Swing to bop : an oral history of the transition in jazz in the 1940s / Ira Gitler.

Author/creator Gitler, Ira
Format Book
Publication InfoNew York : Oxford University Press, 1985.
Description331 pages, 12 pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Subjects

Contents The road -- Roots and seeds -- Minton's and Monroe's -- Fifty-second Street -- California -- Big-band bop -- The bop era -- End of era.
Abstract This volume chronicles the emergence of modern jazz from the Big Band era of the late 1930s and 1940s. Based on interviews with over 50 seminal figures in what was originally known as "bebop," the author traces how the music first established itself in jam sessions in Harlem and then spread to New York's 52nd Street. He describes how young musicians in major cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit were swept up in the movement, and how the music and the environment in which it flourished affected each other. The author allows the creators of bop to speak for themselves, recalling the world and times in which they made the music. He has reproduced the interviews here with accuracy, right down to jazz vernacular.
General noteIncludes index.
LCCN 85005092
ISBN0195036646 :
ISBN9780195036640