Exploring the Bebop Classic – “Donna Lee” – Charlie Parker & Miles Davis and others!
Last week when I went to the library, one of the books that I checked out on jazz was Hard Bop: Jazz & black music 1955-1965. by David H. Rosenthal. Rosenthal is a free-lance jazz critic whose articles on music have appeared in Down Beat, Jazz-Times, Keyboard,the Village Voice and other publications. Hard Bop is his first book about jazz. Rosenthal starts his look at hard bop with a look at its immediate precursor BeBop. One of the first songs that he discusses is Charlie Parker’s composition “Donna Lee”. Rosenthal uses the song as an example of BeBop’s use of…