DIZZY GILLESPIE

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John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993 was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, singer, and composer. He was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children. Dizzy's father was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to Dizzy. He started to play the piano at the age of 4. He then taught himself to play the trombone but switched to the trumpet before the age of twelve. He received a music scholarship to the small agricultural school, the Laurinburg Institute, Laurinburg, North Carolina. Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.

He left the school in 1935 to pursue a career as a musician, following his idol, Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge, the great early bop trumpeter who pioneered black musicianship in a white band. He joined the Frankie Fairfax Band in Philadelphia and soon earned the nickname "Dizzy" for his comical stage antics. In 1937, he took Roy Eldridge's old position in the Teddy Hill Band and made his first recording in Hill's rendition of "King Porter Stomp." After a short stay with the band including a tour through Europe, Dizzy freelanced for a year and found his way to Cab Calloway in 1939. It was with this premier band that Dizzy began to develop a style more his own and less like Roy Eldridge, as you can hear in "Pickin' the Cabbage." Calloway, annoyed by Dizzy's risky style, was not particularly fond of Dizzy and called his solos "Chinese music." Despite this, Dizzy stayed with the band until 1941, when there was an on-stage occurrence that, although resolved, prompted Dizzy to leave the band. 

During a concert, a band member shot spitballs at Cab's back when he faced the audience. Cab accused Dizzy of being the culprit and upon Dizzy's vehement denial, the two began to fight. Dizzy grabbed a knife and actually cut Cab. Although the two made up after Jonah Jones and Milt Hinton came forward as the perpetrators, Dizzy was fired. The real legacy of his time in the band would only be realized decades later for, having roomed the whole time with Mario Bauza, Dizzy had begun to take an interest in Afro-Cuban music.  

In addition to featuring in these epochal moments in bebop, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz, the modern jazz version of what early-jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the "Spanish Tinge". Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. In addition to his instrumental skills, Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop, which was originally regarded as threatening and frightening music by many listeners raised on older styles of jazz. He had an enormous impact on virtually every subsequent trumpeter, both by the example of his playing and as a mentor to younger musicians.

Passing from band to band for the next few years, among which were those led by Ella Fitgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Fess Williams, Les Hite, Claude Hopkins, Lucky Millinder and even the great Duke Ellington for a short while, Dizzy met and began a long friendship with Charlie Parker. 
During this transient period, Dizzy began appearing at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House where he could try out his new ideas and styles. Often joining him was Thelonious Monk, another fine native of the Carolinas, and the two began to experiment with the complex chord changes that would soon characterize the Bebop Era...not to mention familiarizing jazz with the black horn-rimmed glasses, beret and goatee that would be just as much a part of the era. 

Late in 1942, Dizzy joined the Earl Hines's band with Charlie Parker joined on tenor and the band was the first to explore the bebop style. From this band was born "Night In Tunisia," Dizzy's famous piece that ushered in the Bebop Era.

Biography

Early life and career

Dizzy's first pro job was with the Frank Fairfax orchestra in 1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and subsequently Teddy Hill, essentially replacing his main influence Roy Eldridge as first trumpet in 1937. In 1939, Gillespie joined up with Cab Calloway's orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental "Pickin' The Cabbage", in 1940 (originally released on the Vocalion label, #5467, on 78rpm - said 78rpm record backed with a co-composition with Cab's drummer at the time, Cozy Cole, entitled "Paradiddle"). After Dizzy left Calloway in late 1941, over a notorious incident with a knife, he freelanced with a few bands - most notably being Ella Fitzgerald's orchestra, composed of members of the late Chick Webb's band, in 1942. In 1943, Gillespie then joined up with the Earl Hines orchestra. 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
 
1977

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", "Salt Peanuts", 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, 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 attempt to do this came in 1945, but it did not prove a success.

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. He also headlined the 1946 independently-produced musical revue film Jivin' in Be-Bop.

In 1948 Dizzy 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 only awarded him $1000, in view of his high earnings up to that point. (Source: Ready for the Plaintiff! by Melvin Belli, 1956.)

On March 11, 1952 Gillespie left for France after being invited by Charles Delaunay to play on Salon du Jazz. Gillespie did not have any other commitments during his time in Paris and on his Blue Star sessions and started to assemble his third big band. Due to his prior success he could now record in the finest studios like Théatre des Champs-Elysées. In 1953 he returned to the United States after a series of successful concerts and recordings, and the 1953 line-up of the Dizzy Gillespie/Stan Getz Sextet featured Gillespie, Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Max Roach. As well as his work with Getz, he also recorded on a couple of occasions with saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt.

In 1956 he organized a band to go on a State Department tour of the Middle East and earned the nickname "the Ambassador of Jazz".

Afro-Cuban music

In the late 1940s, Gillespie was also involved in the movement called Afro-Cuban music, bringing Latin and African elements to greater prominence in jazz and even pop music, particularly salsa. Gillespie's most famous contributions to Afro-Cuban music are the compositions "Manteca" and "Tin Tin Deo"; 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 and death
 
Dizzy Gillespie at Nambassa festival 1981.

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 Jazz Hall of Fame.

In 1964 the artist put himself forward as a presidential candidate. He promised that if he were elected, the White House would be renamed "The Blues House," Ray Charles would be appointed Librarian of Congress, Miles Davis would become the head of the CIA, and Malcolm X the Attorney General. He also said his running mate would be Phyllis Diller.

Gillespie published his autobiography, To Be or Not to Bop in 1979.

In the 1980s, Dizzy 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 affected 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, Dizzy Gillespie had a cameo 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.
 
Dizzy Gillespie with drummer Bill Stewart at 1984 Stanford Jazz Workshop

In 1988, Gillespie had worked with Canadian flautist and saxophonist Moe Koffman on their prestigious album Oop 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 Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres –France's most prestigious cultural award –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.
 
Dizzy Gillespie with the Italian singer Sergio Caputo.

November 26, 1992 at Carnegie Hall in New York, following the Second Bahá'í World Congress was Dizzy'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 Dec 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.

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, Dizzy 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.

Dizzy 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 is often called the Bahá'í Jazz Ambassador. He is honored with weekly jazz sessions at the New York Bahá'í Center.

Origins of iconic "bent" trumpet

Gillespie's image is almost inseparable from his trademark trumpet whose bell was bent at a 45 degree angle rather than a traditional straight trumpet. In honor of this trademark, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has collected Gillespie's B-flat trumpet. According to Gillespie's autobiography, this was originally the result of accidental damage caused during a job on January 6, 1953, but the constriction caused by the bending altered the tone of the instrument, and Gillespie liked the effect. Gillespie's biographer Alyn Shipton writes that Gillespie likely got the idea when he saw a similar instrument in 1937 in Manchester, England while on tour with the Teddy Hill Orchestra. Gillespie came across an English trumpeter who was using such an instrument because his vision was poor and the horn made reading music easier. 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, Gillespie 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.