What Instruments Did Dizzy Gillespie Play what instruments did dizzy gillespie play Main Menu what instruments did dizzy gillespie play Music-Atlas - Artist. Dizzy Gillespie ... who knows jazz music that did not hear the name Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy Gillespie was a composer, singer, jazz trumpet player and. way it changed the tone of the instrument. Dizzy. Jazz. Dizzy Gillespie What instrument did Dizzy Gillespie play? ChaCha Answer: Dizzy Gillespie was an amazing jazz musician, who was most famous for playin... Dizzy Gillespie - Wikipedia, the free. Can you answer this question? Answer it or... follow discuss research share Facebook Twitter Search Related answers: How many instruments did dizzy gillespie play ? i65577. Dizzy Gillespie ... who knows jazz music that did not hear the name Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy Gillespie was a composer, singer, jazz trumpet player. way it changed the tone of the instrument. Dizzy. Dizzy Gillespie MP3 Downloads. Dizzy. Dizzy Gillespie played what instrument?. Dizzy Gillespie played what. Where did Dizzy Gillespie go to school?. Dizzie Gillespie was a jazz trumpet player.

What kind of trumpet did Dizzy Gillespie. What instrument did Dizzy Gillespie play? Dizzy Gillespie was an amazing jazz musician, who was most fa... What kind of trumpet did Dizzy Gillespie play? Dizzy Gillespie Biography, Bio, Profile,. A short summery of Dizzy Gillespie's life. Cab's band but Cab Calloway did not like Dizzy. trumpeter in jazz playing an instrument like it. Dizzy's "Style" Dizzy started to play. Dizzy Gillespie played what instrument?. ... of James and Lottie Gillespie. James was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to Dizzy. He started to play. did not like how Dizzy played his music, nor did he. Jazz Music. Dizzy Gillespie Dizzy Gillespie: Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to. time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player. However, Calloway did not care for Gillespie's constant. dizzy gillespie. instruments but none of them cared for music. Dizzy's father died when he was ten and never heard his youngest son play trumpet, although he did get. Dizzy Gillespie - Biography, Movies,.

... who knows jazz music that did not hear the name Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy Gillespie was a composer, singer, jazz trumpet player and. way it changed the tone of the instrument. Dizzy. Dizzy Gillespie - Bellazon What instruments did dizzy gillespie play? he played the trumpet. How many instruments did dizzy gillespie play? i65577: Which instrument is Elton john known for playing? What instrument did Dizzy Gillespie play?. What kind of trumpet did Louis Armstrong play? What happened to Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet? Which instrument did the jazz musician Miles Davis play? Dizzy Gillespie | Quazen ... Birks “ Dizzy” Gillespie. practice instruments but none of them cared for music. Dizzy's father died when he was ten and never heard his youngest son play trumpet, although he did. Dizzy Gillespie An essay or paper on Dizzy Gillespie. On October 21, 1917, John Birks Gillespie was born. The world did. bandleader/piano player on the weekends. He kept his bands instruments at. Copyright © 2009-2010.

Jazz trumpet virtuoso Dizzy Gillespie started bebop Dizzy Gillespie took trumpet playing to a new level and co-founded Be-Bop - the next jazz language after Swing Dizzy Gillespie is a major player in jazz history. He helped found Be-Bop. His big band produced the first successful fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz. He was perhaps the greatest virtuoso on jazz trumpet. Dizzy Gillespie was born John Birks Gillespie on October 21, 1917 in Cheraw, South Carolina. He was the youngest child of nine children and his father was a bricklayer, musician and band leader. The elder Birks encouraged all of his children to learn to play music and the instruments for his bands were kept in the home. However, his first eight children did not show any great talent for music. His youngest child eventually made up for the older eight in musical talent. When young Dizzy tried to learn to play trombone, his arms were too short to reach all of the slide positions. So, he taught himself trumpet instead.

In 1930, when he was learning to play trumpet, Gillespie heard The Teddy Hill Orchestra broadcasting live from the Savoy Ballroom in New York. He fell in love with the band and especially with the playing of trumpeter, Roy Eldridge. Young Dizzy Gillespie decided he wanted to be a jazz trumpet player like his idol, Roy Eldridge. After graduating from his local school in 1933, Gillespie was awarded a scholarship to a tiny black prep school - Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina. He attended Laurinburg and played music there for two years until his family moved to Philadelphia in 1935. Dizzy left school and moved to Philadelphia getting his first fulltime musician's job with Frankie Fairfax's band in Philadelphia. While gigging in Philadelphia he learned all of his idol Roy Eldridge's solos from records and broadcasts. In 1937 Dizzy Gillespie moved to New York and took Roy Eldridge's place in the Teddy Hill Orchestra. His first recording was made that year with Hill : "King Porter Stomp".

He also met a chorus girl from the Apollo Theatre named Lorraine whom he married in 1940 and with whom he stayed married until his death in 1993. Gillespie left Teddy Hill's band after about a year and free-lanced for a year. Cuban trumpet player, Mario Bauza, then helped Dizzy join Cab Calloway's big band in 1939. He stayed in this popular band until 1941 and one can hear the development of his playing in the short solos he took in his recordings with Calloway. Cab Calloway did not like his style of playing nor his love of humor and practical jokes. In a famous incident in 1941, Calloway was hit in the back of the head by a spitball thrown by another musician and blamed Gillespie for throwing it. They argued strongly about it and that argument ended with with Cab receiving a knife cut that require stitches and with Dizzy being fired. During his tenure with Calloway, he began writing big-band arrangements for Woody Herman, Jimmy Dorsey and others. He became friends with alto saxophonist, Charlie "Bird" Parker .

He began sitting in at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's in Harlem with emerging bebop stars Bird, pianist Thelonius Monk, drummer Kenney Clarke, Guitarist Charlie Christian , and with swing stars Roy Eldridge , Coleman Hawkins , Lester Young , Benny Goodman, Ben Webster and others. Dizzy Gillespie was not highly regarded by most established trumpet stars at this time. The established swing trumpet players focused on good tone and intonation. He was focusing on harmonic evolution and had a rather thin tone. His tone got better later on. From 1941 to 1943 Gillespie played in several big bands, including Benny Carter, Lucky Millander, Charlie Barnet and Earl Hines. Gillespie and Bird Parker were together in the Earl Hines big band and also in the Billy Eckstine big band of 1944. In 1945 Dizzy left the collapsing Billy Eckstine big band to return to small combo playing. From the early jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse as the 1930s were closing until 1944 a new form of jazz was being developed by Gillespie, Parker, Monk and others.

A small combo would consist of typically five musicians - trumpet, sax, piano, bass and drums. New melodies were superimposed over the chord structures of classic jazz songs. The trumpet and sax would begin a number by playing in unison at breakneck speed. Melodies and improvisations were often harmonically based on the upper intervals of the chord changes. Dizzy and Bird were playing 9ths, 11ths, 13ths and creating a new kind of jazz harmony and rhythm. It was called be-bop. In 1944 the first acknowledged be-bop recording featured Coleman Hawkins and Gillespie. In May, 1945 Gillespie led a combo with Chalie Parker (alto sax), Al Haig (piano), Curly Russell (bass) and Sid Catlett (drums). This All Star Combo recorded highly influential bebop tracks including "Shaw 'Nuff", "Salt Peanuts" and "HotHouse". The history and development of jazz is organic and evolutionary. However a ban on recording in the early 1940s, instigated by the Musician's Union, prevented most other musicians and the public from hearing the development of bebop from swing.

The 1945 recordings seemed revolutionary and bebop was decried by many leading musicians and critics and it received a mixed reaction from audiences. No longer dance music, jazz became a more intellectual music for listeners. Mario Bauza got Gillespie into Cab Calloway's big band and showed Gillespie how to really blow his horn. He also sparked a growing interest in Afro-Cuban rhythms by Dizzy. In 1946 he re-formed a big band and added Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. Gillespie created the first successful synthesis of jazz and Afro-Cuban music. "Manteca" and "Cuban Be - Cubana Bop" are two of the best known recordings of this start of Latin jazz. In the 1940s Dizzy Gillespie created a new standard in trumpet virtuosity with his range and dramatic command of the instrument and his suppleness of rhythm, unevenly spaced phrases and complex, chromatically augmented runs played at breathtaking speed. Many consider him the greatest trumpeter of them all. He and others also established bebop as a style of jazz for both small combos and big bands.

He taught and influenced many other musicians including trumpeters Miles Davis, Fats Navarro , Clifford Brown , Lee Morgan and John Faddis. After his tremendous creative output of the 1940s, Dizzy Gillespie continued to play and lead at an extremely high level. He played mostly in small combos but sometimes resurrected a big band and performed until shortly before his death in 1992. Like Louis Armstrong before him, Dizzy Gillespie influenced players on all instruments. Like Armstrong he created a new trumpet style. Armstrong largely created swing which became the musical language of small groups and big bands. Gillespie and others created bebop which became the next language of small groups and big bands. All of jazz is richer because of John Birks Gillespie. Recommended Listening: Bird and Diz (1950) - Early Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie quintet with relatively good sound production The Complete RCA Victor Recordings: 1947-1949 - Includes Dizzy's big band with Chano Pozo - both a bop big band and the start of Latin jazz Dizzy Gillespie dizzy gillespie . american jazz musician . b 1917 .

d 1993 John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, one of the greatest Jazz trumpeters of 20th century and one of the prime architects of the bebop movement in jazz, was born in Cheraw, South Carolina and died in Englewood, New Jersey. Nicknamed "Dizzy" because of his zany on-stage antics, Gillespie, a brass virtuoso, set new standards for trumpet players with his innovative, "jolting rhythmic shifts and ceaseless harmonic explorations" on the instrument during the 1940's period, which ushered in a definitive change in American Jazz music from swing to bebop. The last of nine children, Gillespie was born into a family whose father, James, was a bricklayer, pianist and band leader: Dizzy's mother was named Lottie. Dizzy's father kept all the instruments from his band in the family home and so the future trumpet great was around trumpets, saxophones, guitars and his father's large upright piano (his father tore down one of the walls of the house to get the piano in ) most of his young life.

James use to make all of his older children practice instruments but none of them cared for music. Dizzy's father died when he was ten and never heard his youngest son play trumpet, although he did get the chance to hear him banging around on the piano, because Dizzy started trying to play this intrument at a very early age. In 1930, Gillespie tried learning how to play the trombone but his arms were too short to play it well. That same year he started playing a friend's trumpet and heard one night over the radio a broadcast of Roy Eldridge playing trumpet in Teddy Hill's Orchestra, that was playing at the Savoy Ballroom in New York City. Young Gillespie, then 13, loved Eldridge's playing and the entire band. From that day on, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. In 1933, after graduating from Robert Smalls secondary school, Gillespie received a music scholarship to attend Laurinburg Institute, in North Carolina. He stayed there for two years, studying harmony and theory until his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1935.

In Philadelphia, Gillespie began playing trumpet with local bands, learning all of his idol Eldridge's solos from records and radio broadcasts: it was in Philadelphia that he picked up his nickname of "Dizzy.". In 1937, "Dizzy" moved to New York and replaced Eldridge in Teddy Hill's Orchestra. After a couple of years Gillespie moved on to Cab Calloway's band in 1939. In 1937, Gillespie met his future wife, Lorraine, a chorus dancer at the famed Apollo Theater: they were married in 1940 and remained together until his death. Gillespie worked with many bands during the early 1940's (Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, "Fatha" Hines and Billy Eckstine's seminal band ) before teaming up with Charlie Parker in 1945. Their revolutionary band ushered in the bebop era and was one of the greatest small bands of the 20th century.

An arranger and composer, Gillespie wrote some of the greatest jazz tunes of his era: songs such as "Groovin' High", "A Night in Tunisia" and "Manteca" are considered jazz classics today.. With his trumpet and its upturned, golden bell, goatee, black horn rim glasses and beret, Gillespie became a symbol of both jazz and a rebellious, independent spirit during the 1940's and 50's. His interest in Cuban and African music helped to introduce those music's to a mainstream American audience. When he died he was famous and beloved everywhere and had influenced entire generations of trumpet players all over the world who loved and emulated his playing and his always positive, upbeat, optimistic attitude. Quincy Troupe Biography copyright Mason Editions 2000 and Quincy Troupe. Biography may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of Mason Editions.

Discography (Under Construction) The Dizzy Gillespie All Stars | Dizzy Gillespie Big Band HOME / MUSICIANS / DIZZY / PICS / TOUR / CONTACTS With his great ballooning cheeks and trademark trumpet's bell upturned at a 45-degree angle, Dizzy Gillespie easily has the most recognizable face in jazz. He is also easily one of the most influential figures in that most American of musical forms, having first revolutionized jazz in the 40s by being one of the acknowledged inventors of bebop; and then again in the decades that followed when he championed the rich rhythms of Afro-Cuban, Caribbean, and Brazilian music that, to a large extent, still dominate jazz to this very day. Born John Birks Gillespie, Dizzy moved to Philadelphia with his family at age 18 and joined Frankie Fairfax's band before moving on to New York City and Teddy Hill's big band in 1937, Later he played with all the greats--Ella Fitzgerald. Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Earl Hines, and Billie Holliday.

He met saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker in 1940 and soon was jamming with Parker, Thelonious Monk, and others. It was in this hothouse atmosphere of creativity that Gillespie and his cohorts astonished the world with their aggressive ornamentations, complex harmonic alterations, and rhythmic exploration that would soon be labeled "bebop." "What they did was like nitroglycerine, electricity," says Quincy Jones. "They broke all the rules, changed the world concert of American music." Not all audiences and critics fell immediately in love with these new, often strange sounds. Gillespie, however, was a natural public relations man for this music with his hair-raising technical virtuosity, harmonic adventurousness, and most of all, integrating showmanship. He was, in fact, the first jazz artist to be sent abroad under the auspices of the United States government, spreading American goodwill and good music around the world. Gillespie's legacy is probably best summed up by Gillespie himself in a statement that would sound a bit arrogant if it weren't so probable: "The music of Charlie Parker and me laid a foundation for all the music that is being played now...

Our music is going to be the classical music of the future." And just how did Gillespie end up with that bizarre, trademark trumpet of his? The bent-bell trumpet got its start in 1953 when someone fell on his trumpet stand backstage; Gillespie liked the sound of the altered instrument so much that his trumpets were specially made from then on. Dizzy Gillespie DIZZY GILLESPIE 1917 - 1993 Gillespie, John Birks ("Dizzy") (b. October 21, 1917, Cheraw, S.C.; d. January 7, 1993, Englewood, N.J.), African American trumpet player, the co-creator with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker of bebop or modern jazz, and an Afro-Cuban jazz innovator. John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie may have been the greatest trumpeter in the history of jazz. His bravura trumpet playing featured a brilliant but sensitive tone, a wide range, and mind-boggling speed and articulation.

To the wider public, Gillespie's name also conjured up images of his distinctive trumpet with its upswept bell, the way his cheeks bulged out when he played, and his penchant for clowning that included a seriocomic campaign for president in 1964. But Gillespie was extremely serious about his music and was a leader in two major developments in jazz. Beginning in the 1940s, he played a key role in bringing Afro-Cuban music into American jazz. More significantly, during the mid-1940s Gillespie was a primary force ï¿½ along with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker ï¿½ in the development of bebop or modern jazz. Although Gillespie's role in this movement is well known, he has generally received less attention than Parker, in part because Gillespie did not fit the stereotype of the ill-fated and misunderstood musician. Jazz has a long tradition of mythologizing its troubled geniuses. Gillespie was in many respects closer to being the counterpart in modern jazz of Louis Armstrong in traditional jazz. Like Armstrong had done in the 1920s, Gillespie redirected the course of jazz and expanded its improvisational possibilities.

Both men played with a technical facility that astonished their peers. And like Armstrong, Gillespie had a winning personality and a gift for comedy. John Birks Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of James and Lottie Gillespie's nine children. His father, a brickmason who led a band on the weekends, died not long before John's tenth birthday. During the Great Depression, the fatherless family survived by dint of hard work and struggle. Lottie Gillespie did laundry for white families, and John and his siblings picked cotton. Gillespie showed an early interest in music, and took his first piano lessons from a neighbor. He was also influenced by the sanctified church. "I first learned the meaning of rhythm there," he recalled in his autobiography to BE, or not . . . to BOP, "and all about how music could transport people spiritually." In 1929 Gillespie joined the school band, playing trombone and, later, trumpet. His first public performances were in accompaniment to amateur minstrels in school minstrel shows. Gillespie and several other members of the band also formed a small group that played at local dances, white and black.

In 1933 Gillespie received a scholarship to Laurinburg Technical Institute, a black high school in North Carolina, which he attended until his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1935. There, Gillespie joined the big-band of prominent local bandleader Frankie Fairfax, and members of the Fairfax band soon dubbed the antic young trumpeter "Dizzy." After two years of playing in Philadelphia, Gillespie decided to move to New York City, the nation's jazz capital. He lived with older brother James P. Gillespie, played in jam sessions, and sat in with various groups, including Chick Webb's big-band at the Savoy Ballroom. During these years, Gillespie's major influence was the dynamic swing trumpeter Roy Eldridge. Gillespie played many of Eldridge's "licks" or characteristic phrases and memorized entire solos that his idol had recorded. Gillespie made his recording debut in 1937, soon after joining Teddy Hill's big-band and then joined the band on a European tour. After returning from Europe, Gillespie discovered that the regulations of New York City's musicians' union made it difficult for him to find work.

The only regular gig he found was with Cass Carr, "a West Indian guy who played the musical saw." Gillespie said that Carr "played for all the ethnic things" and "for all the communist dances," including a gig at the Communist Party of the United States of America's Camp Unity. "White-black relationships were very close among the communists," Gillespie recounted. Gillespie himself became a "card-carrying communist," although he later downplayed the significance of this decision. After resolving his problems with the musicians' union, Gillespie played with some of the most prominent big-bands of the day, including those of Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lucky Millinder, Earl Hines, and Billy Eckstine. In 1937 Gillespie had met dancer Lorraine Willis, and three years later the two were married. During these years, Gillespie also began moving beyond Roy Eldridge's trumpet playing and the musical conventions of the swing era. Dissatisfied with the clichï¿½s and constraints of swing-era jazz, he began to explore new harmonic directions. Gillespie faced considerable resistance from older jazz musicians.

Bandleaders Les Hite and Lucky Millinder each fired the young trumpeter, and Cab Calloway disparagingly referred to Gillespie's trumpet solos as "Chinese music." Rather than tempering his style, Gillespie began to proselytize. When the Calloway band was playing its regular gig at the Cotton Club, Gillespie took bass player Milt Hinton up to the roof during band breaks to teach him bass parts that fit Gillespie's harmonically challenging solos. But after-hours jam sessions proved far more important than the musically regimented big-bands in creating the bebop or bop revolution. The key gathering places for creative young musicians were two Harlem nightspots, Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House. Gillespie explained: What we were doing . . . was playing, seriously . . . blending our ideas into a new style of music. . . . We had some fundamental background training in European harmony and music theory superimposed on our own knowledge of Afro-American musical tradition. . . . Musically, we were changing the way that we spoke, to reflect the way that we felt.

The house band at Minton's was especially significant and included pianist Thelonious Monk and drummer Kenny Clarke. Guitar player Charlie Christian, a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet, kept a spare amplifier at Minton's so that he could sit in whenever he was in town. During these years, Gillespie met an alto player from Kansas City named Charlie Parker. Parker had independently achieved harmonic breakthroughs comparable to those of Gillespie. Indeed, Parker alone had the technical mastery and creativity to make him Gillespie's musical peer. The two men became better acquainted during stints in two important incubators of modern jazz, the big-bands of Earl Hines (1943) and Billy Eckstine (1944). Later in 1944, when Gillespie and bass player Oscar Pettiford formed the first true bop group ï¿½ a quintet that debuted at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street ï¿½ Parker was out of town, and tenor saxophonist Don Byas became the second frontline instrument. The Gillespie-Pettiford quintet marked the full emergence of modern jazz.

Shortly afterwards, however, came the group that in Gillespie's opinion achieved the "height of the perfection of our music." This quintet included Parker and commenced a long stint at the New York nightclub the Three Deuces. During 1945 Gillespie and Parker also recorded a series of bebop classics, often taken at blistering tempos, including "Dizzy Atmosphere," "Salt Peanuts," and "Shaw Nuff." Playing some of the tightest unison lines in the history of jazz, the two seemed to breathe and think as one. In the late 1980s, more than thirty years after Parker's death, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert asked Gillespie how close he and Parker had been. "How close are those two coats of paint?" the trumpeter replied. Gillespie, far more than Parker, retained an interest in big-bands, and he led several during the late 1940s and mid- to late-1950s. In 1946 he recorded the blazing and apocalyptic "Things to Come," a classic example of big-band bop. And in the following year, his big-band introduced Afro-Cuban music to jazz audiences.

When Gillespie played in Cab Calloway's orchestra, Cuban trumpet player Mario Bauza had introduced him to the rhythms and harmonies of Afro-Cuban music. In 1947 Gillespie turned to his old friend Bauza for advice on hiring a percussionist who could bring a Latin flavor to his big-band. Bauza recommended Cuban percussionist Luciano "Chano" Pozo, whom Gillespie featured prominently on several memorable Latin jazz recordings, including "Manteca" (1947) and "Guarachi Guaro" (1948). After economic difficulties forced him to break up his big-band in 1950, Gillespie retained his interest in Afro-Cuban music. In 1951 he recorded what would become his best-known Latin composition, the moody "Tin Tin Deo." At a party in 1953, Gillespie's trumpet was accidentally knocked over and its bell bent upward. When Gillespie tried to play it, he found that he actually preferred the bent shape because the upturned bell made it easier to play softly and improved his ability to hear his own playing.

Soon after, he had the Martin Company build him a trumpet designed with an upswept bell, and he played similar instruments for the rest of his life. Also in 1953, at Toronto's Massey Hall, Gillespie played with Parker in one of their rare reunions. A recording of that performance made by bass player Charles Mingus reveals the continued brilliance of Parker and Gillespie's collaborations. Yet by the mid-1950s, when Parker died, the musical innovations of the two men were so thoroughly integrated into jazz that many listeners and critics had begun to take them for granted. Gillespie, however, continued to play vital and challenging music, mostly in small-group settings but occasionally in larger ensembles. In 1956 Gillespie was invited by the U.S. State Department to organize a big-band and act as a musical good-will ambassador on a world tour. It was the first time the American government had recognized the most distinctly American art form ï¿½ jazz. The new Gillespie band included the young trumpeter Quincy Jones and featured a number of Jones's compositions and arrangements. The tour was a resounding success, and the band continued to play together until 1958.

Gillespie also performed a number of large-scale works, including pianist Lalo Schifrin's "Gillespiana" (1960) and "The New Continent" (1962), trombonist J. J. Johnson's "Perceptions" (1961), and ï¿½ as the featured soloist with Machito and his orchestra ï¿½ composer Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill's "Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods" (1975). In 1971 Gillespie toured with an all-star group known as the Giants of Jazz that included Thelonious Monk, drummer Art Blakey, and saxophonist Sonny Stitt. The response of audiences and critics was overwhelmingly positive, and for the rest of his life Gillespie was regarded as one of the giants of jazz. He well understood his own musical influence, particularly on jazz trumpeters. "If he's younger than me and playing trumpet," Gillespie declared, "then he's following in my footsteps." Even in his mid-seventies, he kept up a grueling schedule of appearances at nightclubs and jazz festivals.

During the 1980s, Gillespie's embouchure weakened and his playing became more erratic, but his live performances remained dynamic and musically challenging. He continued to play actively until early 1992.Contributed By: James Clyde Sellman Dizzy Gillespie Biography - life, family, childhood, children, name, school, book, information, born, house Dizzy Gillespie Biography Englewood, New Jersey African American musician and bandleader Fifty years after helping found a new style of revolutionary jazz that came to be known as bebop, Dizzy Gillespie's music is still a major contributing factor in the development of modern jazz. Difficult childhood John Birks Gillespie was born October 21, 1917, in Cheraw, South Carolina, to John and Lottie Gillespie. The last of nine children, Gillespie's father was abusive and unusually strict and the youngest Gillespie grew up hard and strong. When Gillespie was ten, his father died and left the family in terrible financial trouble. Around this time Gillespie's English teacher introduced him to music, and he soon joined the school band.

At first he played the trombone, but switched to the trumpet after borrowing a neighbor's and immediately falling in love with the instrument. Over the next several years Gillespie played with local bands—to both black and white audiences—until his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In Philly and New York Gillespie played with bands in Philadelphia from 1935 to 1937 before moving to New York City. In Philadelphia Gillespie earned his nickname for his unpredictable and funny behavior. When Gillespie was in the Frankie Fairfax band in Philadelphia he carried his new trumpet in a paper bag, an act that inspired fellow musicians like Bill Doggett to call him "Dizzy." In New York City the Teddy Hill Orchestra hired Gillespie for a European tour. By 1937—when he was only nineteen—Gillespie had already made a name for himself among New York musicians, who could not help but notice his radically fresh take on solo (single) trumpet playing.

Gillespie made his first recordings with the Teddy Hill Orchestra just prior to leaving for Europe with "The Cotton Club Show." Gillespie joined the Cab Calloway (1907–1994) Orchestra in 1939 and stayed until 1941. Calloway played the Cotton Club and toured extensively. During this period Gillespie continued to play all-night jam sessions at Minton's and Monroe's Uptown House to develop his musical knowledge and style. Gillespie joined the Earl "Fatha" Hines band in 1942, about the same time Charlie Parker (1920–1955) did. Although Parker became famous as an alto saxophonist, he was playing tenor sax at that time. Gillespie first met Parker in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1940 when he was on tour with Cab Calloway. The two of them jammed together at the Booker T. Washington Hotel for several hours. Bebop born on 52nd Street A large part of the Earl Hines band departed in 1943 to form a new group headed by Billy Eckstine.

Former Hines members who joined Eckstine included Sarah Vaughan (1924–1990), Gillespie, Parker, and others. Gillespie became musical director for Eckstine, whose backers got him a job on 52nd Street. After leaving Eckstine, Gillespie substituted in the Duke Ellington (1899–1974) Orchestra for about four weeks, then formed his own group to play at the newly opened Onyx Club on 52nd Street. Gillespie had been playing bebop (a new, radically different form of jazz) whenever he could since 1940, the year he married Lorraine Willis. Now he was able to play it full time. 52nd Street became the proving ground for a new jazz style that had previously been played primarily at late night jam sessions. "The opening of the Onyx Club represented the birth of the bebop era," Gillespie recalled in his book, To Be or Not to Bop. Also in 1944 Gillespie received the New Star Award from Esquire magazine, the first of many awards he would receive in his career.

Describing the new style his quintet played, Gillespie wrote, "We'd take the chord structures of various standard and pop tunes and create new chords, melodies, and songs from them." Gillespie's quintet and the presentation of modern jazz reached its peak in 1953—with a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto that featured Gillespie, Parker, Bud Powell (1924–1966), Max Roach (1924–), and legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus (1922–1979). Billed by jazz critics as "the greatest jazz concert ever," it was recorded by Mingus and later released on Debut Records. Gillespie's legacy In 1989, the year he turned seventy-two, Dizzy Gillespie received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences' Grammy Award ceremonies. The honor—one of many awarded to the trumpet virtuoso—recognized nearly fifty years of pioneering jazz performances. That same year he received the National Medal of Arts from President George Bush (1924–).

Not letting age slow him down, in 1989 Gillespie gave three hundred performances in twenty-seven countries, appeared in one hundred U.S. cities in thirty-one states and the District of Columbia, headlined three television specials, performed with two symphonies, and recorded four albums. The next year, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers' Duke Award for fifty years of achievement. Although Gillespie's failing health was due to pancreatic (having to do with the organ that helps digestion) cancer, Gillespie continued to play the music that he loved late into his life. His last public appearance was in Seattle in February of 1992. Gillespie passed away quietly in his sleep on October 6, 1993, at the age of seventy-five. For More Information Horricks, Raymond. Dizzy Gillespie and the Bebop Revolution. New York: Hippocrene, 1984. Lees, Gene. You Can't Steal a Gift: Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. McRae, Barry. Dizzy Gillespie. New York: Universe Books, 1988. Shipton, Alyn. Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. User Contributions: Dizzy Gillespie's B–flat Trumpet | National Museum of American History Dizzy Gillespie's B–flat Trumpet Description This custom–made "Silver Flair" trumpet belonged to renowned trumpeter, bandleader, and composer John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, a founder of the modern jazz style known as bebop. Renowned for his musical virtuosity and for his impish good humor and wit, Gillespie played this trumpet in the early 1980s. Its uniquely shaped upturned bell was Gillespie's internationally known trademark.

Object Name brass (overall material) Measurements overall: 17 in x 11 in x 5 in; 43.18 cm x 27.94 cm x 12.7 cm case: 52.5 cm x 36.6 cm x 16 cm; 20 21/32 in x 14 13/32 in x 6 5/16 in mouthpiece: 3 1/2 in x 1 1/16 in; 8.89 cm x 2.69875 cm box for mouthpiece: 1 7/8 in x 2 in x 4 7/8 in; 4.7625 cm x 5.08 cm x 12.3825 cm Place Made National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center Credit Line Kendrick, Kathleen M. and Peter C. Liebhold. Smithsonian Treasures of American History Visitor Comments 11/24/2014 9:43:31 PM Rick Delair Hi!

I am Rick "C-6" Delair, a lighting collector and historian at The Edison Tech Center in Schenectady, NY. I am also a beginning trumpet player as well as accomplished drummer. My main horn has been autographed twice in 2 separate areas, and dated for each time by the great Chris Botti. I also just picked up a horn today which I had customized to have the same bent-up bell that Dizzy Gillespie's horn(s) had. This was on 11/24/2014. The horn is an old Berkeley, and I purchased this horn (no case) at The Warrensburg Garage Sale in Warrensburg, NY, in October 2014. It has been fitted with a Holton bell section in place of the original Berkeley bell section, as the brass tech for Hilton Music center in Colonie Center Mall, Albany, NY, already had the bell from the Holton horn bent and ready to go. The end result is absolutely authentic to Dizzy's horn(s), and it sounds GREAT!

I haven't played it much yet, as I have only had it for about 3 hours now, but While looking up Dizzy's bent-up bell horns, I found this site and was inspired to let you all know that there is definitely still much interest in this unique modification, and even though I still use my autographed standard straight bell horn (an MYW/Oxford) as my main horn, I will likely get alot of use and enjoyment out of this 'new' upturned bell model! I am still a novice, and have a long way to go before I play anywhere NEAR Chris Botti, or Dizzy Gillespie, if I EVER do, but can't wait to "paint" some Jazz music with the colors I will get out of both my custom Berkeley/Holton upright bell horn and my beloved, beautiful Oxford standard horn! I hope to one day find a vintage Martin Committee #3 large bore horn, like Chris Botti, Dizzy Gillespie, and so many of the true greats played--that Committee large bore sound is just the best ever! I was kind of surprised to see that your Dizzy Gillespie horn is made by King!

These weren't necessarily considered 'professional' horns, since King catered to the student horn market, but nevertheless, it is cool to see that Dizzy chose a King to do an bent-up bell! (his main upturned bell horn was likely the Martin Committee #3 large bore he ordered with the bent-up bell in 1953.) I saw him playing this very horn with Arturo Sandoval, probably not too long before he passed away. The tone is unmistakable and martin Committee #3 large bore all the way! The tone is slightly altered by the bent bell, but not enough to affect the horn's "signature" sound at all! The projection of the sound is very likely much improved, but in certain venues, the upturned bell might negatively affect projection--overhead microphones are really helpful with such a unique horn. I, of course, will find all this out when I start playing my "Dizzy Gillespie Special"! I just wanted to make this comment about Dizzy's horn, and my adaptation of a lowly poor old garage sale horn into a gorgeous replica of Dizzy's incredible creation that occurred quite by accident in 1953!

35 dollars for the horn, 100 dollars for the work to make it like Dizzy's, and some other repairs and replacement parts, like new felts in the valves, water key corks, cleaning, etc, and for a meager 135 dollars, I have a very nice and beautifully playable and great sounding replica of one of the most if not the most famous trumpets in music and Jazz history! May Dizzy RIP and I hope he's playing an upright bell horn in heaven! Thank you for your time! Rick "C-6" Delair. 1/24/2016 11:57:26 PM Doc Greg Piette I've long known that Dizz played King trumpets out of Eastlake Ohio as did Al Hirt.. King had a division that catered to pros back in the day and would make just about anything you could design and/or afford. Myself I played the Silver Flair [Diz's horn] only without the Bell Flair. I also played an Al Hirt horn which was available on the market as a Super 20 Symphony.

The Flair came in ML and Large bore as I recall, while the Super 20 came in ML, L and Xl bores. My ML Silver Flair had an extremely quick response, excellent projection and furthermore was the easiest horn to slot I ever played including my 60's Martin Com and Getzen 900 Eterna. In ways it was better than my Bach Strad. I really liked the valve action and placement. Great for my smaller hand. The most dramatic of my trumpets has to be the Super20Symphony II. It'll burn the paint off the back wall of a 1200 seat auditorium. Valve compression was second t o none! Anyway, that's my take on Diz and his King horn. His Silver Flairs were Gold and Silver and heavily engraved. Beautiful horns!

Question: Dizzy Gillespie played what instrument?
Answer: Trumpet