Pianist John Lewis once said, “We got tired of being entertainers, and became the artists we knew ourselves to be.” Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and their fellow musicians of the “BeBop” school emerge in the 1940s, and advance American Music into an art music,
Dancers love of Rhythm and Blues led to the emergence of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1950s. Black musicians dominate, but soon Sun Records, in Memphis, begins to record the “million-dollar quartet,” led by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and others. Rock and Roll gains wide acceptance beyond the African-American diaspora.
Enjoy lots of musical examples and vintage photographs. As Yogi Berra once may have said: “When you come to a fork in the road – take it.”