Bebop and Charlie Parker

Jazz began in the early years of the twentieth century as a combination of Western classical music and African American folk and blues music. Musicians such as Louis Armstrong soon became extremely popular with both white and black audiences, and by the time the "big band" era peaked in the 1930s, jazz was the mainstream music of the United States. Many black musicians began to be dissatisfied with the strict forms of big band or "swing" music during the 1940s, however, and bands with a new sound known as "bebop" began to earn a reputation because of their radical rhythms and experimental tonality.

Bebop bands were notable for their new style and distinct instrumentation, which they soon found worked better in small ensembles; they also were associated with a number of wider artistic and cultural movements, particularly after the big band era came to...