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) Dizzy Gillespie’s Biography — Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and photos at Last.fm Listeners Biography John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and occasional singer. Dizzy Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop. In the 1940s Gillespie, together with Charlie Parker , became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis , Clifford Brown , Lee Morgan and Arturo Sandoval a.o.. Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, USA the youngest of nine children of James and Lottie Gillespie. James was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to Dizzy.

He started to play the piano at the age of four (1921). Gillespie's father died when the boy was only ten years old. Gillespie taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve. From the night he heard his idol, Roy Eldridge, play on the radio, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. He received a music scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, North Carolina, which he attended for two years before accompanying his family when they moved to Philadelphia. Gillespie's first professional job was with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and Teddy Hill, essentially replacing Roy Eldridge as first trumpet in 1937. Teddy Hill’s band was where Gillespie made his first recording, "King Porter Stomp". In August 1937 while gigging with Hayes in Washington D.C., Dizzy met a young dancer named Lorraine Willis who worked a Baltimore–Philadelphia–New York circuit which included the Apollo Theatre. Willis was not immediately friendly but Gillespie was attracted anyway. The two finally married on May 9, 1940.

They remained married until his death in 1993. Dizzy stayed with Teddy Hill’s band for a year, then left and free-lanced with numerous other bands. In 1939, Gillespie joined Cab Calloway's orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental "Pickin' the Cabbage", in 1940. (Originally released on Paradiddle, a 78rpm backed with a co-composition with Cozy Cole, Calloway's drummer at the time, on the Vocalion label, No. 5467). Dizzy was fired by Calloway in late 1941, after a notorious altercation between the two. The incident is recounted by Gillespie, along with fellow Calloway band members Milt Hinton and Jonah Jones, in Jean Bach's 1997 film, The Spitball Story. Calloway did not approve of Gillespie's mischievous humor, nor of his adventuresome approach to soloing; according to Jones, Calloway referred to it as “Chinese music”. During one performance, Calloway saw a spitball land on the stage, and accused Gillespie of having thrown it.

Dizzy denied it, and the ensuing argument led to Calloway striking Gillespie, who then pulled out a switchblade knife and charged Calloway. The two were separated by other band members, during which scuffle Calloway was cut on the hand. During his time in Calloway's band, Gillespie started writing big band music for bandleaders like Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey. He then freelanced with a few bands – most notably Ella Fitzgerald's orchestra, composed of members of the late Chick Webb's band, in 1942. In 1943, Gillespie joined the Earl Hines band. Composer Gunther Schuller said: … In 1943 I heard the great Earl Hines band which had Bird in it and all those other great musicians. They were playing all the flatted fifth chords and all the modern harmonies and substitutions and Gillespie runs in the trumpet section work. Two years later I read that that was 'bop' and the beginning of modern jazz … but the band never made recordings.

Gillespie said of the Hines band, "People talk about the Hines band being 'the incubator of bop' and the leading exponents of that music ended up in the Hines band. But people also have the erroneous impression that the music was new. It was not. The music evolved from what went before. It was the same basic music. The difference was in how you got from here to here to here … naturally each age has got its own shit". Next, Gillespie joined Billy Eckstine's (Earl Hines' long-time collaborator) big band and it was as a member of Eckstine's band that he was reunited with Charlie Parker, a fellow member of Hines's band. In 1945, Gillespie left Eckstine's band because he wanted to play with a small combo. A "small combo" typically comprised no more than five musicians, playing the trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass and drums. The rise of bebop Bebop was known as the first modern jazz style. However, it was unpopular in the beginning and was not viewed as positively as swing music was. Bebop was seen as an outgrowth of swing, not a revolution.

Swing introduced a diversity of new musicians in the bebop era like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Oscar Pettiford, and Gillespie. Through these musicians, a new vocabulary of musical phrases was created. With Charlie Parker, Gillespie jammed at famous jazz clubs like Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House. Charlie Parker's system also held methods of adding chords to existing chord progressions and implying additional chords within the improvised lines. Gillespie compositions like "Groovin' High", "Woody n' You" and "Salt Peanuts" sounded radically different, harmonically and rhythmically, from the swing music popular at the time. "A Night in Tunisia", written in 1942, while Gillespie was playing with Earl Hines' band, is noted for having a feature that is common in today's music, a non-walking bass line. The song also displays Afro-Cuban rhythms. One of their first small-group performances together was only issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945.

Gillespie taught many of the young musicians on 52nd Street, including Miles Davis and Max Roach, about the new style of jazz. After a lengthy gig at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, which left most of the audience ambivalent or hostile towards the new music, the band broke up. Unlike Parker, who was content to play in small groups and be an occasional featured soloist in big bands, Gillespie aimed to lead a big band himself; his first, unsuccessful, attempt to do this was in 1945. After his work with Parker, Gillespie led other small combos (including ones with Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Lalo Schifrin, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, James Moody, J.J. Johnson, and Yusef Lateef) and finally put together his first successful big band. Gillespie and his band tried to popularize bop and make Gillespie a symbol of the new music. He also appeared frequently as a soloist with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. He also headlined the 1946 independently-produced musical revue film Jivin' in Be-Bop.

In 1948 Gillespie was involved in a traffic accident when the bicycle he was riding was bumped by an automobile. He was slightly injured, and found that he could no longer hit the B-flat above high C. He won the case, but the jury awarded him only $1000, in view of his high earnings up to that point. In 1956 he organized a band to go on a State Department tour of the Middle East which was extremely well received internationally and earned him the nickname "the Ambassador of Jazz". During this time, he also continued to lead a big band that performed throughout the United States and featured musicians including Pee Wee Moore and others. This band recorded a live album at the 1957 Newport jazz festival that featured Mary Lou Williams as a guest artist on piano. Afro-Cuban music In the late 1940s, Gillespie was also involved in the movement called Afro-Cuban music, bringing Afro-Latin American music and elements to greater prominence in jazz and even pop music, particularly salsa. Afro-Cuban jazz is based on traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms.

Gillespie was introduced to Chano Pozo in 1947 by Mario Bauza, a Latin jazz trumpet player. Chano Pozo became Gillespie's conga drummer for his band. Gillespie also worked with Mario Bauza in New York jazz clubs on 52nd Street and several famous dance clubs such as Palladium and the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They played together in the Chick Webb band and Cab Calloway's band, where Gillespie and Bauza became lifelong friends. Gillespie helped develop and mature the Afro-Cuban jazz style. Afro-Cuban jazz was considered bebop-oriented, and some musicians classified it as a modern style. Afro-Cuban jazz was successful because it never decreased in popularity and it always attracted people to dance to its unique rhythms. Gillespie's most famous contributions to Afro-Cuban music are the compositions "Manteca" and "Tin Tin Deo" (both co-written with Chano Pozo); he was responsible for commissioning George Russell's "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop", which featured the great but ill-fated Cuban conga player, Chano Pozo.

In 1977, Gillespie discovered Arturo Sandoval while researching music during a tour of Cuba. Later years His biographer Alyn Shipton quotes Don Waterhouse approvingly that Gillespie in the fifties "had begun to mellow into an amalgam of his entire jazz experience to form the basis of new classicism". Another opinion is that, unlike his contemporary Miles Davis, Gillespie essentially remained true to the bebop style for the rest of his career. In 1960, he was inducted into the Down Beat magazine's Jazz Hall of Fame. During the 1964 United States presidential campaign the artist, with tongue in cheek, put himself forward as an independent write-in candidate. He promised that if he were elected, the White House would be renamed "The Blues House," and a cabinet composed of Duke Ellington (Secretary of State), Miles Davis (Director of the CIA), Max Roach (Secretary of Defense), Charles Mingus (Secretary of Peace), Ray Charles (Librarian of Congress), Louis Armstrong (Secretary of Agriculture), Mary Lou Williams (Ambassador to the Vatican), Thelonious Monk (Travelling Ambassador) and Malcolm X (Attorney General).

He said his running mate would be Phyllis Diller. Campaign buttons had been manufactured years ago by Gillespie's booking agency "for publicity, as a gag", but now proceeds from them went to benefit the Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr.; in later years they became a collector's item. In 1971 Gillespie announced he would run again but withdrew before the election for reasons connected to the Bahá'í Faith. Gillespie published his autobiography, To Be or Not to Bop, in 1979. Gillespie was a vocal fixture in many of John Hubley and Faith Hubley's animated films, such as The Hole, The Hat, and Voyage to Next. In the 1980s, Gillespie led the United Nation Orchestra. For three years Flora Purim toured with the Orchestra and she credits Gillespie with evolving her understanding of jazz after being in the field for over two decades. David Sánchez also toured with the group and was also greatly influenced by Gillespie. Both artists later were nominated for Grammy awards. Gillespie also had a guest appearance on The Cosby Show as well as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.

In 1982, Gillespie had a cameo appearance on Stevie Wonder's hit "Do I Do". Gillespie's tone gradually faded in the last years in life, and his performances often focused more on his proteges such as Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis; his good-humoured comedic routines became more and more a part of his live act. In 1988, Gillespie had worked with Canadian flautist and saxophonist Moe Koffman on their prestigious album Oo Pop a Da. He did fast scat vocals on the title track and a couple of the other tracks were played only on trumpet. In 1989 Gillespie gave 300 performances in 27 countries, appeared in 100 U.S. cities in 31 states and the District of Columbia, headlined three television specials, performed with two symphonies, and recorded four albums. He was also crowned a traditional chief in Nigeria, received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; France's most prestigious cultural award. He was named Regent Professor by the University of California, and received his fourteenth honorary doctoral degree, this one from the Berklee College of Music.

In addition, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award the same year. The next year, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received the Kennedy Center Honors Award and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Duke Ellington Award for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader. In 1993 he received the Polar Music Prize in Sweden. November 26, 1992 at Carnegie Hall in New York, following the Second Bahá'í World Congress was Gillespie's 75th birthday concert and his offering to the celebration of the centenary of the passing of Bahá'u'lláh. Gillespie was to appear at Carnegie Hall for the 33rd time. The line-up included: Jon Faddis, Marvin "Doc" Holladay, James Moody, Paquito D'Rivera, and the Mike Longo Trio with Ben Brown on bass and Mickey Roker on drums. But Gillespie didn't make it because he was in bed suffering from cancer of the pancreas. "But the musicians played their real hearts out for him, no doubt suspecting that he would not play again.

Each musician gave tribute to their friend, this great soul and innovator in the world of jazz." Gillespie also starred in a film called The Winter in Lisbon released in 2004. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7057 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood section of the City of Los Angeles. He is honored by the December 31, 2006 – A Jazz New Year's Eve: Freddy Cole & the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A longtime resident of Englewood, New Jersey, he died of pancreatic cancer January 6, 1993, aged 75, and was buried in the Flushing Cemetery, Queens, New York. Mike Longo delivered a eulogy at his funeral. He was also with Gillespie on the night he died, along with Jon Faddis and a select few others. At the time of his death, Gillespie was survived by his widow, Lorraine Willis Gillespie; a daughter, jazz singer Jeanie Bryson; and a grandson, Radji Birks Bryson-Barrett. Gillespie had two funerals.

One was a Bahá'í funeral at his request, at which his closest friends and colleagues attended. The second was at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York open to the public. Gillespie, a Bahá'í since 1970, was one of the most famous adherents of the Bahá'í Faith which helped him make sense of his position in a succession of trumpeters as well as turning his life from knife-carrying roughneck to global citizen, and from alcohol to soul force, in the words of author Nat Hentoff, who knew Gillespie for forty years. He spoke about the Baha'i Faith frequently on his trips abroad. He is often called the Bahá'í Jazz Ambassador. He is honored with weekly jazz sessions at the New York Bahá'í Center in the memorial auditorium. As a tribute to him, DJ Qualls' character in the 2002 American teen comedy film, The New Guy, was named Dizzy Gillespie Harrison. The Marvel Comics current Hawkeye comic written by Matt Fraction features Gillespie's music in a section of the editorials called the "Hawkguy Playlist".

Also, Dwight Morrow High School, the public high school of Englewood, New Jersey, renamed their auditorium, the Dizzy Gillespie Auditorium, in memory of him. Gillespie has been described as the "Sound of Surprise". The Rough Guide to Jazz describes his musical style: The whole essence of a Gillespie solo was cliff-hanging suspense: the phrases and the angle of the approach were perpetually varied, breakneck runs were followed by pauses, by huge interval leaps, by long, immensely high notes, by slurs and smears and bluesy phrases; he always took listeners by surprise, always shocking them with a new thought. His lightning reflexes and superb ear meant his instrumental execution matched his thoughts in its power and speed. And he was concerned at all times with swing—even taking the most daring liberties with pulse or beat, his phrases never failed to swing. Gillespies’s magnificent sense of time and emotional intensity of his playing came from childhood roots. His parents were Methodists, but as a boy he used to sneak off every Sunday to the uninhibited Sanctified Church. He said later, ‘The Sanctified Church had deep significance for me musically.

I first learned the significance of rhythm there and all about how music can transport people spiritually.'" In Gillespie's obituary, Peter Watrous describes his performance style: In the naturally effervescent Mr. Gillespie, opposites existed. His playing—and he performed constantly until nearly the end of his life—was meteoric, full of virtuosic invention and deadly serious. But with his endlessly funny asides, his huge variety of facial expressions and his natural comic gifts, he was as much a pure entertainer as an accomplished artist." Wynton Marsalis summed up Gillespie as a player and teacher: His playing showcases the importance of intelligence. His rhythmic sophistication was unequaled. He was a master of harmony—and fascinated with studying it. He took in all the music of his youth—from Roy Eldridge to Duke Ellington—and developed a unique style built on complex rhythm and harmony balanced by wit. Gillespie was so quick-minded, he could create an endless flow of ideas at unusually fast tempo. Nobody had ever even considered playing a trumpet that way, let alone had actually tried.

All the musicians respected him because, in addition to outplaying everyone, he knew so much and was so generous with that knowledge…" Allmusic's Scott Yanow wrote, "Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis's emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated Arguably Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time." "Bent" trumpet Gillespie's trademark trumpet featured a bell which bent upward at a 45-degree angle rather than pointing straight ahead as in the conventional design. According to Gillespie's autobiography, this was originally the result of accidental damage caused by the dancers Stump and Stumpy falling onto it while it was on a trumpet stand on stage at Snookie's in Manhattan on January 6, 1953, during a birthday party for Gillespie's wife Lorraine.

The constriction caused by the bending altered the tone of the instrument, and Gillespie liked the effect. He had the trumpet straightened out the next day, but he could not forget the tone. Gillespie sent a request to Martin Committee to make him a "bent" trumpet from a sketch produced by Lorraine, and from that time forward Gillespie played a trumpet with an upturned bell. Gillespie's biographer Alyn Shipton writes that Gillespie probably got the idea for a bent trumpet when he saw a similar instrument in 1937 in Manchester, England, while on tour with the Teddy Hill Orchestra. According to this account (from British journalist Pat Brand) Gillespie was able to try out the horn and the experience led him, much later, to commission a similar horn for himself. Whatever the origins of Gillespie's upswept trumpet, by June 1954, he was using a professionally manufactured horn of this design, and it was to become a visual trademark for him for the rest of his life.

Such trumpets were made for him by Martin (from 1954), King Musical Instruments (from 1972) and Renold Schilke (from 1982, a gift from Jon Faddis). Gillespie favored mouthpieces made by Al Cass. In December 1986 Gillespie gave the National Museum of American History his 1972 King "Silver Flair" trumpet with a Cass mouthpiece. In April 1995, Gillespie's Martin trumpet was auctioned at Christie's in New York City, along with instruments used by other famous musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley. An image of Gillespie's trumpet was selected for the cover of the auction program. The battered instrument sold to Manhattan builder Jeffery Brown for $63,000, the proceeds benefiting jazz musicians suffering from cancer. 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 Biography - Dizzy Gillespie Childhood, Life and Timeline Musicians Dizzy Gillespie Biography Dizzy Gillespie biography highlights the childhood, early life, and major works of the musician. For the inspirational musician he was, Dizzy contributed to the development of bebop and jazz. Quick Facts Cheraw, South Carolina, United States Died on Englewood, New Jersey, United States father Kennedy Center Honor Image Credit John Birks âDizzyâ Gillespie was a perfect blend of innovation and inspiration.

He was one of those rare artists that history could ever produce. Gillespie was both a great performer and a composer. As a performer, he left behind his mark with his great stage presence and onstage innovation, and for the composer he was, the masterpieces he composed are something to be remembered always. His contributions to jazz were huge and he was one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all times. He was one of the prime architects of the bebop movement in jazz and also mastered the rich rhythms of Afro-Cuban, Caribbean, and Brazilian music. The ballooning cheeks and the trumpet, which was placed at an angle of 45 degrees, were Gillespieâs trademarks. Noted for his on and offstage clown acts, âDizzyâ was an artist with fresh musical ideas. He not only came up with interesting musical ideas, but he also hunted out musicians who went on to achieve world recognition. Dizzy Gillespie was truly a great musician who had a lasting impact. Dizzy Gillespie’s Childhood And Early Life Dizzy Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina to James and Lottie Gillespie. He was the youngest of the nine children.

James Gillespie was a bricklayer, a pianist and a local bandleader, because of which instruments were easily available to Dizzy and he started to play the piano at the early age of four. When Dizzy was ten years old, his father passed away. Two years later Dizzy learnt to play the trombone and the trumpet. Gillespie heard a radio broadcast of Roy Eldridge playing the trumpet in Teddy Hill's Orchestra at the Savoy Ballroom in New York City. From that day, he dreamt of becoming a jazz musician. In 1933, after leaving Robert Smalls’ secondary school, he won a music scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, North Carolina, as the school needed a trumpet player for their band. During his years there, he practiced the piano and the trumpet intensively. In 1935, he left school to join his family who was moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Career In Philadelphia, Gillespie started playing trumpet with the local bands and learnt all of idol Elbridge’s solos from records and radio broadcasts. His first professional job was with Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935.

It was in Philadelphia, when he was working in Fairfax’s band Gillespie got the nickname of “Dizzy owing to his clown-like behavior. Gillespie left Philadelphia in 1937 and moved to New York for bigger scope and better luck as a jazz player. He got the job with Teddy Hill’s big band because he sounded a lot like Eldridge who was Hills previous trumpet player. The band toured France and Great Britain for two months, shortly after Gillespie joined. Teddy Hill’s band was where Dizzy Gillespie made his first recording, “King Porter Stomp”. At this time, Dizzy met a young woman named Lorraine from the Apollo Theatre, whom he married in 1940. After returning to New York, Dizzy worked in several groups, including Al Cooper's Savoy Sultans and the Afro-Cuban band of Alberto Socarras, before he returned to Hill's band. In 1939, Dizzy joined Cab Calloway's big band, which was one of the highest-paid black bands in New York at the time.

When he was in this group, he began to develop an interest in the fusion of jazz and Afro-Cuban music, because of his friendship with Mario Bauzi, who was also in the same band. During the same period, he began to diverge from Eldridge's playing and he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental “Pickin in the Cabbage” in 1940. While touring in 1940, Gillespie met Charlie Parker in Kansa City and he soon started joining Parker, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, and others for after-hours jam session in New York. This group of young, experimenting players gradually developed the new, more complex style of jazz that was called bop. Calloway fired Gillepsie in 1941 after a dispute between the two. Calloway did not approve of Gillespie’s humor and antics on stage and he referred to this as “Chinese music”. After leaving Calloway, Gillespie went to work with many leaders, including Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Le Hite, Lucky Millinder, Earl Hines and Duke Ellington.

He recorded a full, formed bop solo within a swing band context on Little John Special in 1942. During the winter of 1943-44, Gillespie led a small group with Oscar Pettiford. In 1944, Billy Eckstine, the singer with the Hines band, formed a big band of his own and asked Gillespie to play and to be the music director. During the same time, Gillespie completed some of the first small-group bop recordings. Gillespie then organized his own band in 1945. This band did not achieve financial success. As a result, Dizzy went about forming a bop quintet with Parker in November. This was one of the greatest small bands of the 20th century. He expanded this band to a sextet and was able to keep all the members together for four years. The band made early attempts to fuse Afro-Cuban rhythms with Afro-American jazz. Gillespie recorded few of his greatest hits “Cubana Bel/Cubana Bop” and “Manteca” during this time. At various times, prominent bop players such as J. J.

Johnson, Sonny Stitt, James Moody, Jimmy Heath, Paul Gonsalves, and John Coltrane worked as the members of Gillespie's band. Due to monetary reasons, Gillespie had to give up on the band in 1950. In 1951, Dizzy formed his own record company, Dee Gee; this was also financially unsuccessful and hence, short-lived. Early in 1953, someone accidentally fell on Gillespie's trumpet. The bell was bent backwards. After Gillespie played it, he discovered that he liked the sound. From that point, he had trumpets built for him with the bell pointing upwards at a 45-degree angle. The design was Gillespie’s trademark and more than three decades, he was the only major trumpeter in jazz who played such an instrument. After several years of leading small groups, in 1956, Gillespie formed another big band specifically to tour Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece, and Yugoslavia on a cultural mission for the U.S. State Department. Dizzy kept the band together for two years.

He returned to leading small groups as he wasn’t able to financially support such a big band and he continued to perform and record with his various small groups into the late 1980s. In 1960, Dizzy was inducted into the Down Beat magazine's Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1970, he published his autobiography “To Be or Not to Bop”. He served as a vocal fixture in many of John Hubley and Faith Hubley's animated films, such as ‘The Hole’, ‘The Hat’, and ‘Voyage to Next’. Dizzy Gillespie led the United Nation Orchestra in the 1980s and for three years, Flora Purim toured with the orchestra. David Sánchez also toured with the group and was influenced by Gillespie. Both artists were later nominated for Grammy Awards. Gillespie also had a guest appearance on “The Cosby Show” as well as “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show”’. In 1982, Dizzy Gillespie did a cameo on Stevie Wonder's hit "Do I Do".

In the later years of his life, his performances focused more on his protégés such as Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis; and his comedic routines became an integral part of his live act. Gillespie worked with Canadian flautist and saxophonist Moe Koffman on the prestigious album “Oo Pop a Da” in 1988. In 1989, Gillespie gave around 300 performances in 27 countries, appeared in 100 U.S. cities in 31 states and the District of Columbia, headlined three television specials, performed with two symphonies, and recorded four albums. Dizzy was also crowned the traditional chief in Nigeria and received the "Ordre des Arts et des Lettres", which was France's most prestigious cultural award. He was named Regent Professor by the University of California, and honorary doctoral degree from the Berklee College of Music. This was his fourteenth honorary doctoral degree. Dizzy was also awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989.

The next year, Gillespie received the Kennedy Center Honors Award and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Duke Ellington Award for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader. In 1993, he received the Polar Music Prize in Sweden. Gillespie became a symbol of both jazz and the free spirited attitude. He was not only a great entertainer through music, but also his antics and behaviors on stage were equally loved. Dizzy’s upturned, golden bell, goatee, black horn rim glasses, and beret was his classic trademarks, and his positive and optimistic attitude was an inspiration for many. A beloved and famous musician, Dizzy was a major influence on modern day jazz. Marriage In the May of 1940, Gillespie married a widowed chorus girl Lorraine who was his wife for the next fifty-three years. She provided him much of the material and moral stability that sustained his long career. Death and Legacy Dizzy died of pancreatic cancer on January 6, 1993 and was buried in Flushing Cemetery, Queens, New York.

Dizzy was survived by his widow Lorraine Willis Gillespie, who was the daughter of jazz singer Jeanie Bryson and a grandson Radji Birks Bryson-Barrett. Dizzy had a Baha’i funeral, which was attended by close family, and friends and he had a funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, which was open to the public. One of the most famous adherents of the Baha’i faith, Dizzy was often called the Baha’i jazz ambassador. The New York Baha’i centre honors Gillespie with weekly jazz sessions.

New Star Award from Esquire Magazine (1944) Handel Medallion award from the City of New York (1972) Paul Robeson Award from Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies (1972) Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (1989) National Medal of Arts from President Bush (1989) Duke Ellington Award from the society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (1989) Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1989) Kennedy Center Honors Award(1989) Polar Music Prize in Sweden(1989) 1937-49: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings 1941: The Immortal Charlie Christian (with Christian, Thelonious Monk, Delta Music re-released on Laserlight cassette) 1950: Bird & Diz 1952: Dee Gee Days - The Savoy Sessions 1953: Jazz at Massey Hall 1953: Diz & Getz (with Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Max Roach, Herb Ellis) 1954: Afro 1957:

 Sittin' In (with Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins) 1957: Dizzy Gillespie at Newport 1957: Sonny Side Up (with Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt) 1957: Dizzy in Greece 1958: Birks' Works (Dizzy Gillespie Big Band) 1959: Have Trumpet, Will Excite!

1959: The Ebullient Mr. Gillespie 1960: A Portrait of Duke Ellington 1961: An Electrifying Evening with the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet 1962: Dizzy on the French Riviera (Philips Records) 1963: New Wave (Philips Records) (with Lalo Schifrin, Bola Sete) 1963: Something Old, Something New 1963: Dizzy Gillespie and the Double Six of Paris 1964: Jambo Caribe (with James Moody, Kenny Barron) 1967: Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac (Impulse!) 1968: Live at the Village Vanguard (produced by Sonny Lester 1968: Reunion Big Band In Berlin (MPS Records) 1969: Strictly Bebop (with Babs Gonzalez, Tad Dameron, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, John Coltrane), rec.

1949 EMI Capitol 1971: Dizzy Gillespie and the Mitchell Ruff Duo In Concert (Mainstream Records) 1974: Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie 1975: Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods (with Machito, Chico O'Farrill, Mario Bauza) 1975: Jazz Maturity...Where It's Coming From 1975: Oscar Peterson and The Trumpet Kings - Jousts 1975: The Trumpet Kings at Montreux '75 1976: Dizzy's Party 1977: The Gifted Ones (with Count Basie) 1981: Digital at Montreux, 1980 (Toots Thielemans, Bernard Purdie) 1985: New Faces (with Robert Ameen, Branford Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, Lonnie Plaxico, Charlie Christian) 1988: Oop Pop a Da (with Moe Koffman) 1989: Live at the Royal Festival Hall London July 10, 1989 198

9: The Symphony Sessions (with Ron Holloway, Ed Cherry, John Lee, Ignacio Berroa) rec.

August 25, 1989 ProJazz 1990: The Winter in Lisbon 1990: Rhythmstick (CTI Records) 1990: Live! at Blues Alley (with Ron Holloway, Ed Cherry, John Lee, Ignacio Berroa) rec. October 30, 1991 Blues Alley Music Society 1992: Groovin' High Dizzy Gillespie | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by Scott Yanow Dizzy Gillespie 's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis ' emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy 's style was successfully recreated. Somehow, Gillespie could make any "wrong" note fit, and harmonically he was ahead of everyone in the 1940s, including Charlie Parker .

Unlike Bird, Dizzy was an enthusiastic teacher who wrote down his musical innovations and was eager to explain them to the next generation, thereby insuring that bebop would eventually become the foundation of jazz. Dizzy Gillespie was also one of the key founders of Afro-Cuban (or Latin) jazz, adding Chano Pozo 's conga to his orchestra in 1947, and utilizing complex poly-rhythms early on. The leader of two of the finest big bands in jazz history, Gillespie differed from many in the bop generation by being a masterful showman who could make his music seem both accessible and fun to the audience. With his puffed-out cheeks, bent trumpet (which occurred by accident in the early '50s when a dancer tripped over his horn), and quick wit, Dizzy was a colorful figure to watch. A natural comedian, Gillespie was also a superb scat singer and occasionally played Latin percussion for the fun of it, but it was his trumpet playing and leadership abilities that made him into a jazz giant. The youngest of nine children, John Birks Gillespie taught himself trombone and then switched to trumpet when he was 12.

He grew up in poverty, won a scholarship to an agricultural school (Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina), and then in 1935 dropped out of school to look for work as a musician. Inspired and initially greatly influenced by Roy Eldridge , Gillespie (who soon gained the nickname of " Dizzy ") joined Frankie Fairfax's band in Philadelphia. In 1937, he became a member of Teddy Hill 's orchestra in a spot formerly filled by Eldridge . Dizzy made his recording debut on Hill 's rendition of "King Porter Stomp" and during his short period with the band toured Europe. After freelancing for a year, Gillespie joined Cab Calloway 's orchestra (1939-1941), recording frequently with the popular bandleader and taking many short solos that trace his development; "Pickin' the Cabbage" finds Dizzy starting to emerge from Eldridge 's shadow.

However, Calloway did not care for Gillespie 's constant chance-taking, calling his solos "Chinese music." After an incident in 1941 when a spitball was mischievously thrown at Calloway (he accused Gillespie but the culprit was actually Jonah Jones ), Dizzy was fired. By then, Gillespie had already met Charlie Parker , who confirmed the validity of his musical search. During 1941-1943, Dizzy passed through many bands including those led by Ella Fitzgerald , Coleman Hawkins , Benny Carter , Charlie Barnet , Fess Williams , Les Hite , Claude Hopkins , Lucky Millinder (with whom he recorded in 1942), and even Duke Ellington (for four weeks). Gillespie also contributed several advanced arrangements to such bands as Benny Carter , Jimmy Dorsey , and Woody Herman ; the latter advised him to give up his trumpet playing and stick to full-time arranging. Dizzy ignored the advice, jammed at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House where he tried out his new ideas, and in late 1942 joined Earl Hines ' big band.

Charlie Parker was hired on tenor and the sadly unrecorded orchestra was the first orchestra to explore early bebop. By then, Gillespie had his style together and he wrote his most famous composition "A Night in Tunisia." When Hines ' singer Billy Eckstine went on his own and formed a new bop big band, Diz and Bird (along with Sarah Vaughan ) were among the members. Gillespie stayed long enough to record a few numbers with Eckstine in 1944 (most noticeably "Opus X" and "Blowing the Blues Away"). That year he also participated in a pair of Coleman Hawkins -led sessions that are often thought of as the first full-fledged bebop dates, highlighted by Dizzy 's composition "Woody'n You." 1945 was the breakthrough year. Dizzy Gillespie , who had led earlier bands on 52nd Street, finally teamed up with Charlie Parker on records.

Their recordings of such numbers as "Salt Peanuts," "'Shaw Nuff," "Groovin' High," and "Hot House" confused swing fans who had never heard the advanced music as it was evolving; and Dizzy 's rendition of "I Can't Get Started" completely reworked the former Bunny Berigan hit. It would take two years for the often frantic but ultimately logical new style to start catching on as the mainstream of jazz. Gillespie led an unsuccessful big band in 1945 (a Southern tour finished it), and late in the year he traveled with Parker to the West Coast to play a lengthy gig at Billy Berg 's club in L.A. Unfortunately, the audiences were not enthusiastic (other than local musicians) and Dizzy (without Parker ) soon returned to New York. The following year, Dizzy Gillespie put together a successful and influential orchestra which survived for nearly four memorable years. "Manteca" became a standard, the exciting "Things to Come" was futuristic, and "Cubana Be/Cubana Bop" featured Chano Pozo .

With such sidemen as the future original members of the Modern Jazz Quartet ( Milt Jackson , John Lewis , Ray Brown , and Kenny Clarke ), James Moody , J.J. Johnson , Yusef Lateef , and even a young John Coltrane , Gillespie 's big band was a breeding ground for the new music. Dizzy 's beret, goatee, and "bop glasses" helped make him a symbol of the music and its most popular figure. During 1948-1949, nearly every former swing band was trying to play bop, and for a brief period the major record companies tried very hard to turn the music into a fad. By 1950, the fad had ended and Gillespie was forced, due to economic pressures, to break up his groundbreaking orchestra.

He had occasional (and always exciting) reunions with Charlie Parker (including a fabled Massey Hall concert in 1953) up until Bird's death in 1955, toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic (where he had opportunities to "battle" the combative Roy Eldridge ), headed all-star recording sessions (using Stan Getz , Sonny Rollins , and Sonny Stitt on some dates), and led combos that for a time in 1951 also featured Coltrane and Milt Jackson . In 1956, Gillespie was authorized to form a big band and play a tour overseas sponsored by the State Department. It was so successful that more traveling followed, including extensive tours to the Near East, Europe, and South America, and the band survived up to 1958. Among the young sidemen were Lee Morgan , Joe Gordon , Melba Liston , Al Grey , Billy Mitchell , Benny Golson , Ernie Henry , and Wynton Kelly ; Quincy Jones (along with Golson and Liston ) contributed some of the arrangements.

After the orchestra broke up, Gillespie went back to leading small groups, featuring such sidemen in the 1960s as Junior Mance , Leo Wright , Lalo Schifrin , James Moody , and Kenny Barron . He retained his popularity, occasionally headed specially assembled big bands, and was a fixture at jazz festivals. In the early '70s, Gillespie toured with the Giants of Jazz and around that time his trumpet playing began to fade, a gradual decline that would make most of his '80s work quite erratic. However, Dizzy remained a world traveler, an inspiration and teacher to younger players, and during his last couple of years he was the leader of the United Nation Orchestra (featuring Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval ). He was active up until early 1992. Dizzy Gillespie 's career was very well documented from 1945 on, particularly on Musicraft, Dial, and RCA in the 1940s; Verve in the 1950s; Philips and Limelight in the 1960s; and Pablo in later years.

Dizzy Gillespie | Download Music, Tour Dates & Video | eMusic Biography All Music Guide All Music Guide: Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis' emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated. Somehow, Gillespie could make any "wrong" note fit, and harmonically he was ahead of everyone in the 1940s, including Charlie Parker. Unlike Bird, Dizzy was an enthusiastic teacher who wrote down his musical innovations and was eager to explain them to the next generation, thereby insuring that bebop would eventually become the foundation of jazz. Dizzy Gillespie was also one of the key founders of Afro-Cuban (or Latin) jazz, adding Chano Pozo's conga to his orchestra in 1947, and utilizing complex poly-rhythms early on.

The leader of two of the finest big bands in jazz history, Gillespie differed from many in the bop generation by being a masterful showman who could make his music seem both accessible and fun to the audience. With his puffed-out cheeks, bent trumpet (which occurred by accident in the early '50s when a dancer tripped over his horn), and quick wit, Dizzy was a colorful figure to watch. A natural comedian, Gillespie was also a superb scat singer and occasionally played Latin percussion for the fun of it, but it was his trumpet playing and leadership abilities that made him into a jazz giant. The youngest of nine children, John Birks Gillespie taught himself trombone and then switched to trumpet when he was 12. He grew up in poverty, won a scholarship to an agricultural school (Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina), and then in 1935 dropped out of school to look for work as a musician. Inspired and initially greatly influenced by Roy Eldridge, Gillespie (who soon gained the nickname of "Dizzy") joined Frankie Fairfax's band in Philadelphia. In 1937, he became a member of Teddy Hill's orchestra in a spot formerly filled by Eldridge.

Dizzy made his recording debut on Hill's rendition of "King Porter Stomp" and during his short period with the band toured Europe. After freelancing for a year, Gillespie joined Cab Calloway's orchestra (1939-1941), recording frequently with the popular bandleader and taking many short solos that trace his development; "Pickin' the Cabbage" finds Dizzy starting to emerge from Eldridge's shadow. However, Calloway did not care for Gillespie's constant chance-taking, calling his solos "Chinese music." After an incident in 1941 when a spitball was mischievously thrown at Calloway (he accused Gillespie but the culprit was actually Jonah Jones), Dizzy was fired. By then, Gillespie had already met Charlie Parker, who confirmed the validity of his musical search. During 1941-1943, Dizzy passed through many bands including those led by Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Fess Williams, Les Hite, Claude Hopkins, Lucky Millinder (with whom he recorded in 1942), and even Duke Ellington (for four weeks).

Gillespie also contributed several advanced arrangements to such bands as Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, and Woody Herman; the latter advised him to give up his trumpet playing and stick to full-time arranging. Dizzy ignored the advice, jammed at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House where he tried out his new ideas, and in late 1942 joined Earl Hines' big band. Charlie Parker was hired on tenor and the sadly unrecorded orchestra was the first orchestra to explore early bebop. By then, Gillespie had his style together and he wrote his most famous composition "A Night in Tunisia." When Hines' singer Billy Eckstine went on his own and formed a new bop big band, Diz and Bird (along with Sarah Vaughan) were among the members. Gillespie stayed long enough to record a few numbers with Eckstine in 1944 (most noticeably "Opus X" and "Blowing the Blues Away"). That year he also participated in a pair of Coleman Hawkins-led sessions that are often thought of as the first full-fledged bebop dates, highlighted by Dizzy's composition "Woody'n You." 1945 was the breakthrough year.

Dizzy Gillespie, who had led earlier bands on 52nd Street, finally teamed up with Charlie Parker on records. Their recordings of such numbers as "Salt Peanuts," "'Shaw Nuff," "Groovin' High," and "Hot House" confused swing fans who had never heard the advanced music as it was evolving; and Dizzy's rendition of "I Can't Get Started" completely reworked the former Bunny Berigan hit. It would take two years for the often frantic but ultimately logical new style to start catching on as the mainstream of jazz. Gillespie led an unsuccessful big band in 1945 (a Southern tour finished it), and late in the year he traveled with Parker to the West Coast to play a lengthy gig at Billy Berg's club in L.A. Unfortunately, the audiences were not enthusiastic (other than local musicians) and Dizzy (without Parker) soon returned to New York. The following year, Dizzy Gillespie put together a successful and influential orchestra which survived for nearly four memorable years. "Manteca" became a standard, the exciting "Things to Come" was futuristic, and "Cubana Be/Cubana Bop" featured Chano Pozo.

With such sidemen as the future original members of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Milt Jackson, John Lewis, Ray Brown, and Kenny Clarke), James Moody, J.J. Johnson, Yusef Lateef, and even a young John Coltrane, Gillespie's big band was a breeding ground for the new music. Dizzy's beret, goatee, and "bop glasses" helped make him a symbol of the music and its most popular figure. During 1948-1949, nearly every former swing band was trying to play bop, and for a brief period the major record companies tried very hard to turn the music into a fad. By 1950, the fad had ended and Gillespie was forced, due to economic pressures, to break up his groundbreaking orchestra.

He had occasional (and always exciting) reunions with Charlie Parker (including a fabled Massey Hall concert in 1953) up until Bird's death in 1955, toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic (where he had opportunities to "battle" the combative Roy Eldridge), headed all-star recording sessions (using Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt on some dates), and led combos that for a time in 1951 also featured Coltrane and Milt Jackson. In 1956, Gillespie was authorized to form a big band and play a tour overseas sponsored by the State Department. It was so successful that more traveling followed, including extensive tours to the Near East, Europe, and South America, and the band survived up to 1958. Among the young sidemen were Lee Morgan, Joe Gordon, Melba Liston, Al Grey, Billy Mitchell, Benny Golson, Ernie Henry, and Wynton Kelly; Quincy Jones (along with Golson and Liston) contributed some of the arrangements.

After the orchestra broke up, Gillespie went back to leading small groups, featuring such sidemen in the 1960s as Junior Mance, Leo Wright, Lalo Schifrin, James Moody, and Kenny Barron. He retained his popularity, occasionally headed specially assembled big bands, and was a fixture at jazz festivals. In the early '70s, Gillespie toured with the Giants of Jazz and around that time his trumpet playing began to fade, a gradual decline that would make most of his '80s work quite erratic. However, Dizzy remained a world traveler, an inspiration and teacher to younger players, and during his last couple of years he was the leader of the United Nation Orchestra (featuring Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval). He was active up until early 1992. Dizzy Gillespie's career was very well documented from 1945 on, particularly on Musicraft, Dial, and RCA in the 1940s; Verve in the 1950s; Philips and Limelight in the 1960s; and Pablo in later years.

Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban Experience review – doesn't quite match legend's pulse-quickening racket | Music | The Guardian Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban Experience review – doesn't quite match legend's pulse-quickening racket 3 / 5 stars This Latin-jazz band feature sound best when they stray from pure Cubop Cubop revisited at Ronnie Scott's … pioneer Dizzy Gillespie. Photograph: Francine Winham Share on Messenger Close The aim of this legacy outfit is to explore the groundbreaking "Cubop" music that emerged from the meeting between US bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and the Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. The band is led by John Lee, who played bass in all of Gillespie's bands from 1984 until the trumpeter's death in 1993, and has somehow managed to nab the "Dizzy Gillespie" name as a franchise (replete with a trademark symbol). Sadly, the band rarely get anywhere near the pulse-quickening, polyrhythmic racket that Gillespie pioneered. At their best, Latin-jazz bands roar off the line, throbbing and gurgling like Formula One engines.

This one splutters along like a hatchback that never quite gets out of second gear. Where the percussion should fizz and pop and burble excitedly, here it sounds sluggish. The band's timbalero, Mario Grillo (AKA Machito Jr), might be the son of Afro-Cuban music's most famously flamboyant bandleaders, but he hits his instrument like a bored prep schoolmaster reluctantly administering corporal punishment. Trumpeter Freddie Hendrix reaches all the Dizzy high notes and can also sound wonderfully warm and ruminative in the lower register. Generally, the band sound much better when they stray from pure Cubop. Israeli guitarist Yotam Silberstein solos impressively, playing muted phrases, Moorish explorations and supercharged wah-wah riffs. Kit drummer Tommy Campbell has a fine line in dadaist drum solos – using space creatively, waggishly improvising over squeaky toys. And Brazilian pianist Abelita Mateus sounds magnificent singing and playing samba and bossa nova standards by the likes of João Bosco, Tom Jobim and Luiz Bonfá.

It's only right at the end of the gig that the band really get into an Afro-Cuban groove with a noisy, rambunctious reading of Freddie Hubbard's Take It to the Ozone . For the first time, you get a feel for how thrilling Gillespie's Cubop can be. 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.

Question: Musician Dizzy Gillespie most famously played what instrument?
Answer: Trumpet