The Birth of Bebop Miles and Charlie 1948

Wearing clothes way to hip
for the cities brand of frigidity,
the icy whip of Chicago's notorious winter
lashing through their coats,
they still came to play
at the Argyle Club.

Dudes short of bread....long in cool.
Cool as Miles Davis
trumpeting
richly colored and
emotionally restrained
jazz tones.

Cool, like the way Yardbird's
"Embraceable You,"
smoothed away the chill
crossing Lake Michigan
in late December.

Bebop began to breath
cheering away solitude
with the sweet sounds
of mellow uprising,
melting away
the harshness of the war years.
These... the first notes
of the beat generation.