Jazz in Los Angeles: Bebop Invades the West

Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie burst onto the mainstream jazz scene in New York during the mid-1940s and pioneered a new style of modern jazz that became known as bebop. One of Southern California’s premier club owners, Billy Berg, decided to bring bebop to his latest Hollywood nightspot and billed it as, “Bebop Invades the West.” But when Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, and Stan Levey arrived at Billy Berg’s in December 1945, they found a group of like-minded musicians already playing the new music. In this course, we explore this new generation of Los Angeles musicians that were just coming up, including Howard McGhee, Sonny Criss, Teddy Edwards, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Buddy Collette and Charles Mingus plus many lesser-known names that made significant contributions. We also discuss the Central Avenue and Hollywood nightclubs that presented the new music as well as the record companies that recorded it. “Bebop Invades the West” is brought to life through rare recordings, film footage, photographs and memorabilia drawn from the vast archive of The Los Angeles Jazz Institute.