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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Bebop

Composer of the Week: Bebop: Episode 1

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Episode 1

Bebop

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Bebop, Episode 1

Donald Macleod explores bebop's roots in the work of pioneers such as Tatum and Hawkins.

Donald Macleod and Geoffrey Smith explore bebop's roots in the work of some of its pioneers: Art Tatum, Charlie Christian, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge.

Bebop! It's a rather silly word for a crucial chapter in jazz history. It didn't just come out of nowhere but evolved, fizzed and bubbled into existence in the USA in the early 1940s, as a result of a gloriously rich and complex musical chemistry involving different combinations of musicians, styles and places. All week, Donald Macleod and his special guest, the writer and broadcaster Geoffrey Smith, have some serious fun investigating this amazing musical phenomenon. 

In Monday's programme they start by exploring the roots of Bebop in the work of a varied cast of pioneers: pianist Art Tatum, guitarist Charlie Christian, tenor sax players Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins and trumpeter Roy Eldridge. Then it's off to Minton's Playhouse, the after-hours Harlem club and all-purpose Bebop laboratory, where some of the most innovative jazz musicians of the day let their hair down and jammed together into the small hours, gradually forging the new style through their collective experimentation. Finally, the two central figures of the Bebop revolution emerge from the crowd - alto sax player Charlie 'Yardbird' Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie - first separately, in earlier, pre-Bop incarnations, then playing together, explosively, in two early Bebop classics, 'Groovin' High' and 'Salt Peanuts'.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod and special guest Geoffrey Smith explore the jazz mode of bebop

Donald Macleod is joined by writer and broadcaster Geoffrey Smith to explore the jazz mode of bebop. It emerged in the 1940s, out of different combinations of musicians, styles and places

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