Articles by Richard Jessen

Glenn Miller: The Godfather Of Bop?

by Richard Jessen
August 14, 2004

The idea of Glenn Miller being the godfather of bop at first sounds like the most outlandish of ideas. Yet this is just what he became. In 1939, Glenn Miller recorded the first evidence we have of what would become known as be-bop (later known as bop).

Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary tells us that bop is “jazz characterized by harmonic complexity, convoluted melodic lines, and constant shifting of accents and played at a very rapid tempo." The word ...