Inside Be-Bop

by Leonard Feather

Feather's 1949 account is THE needed volume to form a complete idea of the diverse origins of bebop. the swing era of the late 1930's was in a billion dollar rut, largely segregated & mining to sound-alike exhaustion the evident possibilities of the usual twelves chromatic scales & rhythms. Then, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Teddy Wilson, Lionl Hampton...& Charlie Christian, with his electric guitar!...began pushing the outsides of the popular music envelope & the rest is American musical history.

Paperback

Published January 1, 1949

About the author

Leonard Geoffrey Feather was a British-American musician, composer, record producer, music journalist and radio broadcaster. He began working in radio broadcasting in the U.K. during the 1930s, and wrote a regular column for the British magazine 'Radio Times' during those years as well, titled "Tempo di Jazz". After working as a record producer in both the U.K. and U.S., he moved in 1939 to New York City; he later moved to Los Angeles during the early 1960s. Leonard Feather was co-editor (with Barry Ulanov) of the U.S. music business magazine 'Metronome' for many years, until it ceased publication in 1961. He also served as chief jazz critic for the Los Angeles Times until his death.