngat the "Spiritualsto Swing"concert in 1938, first heard Lester in OklahomaCity in 1929 and again in 1931 with 's Blue Devils. Christian,still in his teens, found that Young's narrative style of playing, in contrastto ColemanHawkins's technical flights of fancy, would have a lasting effect on his own development.4' On at least two occasions, once in 1933 and again in 1939, Young and Hawkinsmet in classic confrontation.The first precededHawkins's five- year Europeansojourn, while the second occurredwithin weeks following his return,when he supposedlysaid after surveying the tenor scene, "I didn't hear a thing that was new."42The 1933 Kansas City jam lasted throughthe middle of the next day, a testamentto the rivalry'sintensity. Hawkins's play that night combined his "large" sound with the speed of pushed up eighth notes, creatinghis signaturehot sound.The contrastwith Young,whose smooth vibrato-lesstone-he employed alternativefingerings to soften his timbre-could not have been more clear.43 For the next two yearsYoung played for Basie in KansasCity, andarrived with the Countin New Yorkin 1937. Youngdid not conformto the stereotype of a swaggering,aggressive, black jazz musician.Indeed, his very nature-shy, introverted,laconic-ran againstthe grain of that image, and his personality permeatedhis musicalaesthetic. Lester Young loved subtleand shaded language in music and words. His gentle mannercombined with a sly sense of humor and commandof language,which he later graftedto a musician'slife. Young, who called all women "Lady"out of gallantry and genuine gentility,conferred the proudlyworn "Lady Day" on Billie Holiday.She recip- rocatedby calling him "Prez,"an affectionatecontraction of "ThePresident," Young's democratichandle awardedin recognitionof his first confrontation with Hawkins. His private code extended beyond Holiday. "Where's your poundcake?"he askedfellow musicians,inquiring about their wives. And if he pepperedhis everydayspeech with the vernacularof barroomsand gin mills, he preferredto referto sexual intercourseas "wearinga hat."44He only exercised any semblanceof controlover the band, however,when he pitched for Basie in softballgames held againstplayers in the Goodmanand HarryJames bands. One evening shortlyafter his arrivalin New York,Young accompanied Hammondand Basie to Clark Monroe's Uptown House in Harlem where Holiday had just begun a three-month"residency." Although Basie already had a blues singer in ,he immediatelysigned Holiday.While Holiday never recordedwith Basie, the experienceled to an extraordinarily close artistic and personal friendshipwith Young. "Lady Day" and "Prez" sharedthe blues and a sense of narrative.For each of them the story to be told had artisticprecedence, and the blues, in essence, told stories. Young often PETERRUTKOFF and WILLIAMSCOTT IOI referredto the necessity of musiciansunderstanding the words of the songs theyplayed so thatthey could improviseexpressively on theirmeaning.45 In the Southwestblues traditionYoung embraced a linearform of playing-derivative of the folk vernacularand narrativeexpression.46 Young's solos displayedan extraordinarysmoothness, the consequenceof his own tendencyto compress his range, as he slid from note to note. Young's style led to his breakingthe boundariesof swing-bandjazz. The divisionof songs into segmentsof fourbars cramped Young's need to express himself. His pursuit of blues-based narratives also led him to explore innovative harmonic and rhythmic ideas.47 Like many of his KansasCity jazz colleagues,Young often hungback behind the beat ever so slightly, barelyslowing the rhythm.creating a tensionbetween soloist and ensemble,emphasizing the smoothnessof his own exposition,whose "gentle cats-pawway of moving"he punctuatedwith open spaces of pausedsilence.48 Young'sinnovations, concealed within a musicalsystem of which he remained an integralpart, obscured his role in the evolutionof jazz from swing to bebop. Young'selegant aesthetic prepared the way for the moredramatic changes that lay ahead. As long as the formatand form of the swing orchestraheld sway over the jazz world in the 1930s, the expressivenessof Young and Holiday remained submergedbehind the identity of group and leader. Hammond's"Spirituals to Swing" concertof 1938 challengedthese structuralassumptions as well as thoseof racialsegregation. The popularityof the smallensemble, the combosof quartets,sextets, and trios that emerged as jazz staplesin the next decade,owed theirsize equallyto the vision of Hammond-musically and socially-as well as to the proliferationof small dives modeledafter the Onyx on Fifty-second Street.The KansasCity Six, featuringLester Young, with its two electricguitars and absenceof piano,made it a prototypeof the emergingsmall jazz ensemble. Innovative promoters could fashion new jazz clubs whose intimate settings lent themselves to new forms of expression. The most influential was Cafe Society. "Caf6 Society,"recalled Sir CharlesThompson (so dubbedby Young), "was the most high class club in the world."49Owned and managedby thirty- six-year-oldTrenton, New Jersey,show manufacturerBarney Josephson, Cafe Society became the city's first integratednight club. "The wrong place for the rightpeople," Josephson once said.50With Hammond serving as unofficial musical director,the club on SheridanSquare in the Village, presented"first ratebut generally unknown Negro and whitetalent." Lester Young thought Cafe Society a perfectjazz environment.Nothing of the dive or joint characterized Cafe Society. Josephsonmeticulously oversaw the installationand workingof light, sound, and stage equipment.Josephson and Hammondwanted a leftist, popular-frontambience at Cafe Society. When Hammondsuggested Billie Holidayfor the club's opening, Josephsonreadily agreed. Holiday's unformedsocial and political attitudes,the result in part of a meager formal educationwhich ended in the fifth grade, had not kept her from declaring,"I'm a race woman."Neither did it equip her to deal with the I02 THE KENYON REVIEW full implicationsof her appearanceat the club.5' Her stint with Artie Shaw had convincedBillie that her future lay in solo performing.Mass audiences preferredthe big band singer;Cafe Society seemed made for her. Whenpoet- songwriterLewis Allen presentedHoliday with his evocative poem ","which he had set to music, she hesitated.Compared with severalother musicianssuch as FrankieNewton, a trumpetplayer who often discoursedon the value of Garveyiteeconomics or the viabilityof the Soviet Five-YearPlan, Billie Holidayknew music farbetter than she understoodpolitics. Nevertheless, she soon agreed to record "StrangeFruit," its lyric about lynching, its blues closer to a dirge than a shout. Holiday sang straightforwardly,a narrative understatementwhich underscoredthe song's content:

Blood on leaves, and blood at the root, Black bodies swingin' in the Southernbreeze, Strange Fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Cafe Society and "StrangeFruit" made Billie Holiday a star-of New York's liberal, intellectual,New Deal left, and divertedher career from the path she had taken from the age of sixteen. Once a saloon singer of love songs, Holiday had become an artist whose deepening addiction to drugs acceleratedher isolation. The song's political appeal reinforcedHoliday's legend. Recordedon an obscurelabel, it receivedlittle radioplay in America, and in Englandthe BBC banned it entirely.52 Hammondbelieved "Strange Fruit"the worst thing that ever happenedto Billie Holiday-it broughther modest fame and little fortune.S3Lena Home followed Holiday into Cafe Society, remaining for two years as Josephson presided over the club's L-shaped basement room with gracious directness. When patrons voiced discomfortover Cafe Society's integratedseating, Josephson simply asked them to leave-immediately. Between 1939 and 1950 Cafe Society hosted, downtown,the greatjazz voices of the era: SarahVaughan, Teddy Wilson, ,and FletcherHenderson in additionto Holiday and Home. In 1939 pianistMary Lou Williamstold Hammondabout a guitarplayer she knew back in Oklahoma.54In bringingCharlie Christian to New Yorkwith Goodmanlater that year, Hammondunwittingly set in motion the sequenceof events thatled to the emergenceof bebop.Ever adventurous,Hammond found Christianplaying at the Cafe Ritz in OklahomaCity and broughtthe young electric guitarplayer with him to meet Goodmanin Beverly Hills. Goodman lookedat Christian,dressed in pointedyellow shoes, greensuit, and purple shirt, and reluctantlyagreed to humorHammond.55 He assembledsome musicians and askedthem to play "RoseRoom," a tune with which he assumedChristian had no experience-hardly an uncommonpractice among musicians. For forty- five minutesChristian played chorus after improvisedchorus, and Goodman signed him to play with the sextet on the spot.56 Under Hammond'sguidance Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hamptonhad integratedGoodman's groups several years earlier.But Christianbrought to PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT I03

Goodmanand New York the black, aesthetic,harmonic, and blues influence that characterizedthe music of LesterYoung and providedthe apprenticeship of yet anotherplayer from Kansas City and the Southwest,. Christian,then Parker,and finally a small handfulof other pioneeringjazz musicians,turned jazz on its head, and from the after-hoursclubs of Harlem transformedAmerican music.

The Birthof Bop

Charlie Christianprovided the transition,as no other player of his generation,from the large, white, swing dance band orchestrasof the 1930s to the small, chamber-club,largely black dominatedjazz groupsof the 1940s. For the first time in its seventy-fiveyear historyjazz no longer migratedto New York.Now the city, its musicians,patrons, clubs, unions and bars, and neighborhoodsprovided the setting for a new jazz form, bebop, to come to the fore. Like abstractexpressionism, whose full developmentit anticipated by several years, bop's six-year progressiontoward a unified musical whole exemplified by Parker's "Ko-Ko" in 1945 occurred largely in seclusion, capturingthe attentionof its audienceonly at the end of the war. By that time one of its pioneers,Charlie Christian, had alreadybeen dead for three years. Christian,born in either 1916 or 1919, died of tuberculosisin 1942. He spent the last year of his life largely in Harlemwhere he played andjammed at Minton's and Monroe's, where young musicianscame to experiment,to break away from the music and the structuresof their elders. Here, during WorldWar II, Christianand the early beboppersinstitutionalized the cultureof the Southwest,of KansasCity, OklahomaCity, and the tank towns in-between.Christian and then Parkerbrought that culture,along with the influenceof LesterYoung, with themto New Yorkand turned it into bebop. Christianencountered Young in OklahomaCity in the 1920s as did Ralph Ellison, who wrote, "I first heardLester Young at Halley Richardson'sshoe- shine parlorin OklahomaCity jammingin the shine chair, his feet working the footrests."57There, Ellison recalled, "most of the respectableNegroes" consideredjazz a low-class form of music, and they educatedtheir childrenin the niceties of marchingband music. Life in OklahomaCity, where Christian guided his blind father, who played guitar in the white sections of town, exposed Christianto the guitarand blues traditionof the region as well as to the light classics with which they serenadedtheir patrons.58 Young's influence in the late twenties and early thirtiesextended Christian's education. He later translatedYoung's techniqueto the electricguitar, an instrumenthe began to play seriouslyin 1937, only two years before encounteringHammond.59 Oklahomaborn, Kansas City educated,Christian came to New York playing an instrumentthat had barely existed a decade earlier. Along with French-Belgianguitarist Django Reinhardt,he transformedthe electric guitar I04 THE KENYON REVIEW from a rhythmto a solo voice. The "-tune"idea, derivedlargely from the KansasCity school of jazz thathe adaptedfrom Young,worked perfectly with Christian'stechnical innovations. Abandoning the chordedrhythm style of play- ing, Christianstrung together lines of singly pickednotes, producingsmoothly improvisedriffs, whose shape rose and fell with almostclassic symmetry.60 The riff style of KansasCity jazz, the shortrhythmic phrases which bands like Basie's used-and which they said "alwayscarried a melody you could write a song from" providedone of the featuresof Christian'smusic. The other,an innovationwhere the rhythmsection stressed all fourbeats rather than the accentedsecond and fourth,gave the music its swing. Christiantook this musical heritageand expandedit, continuingto play in a blues traditionbut increasingthe improvisationalrichness of his expression.6' Christian'srich vein of improvisationalmaterials constantly amazed the Harlem aficionadoswho crowded into Minton's. He took great pleasure in dissecting popularsongs whose chord progressionshe found challengingand then buildinghis improvisationalline anew on the structurehe had uncovered. At times he lifted other musicians' favorite riffs and quoted them in the middle of his own line.62An artisttalking to other artists,Christian assumed that his colleaguesand audienceknew the book. His innovations,playing the upper notes of a chord,the ninths and elevenths, substitutingdiminished for dominantsevenths, and temporarily abandoning , all anticipatedthe internalmusical changes that bebop would expand.Christian also phrasedin odd, ill-fittinglengths, three-and-a-halfor five bars, stretchingthe structural assumptionswhich governed the standardthirty-two bar format that jazz retainedfrom popularmusic.63 Christian's innovative musicianshipenabled him to extractall the "juicesout of his blues background."64 Christian'sdeath in his mid-twentiesdeprived modern jazz of one of its foremostexperimental musicians. But CharlieChristian shared his ideas with a handfulof contemporaryinnovators: Parker, Gillespie, drummer , andpianist . Together, in the smallafter-hours clubs of Harlem and then Fifty-secondStreet, they createdbebop. The clubs that nurturedthe bebop generationall began as illegal speakeasies,owned by a varietyof black and whitegamblers and bookmakers, bootleggers, and gangsters, who gradually transformedtheir chili parlorsand juke joints into legitimatebusinesses. Henry Minton, the owner of the restaurantbar on 118th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue,started his place as a supperclub called Minton'sPlayhouse, to serve both the local neighborhoodand the SugarHill crowd.65Minton, the firstblack delegate to the AmericanFederation of Musicians Local 802, charged two dollars as cover, and pridedhimself on the food he and his staff served up at night. Ellison recalled that Minton "createdgenerous portions of Negro- Americancuisine-the hash,grits, fried chicken, the ham-seasonedvegetables, the hot biscuitsand rolls."On Mondaynights he provided"free whiskey"for the musicianswho had performedat the Apollo.66The Mondaynight spreads served as a springboardfor the legendaryhappenings at his club between 1940 PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT I05 and 1944. They also circumventedunion regulationswhich prohibitedjam sessions in New York.Minton's position as delegate exemptedhim from the ban.67 Minton's club invited company.He flankedhis dining room in front by a bar, where during the day local patronsplayed the juke box and danced, and in back by the cabaretbandstand, so small that a dozen players made it feel like rush hour on the subway rumblingbelow. When he turnedthe club over to band leader in 1940, Minton's became an ideal place for New York's experimentaljazz musicians.Hill extendedthe Mondayevening welcome jam sessions by forminga house band for the usual good food/no pay policy. Hill's personnelin the early 1940s includeddrummer Kenny Clarke and pianistThelonious Monk. Dizzy Gillespie, who had first played with Hill in 1937, joined them wheneverhe appearedin New York,as did Parker. When Minton's closed each morning,Kenny Clarkerecalled, "We'd all head for Monroe's"to continuethe night's playing and talking.68Located on West 134th Street,Clark Monroe's Uptown House lacked Minton's food and elegance but served as a nightly hangoutfor musicianslooking for action. A true after-hoursclub, Monroe'spresented a floor show and featureda house bandthat allowed guest musiciansto sit in.69At the 6:00 A.M.closing time, the jazz playerspassed the hat. On a good night a shareof the take mightapproach the seven dollars a week that the nearbyCollins' roominghouse chargedfor room and board.70Or it might buy the next day's heroin. Duringthe war Monroe'sand Minton'sbecame legendaryHarlem after- hoursplaces. But the neighborhoodcontained dozens of jazz barswhere young musicians hung out and experimentedwith the new music. They served as stations, offering musiciansa place to rest on their journey.71 Minton's (or Monroe'sor even DanWall's Chili House on Seventhand 140th),wrote Ellison, "as a nightclubin a Negro community... was partof a nationalpattern." Each re-createdthe atmosphereof a KansasCity jam session, "butwith new blowing tunes."72 Charlie Parker,the centralfigure in the bebop revolution,had worked in and out of New York since 1938. Constantlyat odds with the pressureto entertain,Parker washed dishes and played the alto saxophoneat Wall's in December1939. "I was workingover 'Cherokee,'and, as I did, I foundthat by using the higherintervals of a chordas a melody line and backingthem with appropriatelyrelated changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing.I came alive."73Parker's musical epiphany,whose harmonicstructure he expanded duringthe next two years,resulted in two fragmentaryrecordings of "Cherokee" in 1942.Parker, Gillespie, Clarke, and Monk, individually and collectively, built on thatinnovation and in 1945 took it downtown,finally complete, as "Ko-Ko." In the mid-1930s,hanging around the bars and clubs that honeycombed KansasCity, CharlieParker, born in 1920 of working-classparents, first met Lester Young. "I was crazy aboutLester," he once said, "he played so clean and beautiful.But I wasn't influenced."Stylistically, the up-tempo,mature io6 THE KENYON REVIEW soundof Parker'salto appearedfar removedfrom Young's smoothlybeautiful phrasing.But each had his roots in the wide-openpolitics and the blues-based musicof KansasCity. KansasCity's reputationfor hot music and times was an aspectof the machinepolitics of Boss Tom Pendergast,whose numbersrunners and bookmakersmade the city "Depressionproof."74 Kansas City's jazz joints became even more prosperousfollowing the repeal of Prohibition,and they were known across the Southwestas places for musiciansto meet, to jam, to experiment,to sit in and cut. Customerscame less to dance thanto listen.75 Parkerleft school at age fourteenwhen he tradedhis marchingband tuba for an alto saxophoneand mimickedthe way Young, who held his tenor up and off to the side, played his. Marriedat age fifteen, fully grown physically, Parkerburned with a desireto excel. On a memorableevening in the summerof 1936 Youngencouraged Parker to sit in. The session resultedin Parker'spublic humiliationwhen drummerJo Jonescrashed his cymbalat Parker'sbecause he could not keep pace with the band.76Parker licked his woundsand reportedly mutteredto Jones, "I'll be back."77Within a year he had masteredthe scales and blues runs of all twelve keys, experimentingwith idiosyncraticfingering, cuttinghis own reeds, and moving from one set of chordpatterns, or changes, to the next, in the middleof a solo.78Kansas City jazz, which relied more on improvisedsolos than on orchestratedarrangements, fostered experimentation whichsuperimposed the harmonicallycompatible riffs of one tuneon another.79 This kind of harmonicallyinventive quotationdepended on the musician's abilityto retainand play hundredsof blues riffs. Parkerpossessed the uncanny abilityto imaginethe possibilitiesof a tune andthen explore its variety,drawing on the richblues traditionhe had internalized.80Between 1936 and 1939 Parker spentan estimatedfifteen thousand hours "woodshedding"-an apprenticeship honed in the dance halls, bars, grills, and chili houses of KansasCity. Parker lackedonly a formal,theoretical system with which to consolidatehis intuitive innovations. In the fall of 1938, shortlyafter his arrivalin New York,Parker first met Dizzy Gillespie,then with 's band. A yearlater Gillespie, who did not rememberthe earlierintroduction, returned to KansasCity whereCalloway performedat a theater which permittedblacks to sit only in a segregated balcony, a "buzzards'roost." Told by a fellow trumpetplayer that he had to meet a new alto player,Gillespie went to the musicians'local, sat down at the piano, and "CharlieParker played. I never heardanything like that before."8' In 1940 Parkerlanded a job with KansasCity bandleader Jay McShann. McShann'sband, a local successorto Basie, keptthe twenty-year-oldParker in the Southwestfor most of the next year and a half, Parker'slongest sustained stintwith a single group.With McShann, Parker mastered the swing bandbook, playing by the rules. Then, in January1942, weeks after Pearl Harborforced Minton'sto abandonits Mondayevening spreadsas excessive, McShann,with Parkerin attendance,opened at the Savoy, sharingthe bandstandwith ,whose band now featuredDizzy Gillespie.82 PETERRUTKOFF and WILLIAMSCOTT I07

Three years older than Parker,John Berks Gillespie, born in Cheraw, South Carolina,learned to play the trumpetat a Negro industrialschool, the LaurinbergInstitute in North Carolina,where he learned and .In 1937 he joined TeddyHill's band.At the age of twenty Gillespie traveledwith Hill to England,where Gillespie, "tryingmy best to sound like ,"found himself relegatedto third trumpetchair. On his return Gillespie, while waiting for his 802 union card, scrambledfor work, playing gigs for Communistparty dances in Brooklynand the Bronx.83He met Apollo dancer LorraineWillis, earned seventy dollars a week working with Hill, and settled into family life. Gillespie's hip expressivenessprovided the new generationof jazz musicianswith a model of comportment,just as the special glint in Gillespie's eyes capturedhis spirit of devilish rebellion.84 Gillespie's two closest musical collaborators,bassist and drummerKenny Clarke, found Dizzy irrepressible.Hinton, with whom Gilles- pie playedin the Cab Callowayband for severalyears, remembered that Dizzy quickly picked up the band's particularbrand of slang, derived from ,whose linguisticinventions equaled those of LesterYoung. Together, "TheJudge"-Hinton's name derivedfrom a joke he told regularly-and Diz spoke of "cows"(hundred dollars), "lines" (fifty), "softs"(chicks), and "pin" (), which enabled them to say elliptically, "pin that soft." To Hinton, the argot of the jazz musiciansimply extendedthe linguisticingenuity "of all of black society."85 Dizzy's harmonicsophistication seemed years ahead of the rest of the musiciansin Calloway'sband, and Hintonencouraged Gillespie's experimen- tation. Often the two would drag Hinton's bass up the back staircaseto the roof of the Apollo, the , or the apartmentbuilding where Dizzy lived to try out some of the changes, the chord progressions,that Gillespie wantedto insertinto the music they played for Calloway.When Hintoncould not follow the complex harmonicsystems, Gillespie shoutedthe chords out to him.86Gillespie recalled,with evident excitementencountering a "weird" change,"an E flat chordbuilt on an A, the flattedfifth ... Oooooman!I played the thing over and over again.... I found thatthere were a lot of prettyvoices in a chord."87 From time to time Hinton and Gillespie slippedtheir arrangementsinto the band's performance,and Calloway, thinking somethinghad gone awry, would stop and say, "I don't want you playing that Chinese music in my band."88In September1941, with Hinton and Gillespie doing their music, Hintonmissed one of the changesthey had practicedtogether-"Diz signaled 'you stink' with his hand and sent a spitballmy way." Callowaythought the ever flamboyantGillespie had intended the missile for him. Gillespie said, "Fes, I didn't do that."Calloway refusedGillespie's explanationand slapped him. WhenGillespie drew a knife, Hintonstepped between the two, deflecting the blade. As Callowaygrabbed at him, Gillespie, to his horror,saw the knife plunge into the band leader's leg, superficiallywounding Calloway, staining io8 THE KENYON REVIEW his trademarkwhite tuxedo trousersbright red. Calloway, woundedin body and pride, firedGillespie on the spot, and when Dizzy later triedto apologize "Cabjust walked away."89Sometime later, reflectingon the fact than many musicians carriedweapons, trumpeterRoy Eldridge said, "Baby, if you go down South,or even just here in New Yorkafter an extra-lategig ... then you gotta have something."90 Throughoutthe early 1940s Gillespie's musicalprowess grew. He played with , alongside Parkerin 1942-43, and with in 1944. Yet, swing bands played commerciallysuccessful music that bore little resemblanceto the jazz that Gillespie and other nascentbeboppers played at Minton's and Monroe's. Kenny Clarkeexplained, "We had no name for the music. We called ourselves modem."'9'Like many of the other pioneers of modemjazz who congregatedat Minton'sand Monroe's,Clarke grew up in a musical family. His fatherplayed the ,and Clarkestudied music in high school, masteringseveral instruments and learningtheory. He firstplayed for a local group beforejoining an East St. Louis band in 1934 that featured CharlieChristian.92 Three years later Clarke,an extremelyindependent young player, moved to New York. He resentedthe humiliationof performingin a raciallyprejudiced society whichforced him to acceptinferior accommodations and workingconditions. Living in Harlemonly reinforcedhis feistiness, and for the next several years Clarke was hired and fired by Count Basie and .He traveledand played in Europefor eight monthsin 1938, and finally found a place with Teddy Hill's band, where he met and played with Gillespie.When Hill moved to Minton's,he installedClarke as the house drummer. Many Harlem nightclubs,like the Savoy, frequentlyrequired one fast dance numberafter the other, and Clarkefound that the unrelentingdouble- time pace of these "flagwavers" wore him out. Whenswing drummersassumed the role of timekeeper,they did so primarilythrough the right-foot-drivenbass drum.Clarke sought a rhythmicalternative to the repetitive,tiring, and boring poundingof eight beats to the measure.93Already experimenting with jumping in on the open beat, and dreamingof liberatingthe drummerto become an accompanistas well as a rhythmicanchor, Clarke shifted the responsibilityof keeping time from the bass drum to the right-handcymbal. Other rhythmic variationsfollowed. Musicians complainedthat they no longer had a clear sense of the rhythm. "Depend on yourself,"Clarke responded,"because if you're playing music, the tempo that you're playing is in your head."94 Clarke freed band musicians to follow their own rhythmicvariations. But not until Clarkeplayed with Gillespie, however, did he find a musician who appreciatedthe opportunityhis rhythmicinnovations had created. By transferringkeeping time to the righthand, Clarke also liberatedthe bass drum to provide off-beat accents, or what he and his friends called "bombs"or "klook-mops."With this reversalClarke released his left foot to play the high hat and his left hand,which manydrummers ignored except as an afterthought, PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT lO9 to work on the snare. In diminishingthe timekeepingrole of the drummer, Clarkeexpanded the polyrhythmicand instrumentalpossibilities of the entire jazz ensemble. Hill did not think Clarke's innovations worked for a swing dance band and fired him. Yet, as soon as Hill took over Minton's with plans to make it a musicians' hangout, he rehiredClarke saying, "You play all the re-bop and boom-bams you want."95Dizzy understoodimmediately. Clarke's work on the cymbal fit wonderfullywith the trumpetas well as with Gillespie's rhythmicadventurousness. When he perfectedhis technique, Clarkeremembered thinking, "Well, it worked."96Gillespie mastered Clarke's multirhythmicdrum innovations sufficientlyto teach other musicians after Clarkejoined the armedforces in 1943. Similarly,Gillespie's passion for the new musicled him to the elbow of Minton'sresident pianist, Thelonious Monk, whose cryptic and oblique personalityand far-outideas about chromaticism, guided and reflectedhis skills as composerand performer.Gillespie credited Monkwith showinghim the oddly chordedconfigurations that inspired not just Gillespie'sharmonic experimentation, but servedas the foundationfor Monk's bop anthem"Round Midnight." TheloniousSphere Monk lived for most of his life in a spareapartment on WestSixty-third Street in the San JuanHill neighborhood.Monk, born in North Carolina,came to New Yorkin 1922. He startedplaying the pianoat the age of six, apparentlylearning his way aroundthe instrumentby himself sufficiently to give lessons to neighborhoodkids for seventy-fivecents an hour,to perform at local rent parties, and to win an amateurnight contest at the Apollo in the mid-1930s.97Playing stridepiano in the style of Willie "TheLion" Smith, Monkjoined an itinerantfaith-healer's band ("She prayed, we played,"he once stated)and returnedto New York at age seventeen,accomplished but hardly flush. Scuffingfor any work, non-unionjobs that paid twenty dollars a week, Monkspecialized in gigs whose contractscould be brokenin a minute'snotice. Monkspread his unusuallysmall fingersflat, not arched,when he played. He cultivated a non-technique,one which later incorporatedhis elbow or forearm,to complementhis theoreticalexplorations as part of his search for chromaticalternatives to traditionalharmonic structure. Refusing to draw any distinctionbetween life and art,Monk played the pianowherever and whenever he could, eating and sleeping irregularly,depending for financialstability on his wife Nellie, who called him "MelodiousThunk."98 Years later, performingwith ,Monk began a set with his own solo. When someone yelled from the back, "We wanna hear Coltrane," Monkresponded, "Coltrane bust up his horn."Failing to satisfy the disgruntled customer,Monk extemporized,"Mr. Coltraneplays a wind instrument.The soundis producedby blowing into it and openingdifferent holes to let air out. Over some of these holes is a felt air pad. One of Mr. Coltrane'sfelt pads has fallen off, and in orderfor him to get the soundhe wants,so thatwe can make bettermusic for you, he is in the back makinga new one. You dig?"99 IIO THE KENYON REVIEW

Monk could be equally direct, though usually less sarcastic with his colleagues. He and Clarke together composed an extraordinarybop tune, "Epistrophe,"and Clarke recalled, "I was hung up on the last two bars. I couldn't figure it out, what chords would be best.... I showed it to Monk." Monk looked at the sheet for a moment,sat down at the piano and played the two missing bars, and said, "Thereit is."'?? During Monk's tenure at Minton's a young student at ColumbiaUni- versity, JerryNewman, a jazz enthusiastand amateurrecorder, occasionally performedat the informalfloor shows thatHill organized.Newman apparently lip-synched the words of celebrities, from FDR to Bob Hope, which he had recorded from the radio. For compensationHill allowed Newman to set up primitive equipmentto record the jazz sessions. With the cabaret stage flanked on either side by the "Gents"and "Ladies"rest rooms, the historicNewman recordings from 1941 and 1942, releasedin the early , frequentlyregistered the sounds of slammingdoors. Newmantold Down Beat writerGeorge Hoeffer that Monk played brilliantlyat Minton's, workinghis compositionsseated at the piano, over and over again,developing a succession of new ideas,pushing the limitsof his composition.'0'Newman, however, cared little for Parker'swork, and only an unexplainedquirk of fate accountsfor his historicrecording of Parker's"Cherokee" at Monroe'sin the summerof 1942. Parkerhad just left McShann'sband and settledin New York,making the roundseach night, looking for gigs and drugs. One evening tenor sax player Ben Websterasked Monroe about "that cat" Parker"blowing weird stuff." Monroepromised to put Parkeron the next night to play "Cherokee,"which Newmanthen recordedon a paperdisc.'02 The 1942 "Cherokee"at Monroe's, togetherwith a second version that Parkerrecorded several weeks later with a pick-upband in KansasCity, revealedthe extent to which Bird had blown past his fellow musicians.'03 The band opened with a two-chorusstatement of the tune's theme, a swing statementtypical of those played in a hundredcocktail lounges, while the unknownpianist slipped in the "Tea for Two" theme that Parkerwould repeat ironically in "Ko-Ko."As Allen Tinney, one of the musicians who playedregularly at Minton'sand Monroe'srecalled, the musicianshad "already developed a 'Tea for Two' thing in the middle... and he dug this and right away startedfitting in."104Parker's solo, sudden and strong, shatteredthe song's conventionalthematic statement. Not yet the howling and emotionally intense alto player he would become, Parkertook his audience'sbreath away with a display of up-tempoimprovisation, a series of riffs that challengedhis band to keep pace. Pulling the band in the slip streamof his performance, Parkernegotiated the bridge, and returnedthe tune to the band for a final restatement.'05 Parkerplayed as smoothlyas his mentor,Lester Young, and yet the virtual double-timequality of the piece delivered a completely different rhythmic effect. For if Young played ever so slightly behind the beat, holding a song PETERRUTKOFF and WILLIAMSCOTlT III back as if to pull out every ounce of emotional meaning, Parker remained insistentlyin front,pulling the song with him, redefiningit in his own terms, making it into his music. "Cherokee" served as more than Parker's signature song. It became the test for aspiring musicians in Harlem who wanted to play with Parker,Gillespie, Monk, and Clarke.Word of Parker'sperformances spread, making the late- night sessions at Minton'scrowded affairs with as many as eighteenmusicians packedonto the small stage, each vying for attention.The jam seemed to be gettingout of hand."Cherokee" became a way to catchthe neophytes."Because it was moving in half steps and [in] the differentkeys," the song determined who went back to the woodshed.'06

Bebop Uptown

Minton's and Monroe's provided a critical junction in the history of modern jazz in New York. In the wake of the first successful effort to integrate jazz, a movement initiated and sustained by John Hammond, a younger generation of black musicians seized the day to reinvest jazz with the blues. Bebop owed its slow emergenceto the circumstancesof its birth. Parker,Gillespie, Clarke, and Monk each worked on both sides of musical street.Featured members of conventionalswing bandson one side and fiercely proudinsurgents on the other,they made bebop into a new form of African- Americanjazz. As Ralph Ellison wrote of the bebop musicians,"They were concerned... with art,not entertainment."'07In musical terms Parker, Gillespie, Monk, and Clarketransformed popular pieces into jazz throughharmonic and melodic substitution.Together, between 1942 and 1945, Gillespie and Parker workedto complete the innovation.In 1942 after hearingthe trio's version of "," Gillespie played it for Monk, who substituteda more complex set of chord changes that freed the soloists to expand their improvisationalrange. The new piece-named "Ornithology," punning on Parker's shortenednickname, Bird-adhered to the harmonic structureof the original,but no longer resembledit.108 WhenParker and Gillespie found band work, they signedon together,first with EarlHines then with Billy Eckstine,learning each other's books, passing musical ideas back and forth. Parker'sfacility and intuition complemented Gillespie's disciplinedand theoreticalapproach. Each played with astonishing speed, displayingtechnical virtuosity that stunned even the most professionally accomplishedcolleagues. Parker and Gillespie acknowledged the other'scontri- butionto the formationof bebop.Gillespie later said of Parker,"He played fast. He playednotes othersdidn't hear. He attacked."'109When not playingfor Hines or Eckstine or jamming uptown,the two worked meticulouslyon theoretical exercises, experimentingwith new scales and modes, fitting differentchordal relationsonto old tunes,improvising, always exploring new lines of expression. II2 THE KENYON REVIEW

Duringone session Gillespie workedat the piano improvisingon chord changesbased on "athirteenth resolving to a D minor,"and noticed an emergent melody which he thoughthad a Latin feel, a special syncopationin the bass line. The tune, a compositionbased on improvisationalexercises, remained untitleduntil band leader Earl Hines thought to call it "Night in Tunisia," in recognitionof the North African landingsin the fall of 1942.'' Gillespie wrote, "My music emerged from the war years... fast and furious with the chord changes going this way and that.... Sometimes when you know the laws you can breakthem. But you've got to know it first.""' Milt Hintonrecounted a particularlyvivid summernight at Minton'swhen Parkerdropped by to talk and "reallyblow." The musiciansjammed all night with the windows of the groundfloor cabaretopen to allow some breathof cool air. Neighborscame by to drinkout of papercups or to complainabout the late night racket."That was a great night. I rememberthe great feeling, the freedom of just blowing.""I12 As this small core of innovativemodem jazz musiciansdefined them- selves, they created a distinct body of work so personal others found it difficult to copy. Mary Lou Williams suggested that the musicians stayed in Harlembecause they feared "thatthe commercialworld would steal what they had created."Downtowners, she noticed, often came into the clubs to scribblenotations on papernapkins. "3 Monk often complained,according to Nat Hentoff, "We'll never get credit for what we're doing here,"concluding that the musicianshad to "createsomething that they can't steal because they can't play it. 114 "Whatwe were doing at Minton's,"said Gillespie proudly,"was play- ing .., creating a new dialogue among ourselves, blending our ideas into a new style of music." Yet, Gillespie intentionallymade his music difficult, fooling newcomersinto playing in B flat while actuallyplaying in F sharp."5 Similarly,Jerry Newman prided himself on being one of the few white persons presentduring the Minton's-Monroe'ssessions. (Another,,then a football scholarshipplayer at Columbia,often sat at the bar drinkingbeer.) JohnnyCarisi, an Italian-Americanwhose successfulplaying met with reluctant acceptance,believed that some at Minton'sand Monroe's resented him, feeling "you oafys come up here and you pick up our stuff.""l6 Caught between theirbelief that the white commercialmusic establishmentwas an exploitative systemthat condoned segregated recording, publishing, and performing, and the "Tomming"attitudes of olderjazz musicians,the modernjazz beboppersplayed and createdfor each other.They developeda complex and rich subculturein language,dress, attitude,a politics to complementtheir music. Monkand Gillespiecultivated the bebop-hipsterimage of the mid-1 940s. In contrastwith swing band performerswho wore scarlet or iridescentblue dinnerjackets, beboppersadopted Gillespie's adversarialstyle that included beret, dark glasses or horn rims, cigaretteholders, and wide-lapeled,tailored suits. Parkerremained the exception.Miles Davis, in 1945, wanderedup and PETERRUTKOFF and WILLIAMSCOTT II3 down Fifty-secondstreet looking for Parkerwhen ColemanHawkins told him to try the Heatwaveup in Harlem."I lookedaround and there was Bird,looking badderthan a motherfucker.He was dressedin these baggy clothes thatlooked like he had been sleepingin them for days. His face was all puffedup and his eyes all swollen and red."'7 About a year earlierMary Lou Williamsran into Monk, who could look regal wearingsweat clothes, admiringa pair of sunglassesin a shop window next door to the musicians'union buildingon Sixth Avenue.He told her that he plannedto have a pair made and appearedseveral days laterwith "his new glasses and,of course,a beret.He had been wearinga beretwith a smallpiano clip on it for years. Now he startedwearing the glasses and the beret,and the others copied him.""118 The boppers'stylistic avant-gardism,which mimickedand satirizedthe middle class, had its slang counterpart.Jazz musicianshad always used slang, partlyfor amusement,partly to identify outsiders.Gillespie's use of what he called "pig Latin" followed the historical pattern.In addition to the more common term "hip"(expressed uniquely by Howard McGhee, who said of Parker,"He hippedme to Stravinsky"),bebop musiciansinvented new slang terms."Cool" and "wig"joined "mezz,"their word for pot, whichderived from ,who always seemed to have the best supply, and "razor,"a draftwhose chill cut into one's back. As Gillespie put it, echoingMilt Hinton, "As black people we just naturallyspoke that way. As we playedwith musical notes, bendingthem into new and difficultmeanings that constantlychanged, we played with words.""9 Mose Allison, who later played with Miles Davis, describedParker as heir to the black musical experience,an embodimentof the blues and gospel tradition.Jay McShannsaid succinctly, "Bird could play anything,because primarily,Bird was the greatestblues playerin the world."'20When his friends attemptedto shakeParker from the effects of drugsand alcohol,they appealed to his sense of racial and political pride. Max Roach, drummingprotege of Kenny Clarke, who played with Parkeron "Ko-Ko"and then at the Three Deuces on Fifty-secondStreet where he often found Parker"shooting shit," told him "howmuch he meantto us, how much he meantto blackpeople, how much he meant to black music."'12' Parker's gifts extended well beyond the bandstand.Like Monk, he indulged in comic outbursts,putting on Oxonian accents, turning the old minstrelroutine of travestyinside out, informingslightly bored patrons, "Ladies and gentlemen,the managementhas sparedno expense this evening to bring you the CharlieParker ."'122 His sense of humor and irony, however, barely concealedhis political and racial consciousness. Parker,along with Gillespie, Clarke,Max Roach, Milt Hinton, and Art Tatumformed a core of musicianswhose political and intellectualawareness playedan importantrole in theirmusical lives. Hintonand Clarkeboth recalled that Parker spoke as passionatelyas he played about social and political II4 THE KENYON REVIEW

issues. "He was always talking deep things about race or conditionsin the countryor aboutmusic. It was such a joy to talk."'23Gillespie engaged Parker in discussionsabout Baudelaireand radicalcongressional representative Vito Marcantonio.Gillespie, who focused his angeron Americanracism, refused to serve in the military,fearful of barracksconditions in the South.Knowing that his work left him constantlyon the move, Gillespie figuredthe draft would never catch up. He later wrote:

We were creatorsin an artform which grew fromuniversal roots and which provedit had universalappeal.... We refusedto acceptracism, poverty, or economicexploitation. But therewas nothingunpatriotic about it. If America wouldn'thonor and respect us as men,we couldn'tgive a shitabout America.'24

Hinton and Parker were inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. the two often talked of Du Bois's message to black people. When they arrived at a new destination, "We'd get off the bus and be sure we got to this place to hear W.E.B. Du Bois and this would be the focal point of our conversation."'125To Hinton and Gillespie, Paul Robeson symbolizedthe social aspirations of African-Americans at a time when his reputation had been tainted by his Communist party affiliation. Fearful of red-baiting, the politically minded jazz performers reacted cautiously, meeting Robeson on one occasion in Cleveland to talk about music and race relations, but keeping their distance. Hinton and Gillespie believed that federal persecution prevented the majority of African-Americansfrom listening to him.'26The AmericanCommunist party proved no less troublesome. Trying to woo black artists and intellectuals into its ranks, the party played on racial-sexual stereotypes, using white women to recruitthem to meetings,anxious to "get a TeddyWilson or a CharlieParker." In the end, however, the musiciansknew that jazz itself best expressedtheir political values. "We played,"said Hinton. "Thatwas the kind of militancy that we exercised."'27 The tensionbetween art and politicsfound its resonancein a conversation betweenGillespie and Clarke,each respondingto the question,"Did the music have anything to say to black people?" Gillespie answered with his usual directness, "Yea, get the fuck outta the way." Clarke, who later moved to Europe after discovering a racially benign society when stationed in France and Germany in 1944-45, thought bebop spoke the same message as Jackie Robinson's presence on the ball field. Jazz, Clarke said, "was teaching them ... there was a message in our music .... Whatever you go into, go into it intelligently."Several years laterwhen Parkervisited Clarkein Parishe found him at peace with himself. In Europe, Clarke explained, a black musician could live as an artist without the additional burden of solving the dilemma of racial prejudice. Warned Clarke, "You're committing suicide in the United States."'128 Parker's "Now's the Time," recorded at the 1945 "Ko-Ko" session, clearly demonstratedParker's political awareness. Written coincident with the double- V campaign-for victoryabroad and againstJim Crow at home-in the wake PETERRUTKOFF and WILLIAMSCOTT I I5 of the postponedcivil rights Marchon Washingtonmovement and againstthe residualanger from the Harlem riots of 1943, "Now's the Time" revealed Parker'spolitical concerns: its title a call for action by and for African- Americansat a momentwhen society struggledto returnto pre-warbusiness as usual. The tune's rather lyric introductionbecame in Parker'shands a moderatelypaced blues, slow enough to allow Davis to accompanyParker. But its melody, syncopatedand snappy, providedthe energy for subsequent covering."Now's the Time"was greetedby a studio filled with admirersas an activiststatement. The song complementedthe musicalferocity of "Ko-Ko,"each a counterpointto the perspectiveof the other.'29The implicit stridencyof "Now's the Time"matched the claim of artisticindependence of "Ko-Ko"from the control of the music industry.Together they spoke to the angerand pride of the musicianswho played them. In New York the original segregatedsystem of recording,publishing, and performinghad been loosely enforcedas long as musicians,agents, and entrepreneursrespected the colorline. In contrast,the city of New York,through the Police Department,adopted a policy which far more severely infringed on the livelihood and civil rights of the African-Americanjazz musicians. In 1931 the city had requiredthe licensing of all cabarets,defined by the combinationof alcohol and entertainment.In 1940, however,the NYPD took over the licensing procedureand extendedit to performers,requiring that the musicians themselves be registered,fingerprinted, and given ID cards. The notorious "cabaretcard" could be held back from anyone deemed of bad character,largely defined as possession of marijuanaand heroin. Musicians found themselveshostage to a bureaucracyand an enforcementagency they knew to be fundamentallyhostile, if not simply racist. Equally oppressive was the behavior of the American Federationof MusiciansLocal 802, led by JamesC. Petrillo.The 802 leadershipviewed the jazz musiciansas "deviantand raciallyinferior."'30 In 1942 Petrilloordered a recordingban, in effect a strikeby union membersagainst all studios, which had devastatingeffects on black jazz musicians.The union hoped to salvage the losses of hundredsof live radiojobs to recordingsby pressuringthe record companiesto pay royaltiesto a musicians'trust fund for every side played on radioor overjukeboxes. To blackjazz musicians,who dependedon sales from the small labels that concentratedon jazz, the ban spelled financialdisaster. Popularwhite swing bands,who enjoyedcontracts with largerecord companies, had sufficientbacklogs to release previouslyrecorded music for the duration of the strike, which lasted until 1944. While Petrillo's ban had not sought to preventthe new jazz from being recorded,it had that effect. The union organizedits delegatesto circulatethrough the city to assurecompliance and to preventillegal jams. Only Henry Minton's office in the union enabledhis club to remainexempt from the ban.13' The recordingban of 1942-44 had a dual effect. It seriouslyrestricted the abilityof the musiciansto makea living playinga non-commercialized,esoteric i i6 THE KENYON REVIEW jazz. Yet, it drovethe musiciansunderground, liberating them fromcommercial constraint.When the union lifted the ban in 1944, bebop had matured.What bebop's new listenersheard after two years of seemed startlinglynew. The generalpublic continued to danceto the big bandswing of BennyGoodman and , but bebop, "the undergroundwas years ahead."'32 Bebop, created by a small group of black musicians who migratedto the city during the Depression, anticipatingthe massive movement of the second great migrationduring the war, createdan expressive and technically complex music that belonged to them. During the war they worked out a new set of conventionsthat shapedjazz in its many variationsfor the next generation.By restoringthe role of blues-basedimprovisation, these modem jazz revolutionariesinsisted on receivingcultural as well as financialcredit for their music. When Parker,Gillespie, Davis, Roach,and Russell recorded"Ko- Ko" in the late fall of 1945, they steppedout of obscurityinto the spotlightof public notice. With the end of the war the time had come to take their music downtown,to unfurlits banneron The Street.

NOTES

'Jack Chambers, Milestones 1: The Music and Times of Miles Davis to 1960 (New York: U of TorontoP, 1983) 36.

2JamesPatrick, "Charlie Parker and HarmonicSources of Bebop Composition:Thoughts on the Repertoryof New Jazz in the 1940s,"Journal of Jazz Studies6.1 (1979): 12.

3"TheCharlie Parker Story," Savoy, MG-12079,bands 14 and 15. Billed by Savoy as "TheGreatest Recording Session in ModemJazz in Its Entirety,"the out-of-printrecord has been rereleasedin CD format.

4James Patrick,"The Ko-Ko Session," Journal of Jazz Studies8.2 (1981): 78-81.

5Lawrence Koch, YardbirdSuite, A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker (Bowling Green:Bowling Green UP, 1988) 67.

6DizzyGillespie, with Al Frazer,To Be or Not to... Bop: Memoirs(New York:Doubleday, 1979) 233.

7Koch 68.

8Ira Gitler,Jazz Mastersof the Forties (New York:Da Capo, 1966) 27.

9Max Harrison, "Jazz," The New Grove Gospel, Blues, and Jazz (New York: Norton, 1980) 294. Says Harrison,"the piece could almostbe describedas a pesto lamentoso."

10MilesDavis, with ,Miles, the Autobiography(New York:Simon and Schuster, 1989) 75.

"l Gillespie 231. PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT I I7

12Gillespie 210.

13Gillespie 299.

14Gillespie 299.

'5James LincolnCollier, DukeEllington (New York:Macmillan, 1987) 225.

16Koch 68.

17Patrick 16.

18Ross Russell, Bird Lives! The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie Parker (New York: Norton, 1973) 14.

'9LawrenceLevine, "Jazz and AmericanCulture," Journal of AmericanFolklore 102 (1989): 7-8.

20Sanuel B. Chartersand LeonardKunstadt, Jazz: A History of the New YorkScene (New York:Doubleday, 1961) 102-61.

21Gillespie 109.

22JamesLincoln Collier, BennyGoodman and the Swing Era (New York:Oxford, 1989) 97. See also John Hammond,On Record,an Autobiographywith IrvingTownsend (New York: Ayer, 1977) 64-66.

23Hammond73.

24Collier98.

25John Chilton,Billie's Blues: The Billie Holiday Story, 1933-1959 (New York:Da Capo, 1975) 14.

26GuntherSchuller, The Swing Era (New York:Oxford, 1989) 529.

27Chilton44.

28Chilton I 1.

29ScottDeveraux, "The Emergenceof the Jazz Concert, 1935-1945," AmericanMusic (Spring, 1989): 8.

30Collier103.

31Charters 248.

32Collier153-54.

33Charters238-40.

34Collier214- 18. I I8 THE KENYON REVIEW

35Charters257.

36Hammond200.

37Hammond201.

38Schuller 229.

39Koch22.

40Schuller 547.

41Schuller 564. See also Frank Buchmann-Moller,Lester Young(Washington, D.C.: Greenwood,1988).

42Schuller440. See also Buchmann-M0eller45, and Collier 221.

43Buichmann-M0ller45.

44Buchmann-M0ller104.

45Schuller 548.

46Schuller 548.

47Schuller549.

48Buchmann-M0ller 44. Quote from Schuller549.

49Buchmann-M0ller107.

50Chilton62.

51Chilton 68-69.

52Schuller543; Chilton69; Collier 306.

53In July 1957 ten years following her convictionand jail term for drug possession and threemonths after the deathof LesterYoung, Eleanora Fagan McKay, Lady Day, died, seventy cents left in her savings account.Schuller 546.

54Ira Gitler,Swing to Bop (New York:Oxford, 1985) 105.

55Charters268. This "discovery"story has severalvariants, and it is not clear who inserted the sartoriallyoutrageous Christian onto the bandstandthat night, Hammond or severalmembers of Goodman'sgroup who felt sorryfor the newcomer.All versions,however, converge on the "he knockedtheir sox off" conclusionof Christian'splaying.

56Schuller564.

57RalphEllison, Shadowand Act (New York:Random, 1972) 208. Ellison wrote these middle essays on jazz for SaturdayReview in the 1950s. PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT I I9

58Ellison235; Schuller563.

59Collier59, 263.

60Schuller572. See also RaymondHorricks, Dizzy Gillespie (New York:Hippocrene, 1984) 14.

61Charters 314.

62LeonardFeather, liner notes, "The Harlem Jazz Scene- 1941,"Essoteric Records, 1957.

63Collier265.

64Horricks14.

65Davis52. See also Horricks13, and Feather.

66Ellison201.

67Gillespie140.

68KennyClarke, interview, Paris, 30 Sept. 1977. Institutefor Jazz Studies, Newark, New Jersey (hereafterreferred to as IJS).

69DanMorgenstem, liner notes, "CharlieParker: First Recordings,"Onyx, 221.

70MiltHinton, interview, Washington, D.C., 1976. IJS.

71Ellison 205.

72Koch35.

73Quotedin many sources,including Koch 20 and Ellison 229.

74Russell30.

75HarryReed, "TheBlack Bar in the Makingof a Jazz Musician:Bird, Mingus,and Stan Hope,"Journal of Jazz Studies 9.1 (1982): 77.

76BrianPriestly, Charlie Parker (New York:Hippocrene, 1984) 15. See also Russell62.

77Russell85.

78Russell 75.

79JamesPatrick, "Charlie Parker," 4.

80Russell 143. Patrickinvokes the idea of a ,drawn from classical musical analysis,wherein original are discarded and new ones createdon the basis of the original chordstructure. This, he and many othersargue, was the basis of the beboprevolution (1-5).

81Gillespie 116. I20 THE KENYON REVIEW

"2Koch29.

83Gillespie 72-79; Horricks25.

84Horricks, photo, 55.

85Hinton.

86Hinton, interview2, 1977. IJS.

87Gillespie 92.

88Nat Hentoff,Hear Me Talking to You (New York:Dover, 1957) 343.

89Hinton,interview 1976.

9OHorricks30.

91Hentoff350.

92GeorgeHoeffer, notes, "Hot Box." Hoeffer,longtime columnist for Downbeat,deposited his notes and rough drafts at the IJS.

93Hoeffer2/1/62. Clarke,interview.

94Clarke.

95Hoeffer2/1/62. Clarke,interview.

96Clarke.

97Monk's biographicalinformation derives from several sources, including Hoeffer 2/11/48; Time28 Feb. 1964 (Monkamazingly appeared on the cover); Collier383. He actually seems to have been born any time between 1917 (Grove) and 1920 (Hoeffer).

98Joe Goldberg,Jazz Mastersof the 50's (New York,Da Capo, 1965) 28.

99Goldberg35.

00Clarke.

'01Hoeffer2/11/48.

102DanMorgenstem, "Charlie Parker's First Recordings," liner notes, Onyx, 221.

103GarryGiddens, Robert Bergman,Will Freidwald,liner notes, "CharlieParker: The Complete 'Birth of Bebop'," Stash.

104Gitler,Swing to Bop, 71.

'?5Koch30.

'6Gitler 69. PETER RUTKOFF and WILLIAM SCOTT I2I

'O7Ellison 210.

'08Gillespie 202-08.

109Gillespie 151.

"0Koch 36.

"' 'Gillespie 202.

"12Hinton 1977.

113Gillespie 149.

"14Hentoff 340.

l"5Gillespie 145.

116Gillespie 143.

"7Davis 57.

"8Hentoff 350.

"9Gillespie 281.

'20Koch 63.

'21Gillespie 235.

'22Russell 167.

'23Hinton.

124Gillespie 287.

125Hinton.

'26Hinton.

'27Hinton.

128Russell 274.

'29Russell 274. The main theme of "Now's the Time" became, in time, the "Hucklebuck."

130Paul Chevigny, Gigs. Jazz and the CabaretLaws in New York(New York: Routledge, 1991) 4-22.

131Gillespie 140.

'32Koch 35.