Charlie Parker is usually given most, if not all, of the credit for the development of bebop - the complex, chromatic, almost scientific approach to jazz improvisation that has been the music's center ever since. He certainly deserves his share, but the other musicians who were there at the breakthrough jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem in 1941, especially Dizzy Gillespie and the guitarist, Charlie Christian, deserve some as well. At the very least, they seem to have been at the same place, stylistically, at the same moment. In fact, Christian may have arrived there first. Proving this contention would require more knowledge in the fields of musicology and history than I have at my disposal, but one thing is for sure: Charlie Christian is among the most important and accomplished musicians in jazz, as well as the first great electric guitarist. Some would even argue that he still hasn't been surpassed on the instrument. And we're left to wonder what he could have done had he lived past the age of twenty-five. Here's "Stompin' at the Savoy", recorded at Minton's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x52x5hjpD5k