Musicians - Dizzy Gillespie

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	Musicians - Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was born in Cheraw, South Carolina. He was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, singer, and composer. Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.

In addition to featuring in these epochal moments in jazz, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz. Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser. In addition to his instrumental skills, Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn and pouched cheeks, and his light-hearted personality endeared many to what was regarded as threatening and frightening music.

In his playing, Gillespie built on the "saxophonic" style of Roy Eldridge and the harmonic complexity of Charlie Parker and then went far beyond Bird. That is, unlike his great contemporary, Dizzy made a point of enthusiastically teaching future generations (such as Miles Davis at the time) about the convolutions of bop.

His memorable trademarks were distending his cheeks while playing (unlike most trumpet players, who are trained not to do this — "Gillespie's pouch" is purportedly a term used by the medical community for cheek distention) and a trumpet whose bell was bent at a 45 degree angle rather than a traditional straight trumpet. This was originally the result of accidental damage, but the constriction caused by the bending altered the tone of the instrument, and Gillespie liked the effect.

Biography

Early life and career

John Birks Gillespie was the youngest of nine children, and he taught himself to play the trumpet at the age of 12. His father, who beat his children regularly, died when Gillespie was ten. Despite the poverty he grew up in, he managed to win a scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina. However, he dropped out of school in 1935, moved to Philadelphia, and became desperate to work as a full-time musician. Gillespie first joined Frankie Fairfax, and made his recording debut filling for Roy Eldridge in Teddy Hill's band.

After finding work with Cab Calloway's group, Dizzy was soon being excoriated for his adventurous solos by his employer, who branded it "Chinese music." He was fired as a result of Calloway's dissatisfaction with Gillespie's modern, unorthodox approach. Gillespie went through many bands including Duke Ellington's, and also arranged music for Woody Herman.

The legendary big band of Billy Eckstine gave his unusual harmonies a better setting, and it was as a member of Eckstine's band that he was reunited with Parker, after earlier being members of Earl Hines's more conventional band.

The rise of bebop

With Charlie Parker, Gillespie jammed at famous jazz clubs like Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House, where the first seeds of bebop were planted. Gillespie's compositions like "Groovin' High", "Woody n' You", "Anthropology", and "A Night In Tunisia" sounded radically different, harmonically and rhythmically, than the Swing music popular at the time. One of their first (and greatest) 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, like Miles Davis and Max Roach, about the new style of jazz. After a lengthy gig at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, though, which left most of those in the audience ambivalent or hostile towards the new music, the band broke up. Gillespie, later that year in 1945, led an unpopular big band.

Ironically, within a few years, bebop would be considered the mainstream form of jazz.

After his work with Parker, Gillespie led other small combos (including ones with Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Lalo Schifrin) and finally put together his first successful big band. He also appeared frequently as a soloist with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. In 1956, Gillespie led the State Department Band on a tour around the world.

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Musicians - Dizzy Gillespie

Biography

Early life and career

The rise of bebop

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