CHARLIE PARKER

INCREDIBLE as it might seem to us today, the recording industry’s near-total failure to document the bebop revolution of the 1940s was caused by industrial action. Twice during that decade the American Federation Of Musicians successfully imposed a ban on all commercial recording, in pursuit of an attempt to persuade record companies to compensate musicians for the threat posed by radio broadcasts to opportunities for employment in clubs and concert halls. Among the boycott’s principal victims were Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk