Jazz standard and Billy Strayhorn's "Take the 'A' Train" (1941). With the big bands struggling to keep going during World War II, a shift was happening in jazz in favor of smaller groups. Some swing era musicians, such as Louis Jordan, later found popularity in a new kind of music, called "rhythm and blues", that would evolve into rock and roll in the 1950s. Bebop emerged in the early 1940s, with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk leading the way. It appealed to a more specialized audiences than earlier forms of jazz, with sophisticated harmonies, fast tempos and often virtuoso musicianship.
Frank R. Fisher One of the most famous jazz spots in the Fillmore was Jimbo's Bop City. Many famous jazz artists performed at Bop City, and at the clubs in the Fillmore district. Such artists as; Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Lionel Hampton, Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Stan Getz, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster, Billy Eckstine, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Dinah Washington, Art Tatum, Pony Poindexter, Charlie Parker, Kenny Dorham, Jimmy Heath, Woody Herman, John Handy, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims. Mr. Fisher was a part of the Great Migration (African American)s, to the West Coast in the 40s. The