At the beginning of the first Seven Year Plan of the Baha'i community in 1937 John Birks(Dizzy) Gillespie went to New York to play his trumpet in the experimental, unpredictable way that he had begun in South Carolina. Charlie Parker came to New York from Kansas City that same year to play the saxophone with his hard, brittle, new and complex sound. In 1942 they came together to play in a new melodic style with a fresh harmonic content which came to be known as Bebop. America in these war years defined itself in some important ways through its music. Gillespie, in many ways, came to personify the modern jazz musician and improvisation came to be, arguably the most important form of musical composition in the 20th century. -Ron Price with thanks to "Jazz: Episode 7: Swinging With Change," ABC TV, 9:30-10:30 pm, 10 January 2002; and Brad Pokornoy, "From Hothead to World Citizen," One Country, Vol.11, No.2, Sept. 1999.
These were early years for you
and for us1
as we too were putting together
for the first time
our sound which we were just then
starting to take around the world.
They were years of a glorious
emergence from a severe crisis2
in that same city3 where bebop
was then revolutionizing
the whole sound of jazz.
The American Baha'i community
was then assuming its rightful place
at the forefront of a spiritual army
where you would one day be
an ambassador,a world citizen,
transformed from that roughneck,
knife-carrying youth of yesteryear,
into that easy-going, hip, black beret,
horn-rimmed glasses and goatee,
personification of a jazz musician.
1 1937-1944 and particularly 1942.
2 Shoghi Effendi, Messages to America: 1932-1946, Wilmette, 1947, p.58.
3 New York
Ron Price
11 January 2002
(updated for 8notes.com
on: 5/11/'08)
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