IN CELEBRATION OF THE ART AND LIFE OF LEGENDARY MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER JOHN BIRKS 'DIZZY' GILLESPIE (1917-1993) ON HIS 97th BIRTHDAY

JOHN BIRKS "DIZZY" GILLESPIE

(1917-1993)

TODAY OCTOBER 21, 2014 MARKS THE 97TH BIRTHDAY OF ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY, MR. JOHN BIRKS 'DIZZY' GILLESPIE

SO LET'S CELEBRATE HIS GLORIOUS LIFE AND WORK AND PLAY HIS MAGNIFICENT MUSIC LIKE OUR VERY LIVES DEPENDED ON IT...HOLLA!

All,

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (b. October 21, 1917) was one of the major as well as most influential and inspiring musicians and composers of the 20th century who had a profound global impact on music and art and played a crucial role in the growth and development of Jazz in an extraordinary career that lasted six decades until his death at 75 in 1993. What follows is an extensive musical and video sampling of his brilliant and prolific artistry on trumpet and as an innovative small ensemble and orchestral leader and composer from 1940 to 1990. Dizzy was not only a great artist and teacher but a wonderful human being as well. ENJOY...

Kofi

"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."

– Dizzy Gillespie, 1917-1993

 
http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417

Dizzy Gillespie Biography
www.biography.com

On Biography.com, get more on jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who created 'bebop' and composed 'Oop Bob Sh' Bam,' 'Groovin' High' and 'A Night in Tunisia,' among many other works

"Salt Peanuts" (composition by Dizzy Gillespie), 1947:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOmA8LOw258&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHQaUNeErVM&feature=related



Dizzy was a real, absolute MASTER... What a great artist...Just beautiful...

Dizzy Gillespie--Trumpet
Christopher Wesley White--Bass

...and another fantastic version of the same composition where Dizzy and his bass player play their hearts out ("Tin Tin Deo" by the Afro-Cuban percussionist Chamo Pozo) played here in a live concert in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 9, 1971:

Dizzy Gillespie: Trumpet
Al McKibbon: Bass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUVuX3lLrdg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizzy_Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information:

Birth name John Birks Gillespie
Born October 21, 1917
Cheraw, South Carolina, United States
Died January 6, 1993 (aged 75)
Englewood, New Jersey, United States
Genres Jazz, bebop, Afro-Cuban jazz
Occupations Musician, composer
Instruments Trumpet, piano, vocals
Years active 1935–1993
Labels Pablo, RCA Victor, Savoy, Verve
Associated acts Ray Brown, Cab Calloway, Roy Eldridge, J.J. Johnson, James Moody, Chico O'Farrill, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Chano Pozo, Max Roach, Mickey Roker, Sonny Rollins, Lalo Schifrin, Sonny Stitt

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (/ɡɨˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and occasional singer.[1]

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."[2]

Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge[3] 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.[citation needed]

In the 1940s Gillespie, together with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.[4] He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Davis, Faddis, Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan,[5] and Chuck Mangione.[6]


Contents:


1 Biography
1.1 Early life and career
1.2 The rise of bebop
1.3 Afro-Cuban music
1.4 Later years
1.5 Death and legacy
2 Style
3 "Bent" trumpet
4 Discography
4.1 As leader
4.2 As sideman
5 Filmography
6 Bibliography
7 References
8 External links

Biography


Early life and career:


Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, 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. 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.[7] 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.[8]

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.[9]

Dizzy stayed with Teddy Hill’s band for a year, then left and free-lanced with numerous other bands.[5] 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.[5] 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.[10]

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".[11]
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.[12] 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.[12]


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.[citation needed] The song also displays Afro-Cuban rhythms.[13] 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.[14] 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.[15]


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.[16]

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".[17][18] 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.[19]


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.[19] 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.[20][21] 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).[22][23] 


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",[24] but now proceeds from them went to benefit the Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr.;[25] in later years they became a collector's item.[26] In 1971 Gillespie announced he would run again[27][28] but withdrew before the election for reasons connected to the Bahá'í Faith.[29]


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.[30] 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.[citation needed] 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.[31][32] In 1993 he received the Polar Music Prize in Sweden.[33]


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."[34]


Gillespie also starred in a film called The Winter in Lisbon released in 2004.[35] 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.[36]


Death and legacy


A longtime resident of Englewood, New Jersey,[37] 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.[38]


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 . He spoke about the Baha'i Faith frequently on his trips abroad.[39][40][41] He is often called the Bahá'í Jazz Ambassador.[42] He is honored with weekly jazz sessions at the New York Bahá'í Center in the memorial auditorium.[43]

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.

Style


Gillespie has been described as the "Sound of Surprise".[44] 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.'"[45]

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."[46]

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..."[47]

"Bent" trumpet


Dizzy Gillespie with his bent trumpet, performing in 1988
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.[48] 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.[49]

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.[50] 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).[49] 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.[49][51][52] 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.[53] 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.[54][55][56]


Discography


As leader:


1937–49: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (RCA Victor)
1945–47: Groovin' High (Savoy)
1948: Gene Norman Presents Dizzy Gillespie in Concert (GNP Crescendo 23)
1950: Bird and Diz (Clef) – with Charlie Parker
1951–52: Dee Gee Days: The Savoy Sessions (Savoy) – includes all tracks on The Champ (Savoy) and School Days (Regent)
1952–53: The Great Blue Star Sessions 1952-1953 (EmArcy) – includes all tracks on Dizzy Gillespie and His Operatic Strings Orchestra (Fontana) and some tracks released on Dizzy at Home and Abroad (Atlantic)
1953: Dizzy Digs Paris (Giant Steps) – includes all tracks on Dizzy Over Paris (Roost)
1953: Jazz at Massey Hall (Debut) – with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach
1953: Diz and Getz (Norgran) – with Stan Getz
1954: Afro (Norgran)
1954: Dizzy and Strings (Norgran)
1954: Roy and Diz (Clef) – with Roy Eldridge
1954–55: Jazz Recital (Norgran) – also released as Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra
1955: One Night in Washington (Elektra Musician [1983])
1956: Modern Jazz Sextet (Norgran)
1956: World Statesman (Norgran)
1956: Dizzy in Greece (Verve)
1956: For Musicians Only (Verve) – with Stan Getz and Sonny Stitt
1957: Birks' Works (Verve)
1957: Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith (Verve)
1957: Sittin' In (Verve) – with Stan Getz and Coleman Hawkins
1957: Dizzy Gillespie at Newport (Verve)
1957: Duets (Verve) – with Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt
1957: The Greatest Trumpet of Them All (Verve) – with Benny Golson
1957: Sonny Side Up (Verve) – with Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt
1959: The Ebullient Mr. Gillespie (Verve)
1959: Have Trumpet, Will Excite! (Verve)
1960: A Portrait of Duke Ellington (Verve)
1960: Gillespiana (Verve) – composed and arranged by Lalo Schifrin
1961: An Electrifying Evening with the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet (Verve)
1961: Carnegie Hall Concert (Verve)
1961: Perceptions (Verve) – composed and arranged by J.J. Johnson, conducted by Gunther Schuller
1962: Dizzy on the French Riviera (Philips)
1962: The New Continent (Limelight) – composed and arranged by Lalo Schifrin
1963: New Wave (Philips) - 8 tracks
1963: New Wave! (Wing WL1152) - 7 tracks
1963: Something Old, Something New (Philips)
1963: Dizzy Gillespie and the Double Six of Paris (Philips)
1964: Dizzy Goes Hollywood (Philips)
1964: The Cool World (Philips)
1964: Jambo Caribe (Limelight)
1965: Gil Fuller & the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra featuring Dizzy Gillespie (Pacific Jazz) – with Gil Fuller
1966: The Melody Lingers On (Limelight)
1967: Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac (Impulse!)
1967: Live at the Village Vanguard (Solid State)
1968: The Dizzy Gillespie Reunion Big Band (MPS)
1969: It's My Way (Solid State) – also released as My Way
1969: Cornucopia (Solid State)
1970: The Real Thing (Perception) – with James Moody
1970: Portrait of Jenny (Perception)
1971: Giants (Perception) – with Bobby Hackett and Mary Lou Williams
1971: Dizzy Gillespie and the Mitchell Ruff Duo in Concert (Mainstream) – with Willie Ruff and Dwike Mitchell
1971: The Giants of Jazz (Atlantic) – with Art Blakey, Al McKibbon, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Stitt and Kai Winding
1973: The Giant (America)
1973: The Source (America)
1974: Dizzy Gillespie's Big 4 (Pablo)
1974: The Trumpet Kings Meet Joe Turner (Pablo) – with Joe Turner, Roy Eldridge, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Clark Terry
1974: Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie (Pablo) – with Oscar Peterson
1974: Oscar Peterson and The Trumpet Kings - Jousts (Pablo) – with Oscar Peterson
1975: The Bop Session (Sonet) – with Sonny Stitt, John Lewis, Hank Jones, Percy Heath and Max Roach
1975: Jazz Maturity...Where It's Coming From (Pablo) – with Oscar Peterson and Roy Eldridge
1975: Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods (Pablo) – with Machito
1975: The Dizzy Gillespie Big 7 (Pablo) – also released as Dizzy
1975: The Trumpet Kings at Montreux '75 (Pablo) – with Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry and Oscar Peterson
1975: Bahiana (Pablo)
1976: Carter, Gillespie Inc. (Pablo) – with Benny Carter
1976: Dizzy's Party (Pablo)
1977: Free Ride (Pablo) – composed and arranged by Lalo Schifrin
1977: The Gifted Ones (Pablo) – with Count Basie
1977: Dizzy Gillespie Jam (Pablo) – with John Faddis
1980: The Trumpet Summit Meets the Oscar Peterson Big 4 (Pablo) – with Freddie Hubbard, Clark Terry and Oscar Peterson
1980: The Alternate Blues (Pablo) – with Freddie Hubbard, Clark Terry and Oscar Peterson
1980: Digital at Montreux, 1980 (Pablo)
1981: Musician, Composer, Raconteur (Pablo)
1981: To a Finland Station (Pablo) – with Arturo Sandoval
1984: Closer to the Source (Atlantic)
1985: New Faces (GRP)
1986: Dizzy Gillespie Meets Phil Woods Quintet – with Phil Woods
1988: Endlessly (Impulse!)
1988: Oop-Pop-A-Da (Soundwings) – with Moe Koffman
1989: Live at the Royal Festival Hall (Enja) – with the United Nation Orchestra
1989: Max + Dizzy: Paris 1989 (A&M) – with Max Roach
1989: The Paris All Stars Homage to Charlie Parker (A&M) with Jackie McLean, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones, Percy Heath and Max Roach
1989: The Symphony Sessions (ProJazz)
1990: The Winter in Lisbon (Milan) – soundtrack
1991: Live! at Blues Alley (with Ron Holloway, Ed Cherry, John Lee, Ignacio Berroa)
1992: Bird Songs: The Final Recordings (Telarc)
1992: To Bird with Love (Telarc)
1992: To Diz with Love (Telarc)


As sideman:


With Benny Carter
New Jazz Sounds (Norgran, 1954)
With CTI All Stars
Rhythmstick (CTI, 1990)
With Duke Ellington
Jazz Party (Columbia, 1959)
With Quincy Jones
Back on the Block (Warner Bros., 1989)
With Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich
Krupa and Rich (Clef, 1955)
With Mike Longo
Talk with the Spirits (Pablo, 1976)
With the Manhattan Transfer
Vocalese (Atlantic, 1985)
With Carmen McRae
Carmen McRae at the Great American Music Hall (Blue Note, 1976)
With Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert (Columbia, 1972)
With Katie Bell Nubin
Soul, Soul Searching (Verve, 1960)
With Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson Jam - Montreux '77 (Pablo)
With Mongo Santamaria
Montreux Heat! (Pablo, 1980)
Summertime (Pablo, 1980)
With Woody Shaw
Woody Shaw and Friends at Monterey Jazz Festival 1979 (Concord Jazz, 1979)
With Lillian Terry
Oo-Shoo-Be-Doo-Be...Oo, Oo...Oo, Oo (Black Saint, 1985)
With Randy Weston
Spirits of Our Ancestors (Verve, 1992)


Filmography:


1983 Jazz in America (Embassy)
1986 In Redondo Beach/Jazz In America ( Embassy)
1991 Dizzy Gillespie: A Night in Tunisia (VIEW)
1993 Live in London (Kultur Video)
1998 Dizzy Gillespie & Charles Mingus (Vidjazz)
1998 Dizzy Gillespie: Ages (Vidjazz)
1999 Jazz Casual: Dizzy Gillespie (Rhino)
2001 Jivin'in Be-Bop (Jazz Classic Video)
2001 Dizzy Gillespie: A Night in Chicago (VIEW)[57]
2001 Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1987 (Pioneer)
2002 Live in Montreal (Image)
2003 20th Century Jazz Masters
2003 Swing Era (with Mel Tormé) (Idem)
2005 Norman Granz Jazz in Montreux: Presents Dizzy Gillespie Sextet '77 (Eagle Vision USA)
2005 Summer Jazz Live at New Jersey 1987 (FS World Jazz / Alpha Centauri Entertainment)
2005 A Night in Havana: Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba (New Video Group)
2006 Jazz Icons: Live in '58 & '70 (Universal)
2008 London Concerts 1965 & 1966 (Impro-Jazz Spain)

Bibliography


To Be, or Not...to Bop. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

References

Jump up ^ Watrous, Peter Dizzy Gillespie, Who Sounded Some of Modern Jazz's Earliest Notes, Dies at 75, The New York Times Obituary, January 7, 1993
Jump up ^ Yanow, S. (2002) All Music Guide to Jazz. Backbeat Books.
Jump up ^ To be or not to bop: Memoirs of Dizzy Gillespie by Dizzy Gillespie and Al Fraser. Published: Doubleday, New York, 1979. Pages: 552
Jump up ^ Palmer, Richer. "The Greatest Jazzman of Them All? The Recorded Work of Dizzy Gillespie: An Appraisal" Jazz Journal, January 2001, p. 8

^ Jump up to: a b c "jazz-music-history.com". jazz-music-history.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
Jump up ^ "chuckmangione.com". chuckmangione.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ Reich, Howard. "Dizzy's Legacy: James Moody Carries on the Tradition of His Mentor", Chicago Tribune, March 28, 1993

Jump up ^ "Priestly, Brian. "The Definitive Dizzy Gillespie" May 2000. 2 Jun 2009". Vervemusicgroup.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ Vail, Ken (2003). Dizzy Gillespie: the Bebop Years, 1937–1952. Scarecrow Press. pp. 6, 12. ISBN 0810848805.

Jump up ^ Gunther Schuller 14 Nov 1972. Dance, p 290
Jump up ^ *Dance, Stanley (1983). The World of Earl Hines. [Includes a 120-page interview with Hines]. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80182-5: p.260

^ Jump up to: a b "Kato, Lisa. "Charlie Parker and the Rise of Bebop". 2003. 29 Jun 2009". Theguitarschool.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ Yanow, Scott. "Afro-Cuban Jazz". Hal Leonard Publication. 2000

Jump up ^ Yanow, Scott. "Yanow, Scott. "Dizzy Gillespie Biography". 2009. June 25, 2009". Allmusic.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ "'Jivin’ in Be-Bop (DVD)". Filmthreat.com. August 17, 2004. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ Ready for the Plaintiff! by Melvin Belli, 1956.
Jump up ^ "from Ken Burns's Jazz, A Gillespie Biography". .wwnorton.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ "Ken Burns's Jazz, A Gillespie Biography". Pbs.org. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

^ Jump up to: a b [Yanow, Scott. "Afro-Cuban Jazz". Hal Leonard Publication. 2000]

Jump up ^ Gillespie, Dizzy; Al Fraser (2000) [1979]. "Diz for President". To Be or Not to Bop. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 452–461. ISBN 978-0-8166-6547-1.

Jump up ^ Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 161–162. ISBN 1-59213-493-9.

Jump up ^ "BBC radio broadcast on Gillespie's 1964 presidential campaign". Bbc.co.uk. January 8, 2007. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ "The Winter in Lisbon" CD booklet.
Jump up ^ Gillespie 2000 [1979], op. cit. p. 453.
Jump up ^ Gillespie 2000 [1979], op. cit. p. 460.
Jump up ^ Gelly, Dave (May 8, 2005). "Other Jazz CDs". The Observer. p. Observer Review: 13. Archived from the original on January 29, 2011. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
Jump up ^ "Dizzy Wants to Blow Right Into White House". Jet 40 (17): 61. July 22, 1971. ISSN 0021-5996.

Jump up ^ "Dizzy Gillespie Picks Two Cabinet Members: Duke Ellington, Muhammad Ali". Jet 40 (26): 56. September 23, 1971. ISSN 0021-5996.

Jump up ^ Gillespie 2000 [1979], op. cit. pp. 460–461.
Jump up ^ Beatrice Richardson for JazzReview interviews Flora Purim – Queen of Brazilian Jazz.

Jump up ^ Pop/Jazz; A Tribute For Gillespie And the Jazz He Created.

Jump up ^ Jazz with Bob Parlocha – Biographies – Dizzy Gillespie.

Jump up ^ – About | Polar Music Prize.

Jump up ^ The Spiritual Side of Dizzy by Lowell Johnson.
Jump up ^ "The Winter in Lisbon" Dizzy Gillespie | Milan Records (2004).

Jump up ^ The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Schedule 2006-7.

Jump up ^ Berman, Eleanor. "The jazz of Queens encompasses music royalty", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 1, 2006. Retrieved October 1, 2009. "Mr. Knight shows the brick building that was the studio of Dizzie Gillespie, where other Corona residents like Cannonball Adderley used to come and jam."

Jump up ^ Dizzy Gillespie Memorial.

Jump up ^ "Remembering Dizzy". Jazztimes.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ Groovin' High The Life of Dizzy Gillespie by Alyn Shipton.

Jump up ^ Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie Review by Brad Pokorny

Jump up ^ "The Bahá'í Voice Presents:Dizzy Gileespie, Bahá'í Jazz Ambassador". Unbf.ca. Archived from the original on Dec. 2007. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

Jump up ^ "Jazz @ the Bahá'í Center". New York City Baha'i Center. Local Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of New York City. Retrieved 2011-11-25.

Jump up ^ Shipton, A. Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie (1999) New York: Oxford University Press.

Jump up ^ Carr, I., Fairweather, D, Brian P, The rough guide to Jazz. page. 291

Jump up ^ Watrous, Peter. "Dizzy Gillespie, Who Sounded Some of Modern Jazz's Earliest Notes, Dies at 75”, New York Times, January 7, 1993

Jump up ^ Marsalis, W. with Geoffrey C. Ward. Moving to higher ground : how jazz can change your life. New York : Random House, 2008.

Jump up ^ Maggin, Donald L. (2006). Dizzy: The Life and Times of John Birks Gillespie. HarperCollins. p. 253. ISBN 0-06-055921-7.

^ Jump up to: a b c Hamlin, Jesse (July 27, 1997). "A Distinctly American Bent / Dizzy Gillespie's misshapen horn highlights Smithsonian's traveling show". San Francisco Chronicle.

Jump up ^ Shipton, Alyn. 'Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie' New York : Oxford University Press. (see pp.258–259)

Jump up ^ "Dizzy Gillespie Donates Trumpet to NMAH". Smithsonian Institution Archives. December 1986. Retrieved January 15, 2012.

Jump up ^ "Dizzy Gillespie's B-flat trumpet along with one of his Al Cass mouthpieces". National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2008-09-08.

Jump up ^ Fisher, Don (April 23, 1995). "Christie's To Auction Prized Martin Guitar Collection – L.V. Man's Love To Be Instrument Of His Retirement". The Morning Call (Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania). p. 2.

Jump up ^ "Bent, Battered Trumpet Sells For Dizzy $63,000". Deseret News. April 26, 1995.

Jump up ^ "Object of Desire: Bell Epoque". New York Magazine 28 (17): 111. April 24, 1995. ISSN 0028-7369.

Jump up ^ Macnie, Jim (May 13, 1995). "Jazz Blue Notes". Billboard 107 (19): 60. ISSN 0006-2510.

Jump up ^ Artist: Gillespie, Dizzy. "VIEW DVD Listing". View.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.

External links


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Dizzy Gillespie at Find a Grave
The Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars
Dizzy Gillespie's "The Cult of Bebop"
Dizzy Gillespie Talking to Les Tomkins in 1973
Dizzy Gillespie Concerts & Interviews on NPR Music

All,

I call this wonderfully iconic encounter between Dizzy Gillespie & Ava Gardner--immortalized forever by LIFE magazine in its October 11, 1948 issue from an article and photo spread entitled "Bebop"--the absolutely quintessential "Take THAT Frank Sinatra!" moment...LOL...Thanks Al...

Kofi

FROM SITE:

AL YOUNG, Poet Laureate of California Emeritus

AVA, SHE WAS ONE OF YOUR WOMEN
by Al Young

An MGM property, as she later stated,
“None of us was ever very well educated.”
For one hundred bucks a week each,
the studio knew it could afford to reach
deep into future space for its heroines, its stars.
You can talk about your Hedy Lamarrs,
your Lanas, your Grables, your Ritas, your Janes,
but none of those well-screened women sustains
your interest the crazy way into Ava Garner
did and still does. Ava was your partner–
no satiny matinee idolatress, either.
She called the hot and heavy breather
in new. Sexual, intellectual, aristocratic,
she truly you woofully into the ecstatic,
where feeling and thought, like energy and mass,
squared up, imploded; imagination, class,
were everything; knowledge of way-station.
She filled in the blanks for you. Your education
old as much to The Snows of Kilimanjaro
as it did to the steamy straight-and-narrow that
contessas didn’t walk barefoot. With Artie Shaw
Ava learned how great books worked. She saw
how what you hear and see and say and feel
gross deep when you and you alone get real.
Ideas? You had to bounce them, see which way
they fell into your world. Ava moved to Spain
and then to London, where the supple pain
of being a star, a ghost impression, slowed.
What was it about Ava that pulled and glowed,
that yanks and warms the eye and heart today
in a century she never reached to shrug away?

© Al Young

— from Something About the Blues: An Unlikely Collection of Poetry (Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2007)
__________________________________________________________

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Poems and Lyrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

AlPhoto.jpgAlYoungTitle.png

AVA GARDNER and DIZZY GILLESPIE: Poems for Two Celebrated Carolinians

bop-glasses.png
______________________________________________________

© Al Young

DEPRESSION, BLUES, FLAMENCO, WINE, DESPAIR

Depression, blues, flamenco, wine, despair––
sunk in, they make you cross your heart and die
for hope. Dark times come at you; they don’t care.
“So deal with this,” they say. And so you buy
the pain and stress, the restlessness––the works:
low back pain, aches and limps, the twitch
of fear your face betrays.

ooooooooooooooooooooooJohn “Dizzy” Birks
Gillespie’s cheeks popped out (fat love an itch
scratched by the trumpet at his goateed lip),
they said: “Take chances, stretch, jump at the sun.
You just can’t spend your whole life acting hip.
Be corny sometimes. Have yourself some fun.
You can’t be cool forever, so relax.”

Diz knew puffed cheeks were anything but chic,
but when you closed your eyes you heard him axe
infinitives, split atoms, hairs. You speak
that tongue––curves, flatlands, all of it. You do.

You understand the hoodoo stab of hurt;
the blues, their messy messages, a few
trashed hopes, some lame goodbyes, her skirt,
your coat, the folded jeans, wet tights. Black night
is falling all around you in the rain.
Dark times, dark times can fix you in the light
of reason, recognition, lasers, pain.

© Al Young

— from Something About the Blues: An Unlikely Collection of Poetry (Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2007)

__________________________________________________________

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Poems and Lyrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site


© Life
   

Actress Ava Gardner in a Hollywood nightclub, 1948, wearing beret, horn-rimmed spectacles, and simulating a goatee, to signify her admiration for Dizzy Gillespie, Bebop King.

(That's Dizzy to Ava's right in photo!)

© Life

Teen-age girls, taken with Dizzy and his music in 1948, wait to have his autograph.

 

 DIZZY GILLESPIE DAY ON VIDEO:

A vast career from bebop to
big band to Latin jazz pioneer...

It all comes together in
this Golden Jubilee birthday
celebration captured on
German TV in 1987.

Video:

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/24646.html

- Lester Perkins
Jazz on the Tube

P.S. Please share Jazz on the Tube with your
friends and colleagues.

If they like jazz, they're going to love this.

http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/dizzy_gillespie_runs_for_us_president_1964_.html

In 1964 Dizzy Gillespie actually ran for President of the United States...for real...
 

Dizzy Gillespie Runs for US President, 1964. Promises to Make Miles Davis Head of the CIA
October 1, 2012
OPEN CULTURE

There comes a point in every national election year when I reach total saturation and have to tune it all out to stay sane—the nonstop streams of vitriol, the spectacles of electoral dysfunction, the ads, the ads, the ads. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. But imagine how differently we could feel about presidential elections if people like, I don’t know, Dizzy Gillespie could get on a major ticket? That’s what might have happened in 1964 if “a little-known presidential campaign… had been able to vault the millionaires-only hurdle.” What began as one of Dizzy’s famous practical jokes, and a way to raise money for CORE (Congress for Racial Equality) and other civil rights organizations became something more, a way for Dizzy’s fans to imagine an alternative to the “millionaire’s-only” club represented by Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Gillespie’s campaign had “Dizzy Gillespie for President” buttons, now collector’s items, and “Dizzy for President” became the title of an album recorded live at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1963, from which the recording comes (see right below).

A take on his trademark tune “Salt Peanuts,” “Vote Dizzy” was Gillespie’s official campaign song and includes lyrics like:

Your politics ought to be a groovier thing
Vote Dizzy! Vote Dizzy!
So get a good president who’s willing to swing
Vote Dizzy! Vote Dizzy!
 

It’s definitely groovier than either one of our current campaigns. Dizzy “believed in civil rights, withdrawing from Vietnam and recognizing communist China,” and he wanted to make Miles Davis head of the CIA, a role I think would have suited Miles perfectly. Although Dizzy’s campaign was something of a publicity stunt for his politics and his persona, it’s not unheard of for popular musicians to run for president in earnest. In 1979, revolutionary Nigerian Afrobeat star Fela Kuti put himself forward as a candidate in his country, but was rejected. More recently, Haitian musician and former Fugee Wyclef Jean attempted a sincere run at the Haitian presidency, but was disqualified for reasons of residency. It’s a little hard to imagine a popular musician mounting a serious presidential campaign in the U.S., but then again, the 80s were dominated by the strange reality of a former actor in the White House, so why not? In any case, revisiting Dizzy Gillespie’s mid-century political theater may provide a needed respite from the onslaught of the current U.S. campaign season.

Josh Jones is a doctoral candidate in English at Fordham University and a co-founder and former managing editor of Guernica / A Magazine of Arts and Politics.

http://life.time.com/icons/dizzy-gillespie-rare-and-classic-portraits-of-a-playful-genius/#1

Dizzy Gillespie: 

Rare and Classic Portraits of a Playful Genius
LIFE magazine October, 1948

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, who would have celebrated his 96th birthday on October 21, was the very model of the modern American musical genius: a brilliant instrumentalist and stylistic innovator, he was also an extroverted performer with a wicked sense of humor.

One of the primary creators of bebop in the mid-1940s and an unparalleled trumpeter, Dizzy was a populist who wanted his music to be understood, appreciated and enjoyed. Audiences may have associated him with signature visual clues – the beret and goatee he sported in the 1940s, and the trumpet with the upturned bell he began playing in the 1950s – and adored his onstage clowning and dancing, but anyone with ears could tell how seriously he always took the music. An international star until his death on January 6, 1993 (the same day as Rudolph Nureyev), Gillespie was as fervently respected by fellow musicians, as he was beloved by generations of listeners.

A LIFE spread captured Gillespie in 1948, during bebop’s glory days. Conspicuous in his absence is Charlie Parker, the avatar of bebop, and the man whom Dizzy called “the other side of my heartbeat,” but Gillespie’s vivacious personality was far more palatable to the mainstream. To see this magnificent musician in his youth, ready to convince the world that the music he and his not-yet-understood peers were making was the sound of the future, is still a glorious thing to behold.

— Steve Futterman is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer


Read more: http://life.time.com/icons/dizzy-gillespie-rare-and-classic-portraits-of-a-playful-genius/#1

 

Books About Dizzy Gillespie:

 

 
TO BE, OR NOT...TO BOP. Autoiography by Dizzy Gillespie (w/Al Fraser). University of Minnesota Press. 2009; originally published in 1979 by Doubleday

Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie. by Alyn Shipton. Oxford University Press, 1999.

http://www.dizzygillespie.com/

BIOGRAPHY
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PHOTOS
FAST FACTS
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Biography

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, along with Charlie Parker, ushered in the era of Be-Bop in the American jazz tradition. He was born Cheraw, South Carolina, and was the youngest of nine children. He began playing piano at the age of four and received a music scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina. Most noted for his trademark "swollen cheeks", Gillespie admitted to copying the style of trumpeter Roy Eldridge early in his career.

He replaced Eldridge in the 'Teddy Hill' Band after Eldridge's departure. He eventually began experimenting and creating his own style which would eventually come to the attention of Mario Bauza, the Godfather of Afro-Cuban jazz who was then a member of the Cap Calloway Orchestra, joining Calloway in 1939, Gillespie was fired after two years when he cut a portion of the Calloway's buttocks with a knife after Calloway accused him of throwing spitballs (the two men later became lifelong friends and often retold this story with great relish until both of their deaths).

Although noted for his on and off-stage clowning, Gillespie endured as one of the founding fathers of the Afro-Cuban &/or Latin Hazz tradition. Influenced by Bauza, known as Gillespies musical father, he was able to fuse Afro-American jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms to form a burgeoning CuBop sound. Always a musical ambassador, he toured Africa, the Middle East and Latin America under the sponsorship of the US State Department. Quite often he returned, not only with fresh musical ideas, but with musicians who would eventually go on the achieve world renown.

Among his proteges and collaborators are 'Chano Pozo'. the great Afro-Cuban percussionist; Danilo perez, a master pianist and composer originally from Pnama; Arturo Sandoval, trumpeter, composer and music educator originally from Cuba; Mongo Santamaria, an Afro-Cuban conguero, bongeuro and composer; David Sanchez, saxophonist and composer; Chucho Valdes, an Afro-Cuban virtuoso pianist and composer; and Bobby Sanabria, a Bronx, NY-born Nuyorican percussionist, composer, educator, bandleader and expert in the Afro-Cuban musical tradition. Indeed, many Latin jazz classics such as "Manteca", "A Night in Tunisia" and "Guachi Guaro [Soul Sauce]" were composed by Gillespie and his musical collaborators.

With a strong sense of pride in his Afro-American heritage, he left a legacy of musical excellence that embraced and fused all musical forms, but particularly those forms with roots deep in Africa such as the music of Cuba, other Latin American countries and the Caribbean. Additionally, he left a legacy of goodwill and good humor that infused jazz musicians and fans throughout the world with the genuine sense of jazz's ability to transcend national and ethnic boundaries--for this reason, Gillespie was and is an international treasure.

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© Trust Under The Last Will and Testament of Lorraine Gillespie

Quotes About Dizzy

"In the naturally effervescent Mr. Gillespie, opposites existed. His playing -- and he performed constantly until nearly the end of his life -- was meteoric, full og virtuosic inventions 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 entetainer as an accomplished artist. In some ways, he seemed to sum up all the possibilities of American popular Art". - Watrous, Peter. "Dizzy Gillespie, Who Sounded Some of Modern Jazz's Earliest Notes, Dies at 75", New York Times, January 7, 1993.

"His playing showcases the importance of intelligence. His rhythmic sophistication was unequaled. He was a master of hamrony -- and fasicanted 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. Dizzy was so quick-minded, he could create an endless flow of ideas at unusually fast tempi. 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...." - Marsalis W. with Geoffrey C. Ward. Moving to higher ground: how jazz can change your life. New Work : Random House, 2008.

"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, 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 lightening 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, Gillespie's maginificent 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 a deep significance for me musically. I first learned the significance of rhythm there and all about how music can transport people spiritually'. - Carr, I., Fairweather, D, Brian p, The rough guide to Jazz. page.291.

Discography

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
1956: Modern Jazz Sextet
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
1989: 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
1992: To Bird With Love
1995: In Paris v.2 Vogue RCA 1995

Next Discography

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© Trust Under The Last Will and Testament of Lorraine Gillespie