How does bebop fit into the history of jazz?
It has become jazz in a sense. It’s what most people think of when they think of jazz at this point. It’s what’s usually meant. It’s been the mainstream of jazz for over forty years now and approaching a half-century, which is an interesting development because it started off as a kind of avant-garde movement, though I don’t think any of the musicians themselves would have described it that way. It’s become synonymous with jazz in the same way that a handful of composers like Beethoven and so on have become synonymous with classical music. Is there a point in history where bebop overtook traditional jazz? The most convenient place you could point to would be the 1941 recording by Jay McShann’s big band that has Charles Parker in the saxophone section. And he did a solo. I don’t think anyone at the time realized that this represented a real break. Looking back, we can see that it did. We can see that as a real transition point. Do you think bebop makes a political statement? It’s always
