"Hmmm...." was my immediate reaction as well.
The quote is from the Norman Granz biography by Tad Hershorn. A good book, but of course, Fred Astaire could dance better than anyone. And the zoot suiters were more into swing than bebop.....possibly.
Bebop was pure Kerouac.
That's what I thought, too...
At least the way the word bebop is commonly used, and the way it's used in the quotes... Bird and Dizzy and the Minton's Playhouse scene...
It's probably older though, used in 30s scat singing a la Cab Calloway and Louis Prima...
a google search on bebop and rebop came up with this blog entry:
http://coldjazz.blogspot.de/2011/07/art-and-sadness.html
I'm looking again at the clothing in 'The Hip'. This was a rather interesting thread, I think. When came the transition from hep to hipster (if you follow my meaning)? I'll be paying close attention to the break, the shoes.
Studying some of the black and white photographs, I get the sense that jazz players, whether black or white, were very much doing their own thing. Some of the jackets and trousers look just a little on the baggy side to be 'Ivy', the footwear more workmanlike than elegant (reminding me of what Satch was said to be wearing as a youngish player in Chicago). I do wonder if a player like Monk ever thought of his clothing as anything other than 'the clothing Monk wore'. He liked to stand out from a crowd. He said so. Nothing there about 'a display of not putting on a display'. He'd even put a jacket and tie on to lie around on his bed watching TV. Never got the impression he was taking a leaf out of anyone's book, be he black, white, 'Ivy League' or otherwise.