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"The Cult  of Bebop"
 
 
 
 

Excerpt from Dizzy Gillespie's Autobiography 
To Be, Or Not ... To Bop

“The Cult of Bebop”

BROWSE:
 

Dizzy's Intro: Around 1946, jive-ass stories about “beboppers” circulated.

Lie number one: that beboppers wore wild clothes and dark glasses at night.

Lie number two: that only beboppers wore beards, goatees, and other facial hair and adornments.

Lie number three: that beboppers spoke mostly in slang or tried to talk like Negroes.

Lie numberfour: that beboppers had a penchant for loose sex and partners racially different from themselves.

Lie number five: that beboppers used and abused drugs and alcohol.

Lie number six: that beboppers tended to express unpatriotic attitudes regarding segregation, economic injustice, and the American way of life.

Lie number seven: that beboppers expressed a preference for religions other than Christianity.

Lie number eight: that beboppers threatened to destroy pop, blues, and old-time music.

Lie number nine:  hat beboppers expressed disdain for "squares."

Lie number ten:  that beboppers put down as "commercial" people who were trying to make money.

Lie number eleven: that beboppers acted weird and foolish.