Jazz Influence On Harlem

New York City was the cultural center of the U.S. and was the jazz center as well. Most of the city’s black jazz musicians lived in Harlem, which had been the creative focal point of
African American culture since the Harlem Renaissance. During its formative period, bebop's roots in Harlem helped to preserve its connections to the African-American jazz community. That neighborhood provided an ideal environment for this musical experimentation, as these musicians often played together at musicians’ homes exchanging ideas freely. Dizzy Gillespie's apartment was an especially popular site for such gatherings. According to saxophonist Budd Johnson, “We used to hang around up at Dizzy's at 7th Avenue, and all the musicians used to come up there. Dizzy was sort of like a school also, and used to sit down at the piano, and of course, he was playing the modern [chord] changes”. Utilizing this supportive environment, Gillespie and Parker honed their musical vision and technical command of their instruments, and in the process influenced virtually every Bebop musician with their mastery of improvisation. And their influence, and that of bebop, has been described as “…the lingua franca of
There is an interesting similarity between the emergence of classic jazz in the years following World War I and its impact on the “Lost Generation” and the emergence of bebop and cool jazz following World War II and its impact on the “Beat Generation.” Part of that examination of Black influence on white culture would have to look at how white culture appropriates African American culture. Consider that the epitome of the cool hipster of the early 1950s is a white, bongo-playing, goateed beatnik reciting poetry in a coffee house with cool jazz playing in the background. The irony with that, is that this image is Dizzy Gillespie with a white