"Chrisdee" - Frank Rosolino

“Chrisdee” (PDF) from the Frank Rosolino album, Free For All

Drummer Stan Levey was immersed in the New York City bebop scene throughout the 1940s and became an integral part of its westward expansion toward the Lighthouse Cafe in Southern California. Along with the blustering rhythms of the east coast, he brought with him the harmonic depth that elevated the blues as an intellectual art form. Levey’s original tune “Chrisdee” is a reharmonization of Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm” changes, through a descending sequence of dominant chords and the linear chromaticism that outlines bebop melodies.

While the popularity of bebop is often portrayed as a reaction to post-War attitudes in the States, the music appears to be more of a reflection of the European trends in classical music during the early 20th century - the controlled dissonance of Impressionism and the melodic substance of 12-tone serialism, only much faster and improvised. Before the indigenous rhythms of Latin America gave it a new beat, bebop was for a brief period the state-of-the-art in global music.

Here is a YouTube preview for a Stan Levey documentary:

Recommended reading: Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight by Frank R. Hayde. Published by Santa Monica Press.