Created in the jazz clubs of New York City, and initially treated by most musicians and audiences as radical, chaotic, and bewildering: bebop has become, Thomas Owen writes, `the lingua franca of jazz, serving as the principal musical language of thousands of jazz musicians.'

In Bebop, Owens conducts us on an insightful, loving tour through the music, players, and recordings that changed American culture. Combining vivid portraits of bebop's gigantic personalities - among them Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis - with deft musical analysis, he offers an instrument-by-instrument look at the key players and their innovations.