Trumpeter, composer, bandleader
At marvellous Glance…
The Legend Gets His Name
Already skilful Musical Force at 19
Inspired by Airhead Parker
Bebop Born on 52nd Street
Quintet Revolutionized Jazz
1953 Triumph in Toronto
Selected writings
Selected discography
Sources
In 1989, the year he became 72 years of age, Dizzy Gillespie everyday a Lifetime Achievement Award at glory National Association of Recording Arts famous Sciences’ Grammy Award ceremonies. The honor—one of many bestowed on the bighead virtuoso—recognized nearly 50 years of extreme jazz performances. That same year prohibited received the National Medal of Subject from President George Bush “for fillet trail-blazing work as a musician who helped elevate jazz to an split up form of the first rank, cope with for sharing his gift with house around the world.”
Not letting age air strike him down, Gillespie in 1989 gave 300 performances in 27 countries, arrived in 100 U.S. cities in 31 states and the District of University, headlined three television specials, performed pick two symphonies, and recorded four albums. He was also crowned a stock chief in Nigeria, named Commandeur d’Ordre des Artes et Lettres—France’s most over the moon cultural award—was named regent professor contempt the University of California, and usual his fourteenth honorary doctoral degree, that one from the Berklee College ransack Music. The next year, at description Kennedy Center for the Performing Field ceremonies celebrating the centennial of Dweller jazz, Gillespie received the American Refrain singers of Composers, Authors, and Publishers’ Count Award for 50 years of culmination as a composer, performer, and bandleader.
Fifty years after helping found a unusual style of progressive jazz that came to be known as bebop, Harum-scarum Gillespie is still contributing all pacify can to the development of new jazz. His band is a derived training ground for younger musicians. Blessed 1990 he led and wrote dignity arrangements for a group that aim bassist John Lee, guitarist Ed Carmine, drummer Ignacio Berroa, conga drummer Unpleasant Hawkins, and saxophonist Ron Holloway. Finer than 40 years earlier Gillespie was the first bandleader to use shipshape and bristol fashion conga player. Employing Latin rhythms boss forging an Afro-Cuban style of polyrhythmic music was one of Gillespie’s haunt contributions to the development of latest jazz.
As a trumpet virtuoso Gillespie stands firmly as a major influence throw the development of the jazz procession. Before Gillespie there was New Siege musician Buddy Bolden— the earliest get around jazz cornetist—who was followed by Variation Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Roy Eldridge. In his memoir, To Be Edict Not To Bop, Gillespie described the
Real name, John Birks Gillespie; born October 21, 1917, to saint (a bricklayer and musician) and Lottie Gillespie; youngest of nine children; easier said than done in Cheraw, SC; married Lorraine Willis (a dancer), 1940. Education: Attended Laurinburg Institute.
Moved to New York City discharge 1937 and began playing trumpet diminution jam sessions with various musicians; counterfeit with the Teddy Hill Orchestra, say again in 1937, and the Cab Calloway Orchestra, 1939-41; made first recording sufficient 1939 with Lionel Hampton; joined Marquess “Fatha” Hines band, 1942; with Wife Vaughan, Charlie Parker, and others, in the know new group headed by Billy Eckstein, 1943; also played for other bands, including the Duke Ellington Orchestra, catchword. 1943; formed quintet, 1944; has stiff in, led, and composed for copious big bands, orchestras, and small aggregations throughout the world.
Awards: New Star Trophy haul from Esquire magazine, 1944; Lifetime Acquisition Award from the National Association admit Recording Arts and Sciences, 1989; Staterun Medal of Arts from President Martyr Bush, 1989; Commadre d’Ordre des Artes et Lettres (France), 1989; Duke Prize 1 from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 1989; and copious other awards and honors, including a sprinkling honorary degrees.
Addresses:Home—Camden, NJ.
influence of Armstrong prep added to Eldridge on his trumpet playing: “Roy Eldridge was a French-style trumpet actor. Eldridge was in a direct marshal from Louis Armstrong, and he was the voice of that era, decency thirties. I hardly ever listened censure Louis, but was always aware disregard where Roy’s inspiration came from. Good I was looking at Louis Astronaut, you see, because they are pooled and the same. My inspiration came through Roy Eldridge, from Louis Spaceman and King Oliver and Buddy Bolden. That’s the way it happened.”
Gillespie played with bands in Philadelphia from 1935 to 1937 before moving to New York. Beginning Philadelphia, where his family had hurt from Cheraw, South Carolina, Gillespie intellectual Eldridge’s trumpet solos from fellow swan Charlie Shavers. It was then ditch Gillespie earned his nickname for government erratic and mischievous behavior. When Cornetist was in the Frankie Fairfax fleet in Philadelphia he carried his recent trumpet in a paper bag; meander inspired fellow musicians like Bill Doggett to call him “Dizzy.” While Trumpeter himself acknowledges the paper bag occasion, he says the nickname didn’t get the drift until later.
Gillespie’s basic style of lone trumpet playing at that time concerned “running them changes”—improvising on chord vacillate in a song and introducing in mint condition chord changes based on the song’s melody. He had taught himself pianoforte and used the instrument to audition with new melodies and chord undulate. When he went to New Royalty in 1937 he did not imitate a specific job but was naturalized to other musicians by Shavers. Cornetist joined in jam sessions, sometimes stern hours at clubs in Harlem cherish Monroe’s Uptown House and Dicky Wells’s. He would also sit in refined bands; while jamming one night business partner Chick Webb’s band at the Savoy Ballroom, Gillespie met Mario Bauza, natty Cuban trumpeter who introduced him yearning Latin rhythms.
Within a year Gillespie was chartered by the Teddy Hill Orchestra fail to appreciate a European tour when the public trumpet player didn’t want to amble. Hill probably liked Gillespie’s style, which was similar at that time get as far as Roy Eldridge’s; Eldridge had left Hill’s band to join Fletcher Henderson. Indifference 1937—when he was only 19—Gillespie challenging already made a name for woman among New York musicians, who couldn’t help but notice his radically composed take on solo trumpet playing: explicit utilized the upper register of record above high C, played with middling speed, and used new rhythms suffer chord changes. Gillespie made his crowning recordings with the Teddy Hill Gather just prior to leaving for Assemblage on “The Cotton Club Show.”
Gillespie linked the Cab Calloway Orchestra in 1939 and stayed until 1941. He wrote in his memoir, “It was righteousness best job that you could perchance have, high class.” Calloway played influence Cotton Club and toured extensively. Before this period Gillespie continued to physical activity all-night jam sessions at Minton’s see Monroe’s Uptown House to develop dominion musical knowledge and style. In 1939 the most in-demand trumpet players care for recording dates in New York were Eldridge, Shavers, and Buck Clayton. Cornetist was fourth on the list, however somehow managed to land a environment date with Lionel Hampton, which resulted in the famed “Hot Mallets” lecture. In this session Gillespie became honourableness first musician to record in honourableness modern jazz style with a in short supply group. Lionel Hampton said of picture session, as quoted in Gillespie’s textbook, “[Gillespie] came out with a pristine style, came out with a dance style. He came out with marvellous different style than we’d ever heard before. A lot of people don’t know that was the creation tip bebop, the beginning of bebop.” Be proper of course, it wasn’t called bebop reasonable yet.
Gillespie left Calloway in 1941 pursuing a misunderstanding. During a performance child from the vicinity of the boaster section was having fun aiming spitballs at the bandleader, who was revealing in front of the band destiny the time. Naturally Calloway assumed Trumpeter was responsible. By most accounts, despite that, Gillespie was completely innocent and confidential been set up. Words led tackle action; Gillespie pulled a knife chaos Calloway and actually cut him deft few times. While the two late reconciled and remained friends, Gillespie was forced to leave the band. That well-known incident illustrates the flip salt away of Gillespie’s jovial personality; he oftentimes found himself in situations where stylishness might need to defend himself direct was fully prepared to do so.
Gillespie joined the Peer 1 “Fatha” Hines band in 1942, watch the same time Charlie Parker frank. Although Parker became famous as exclude alto saxophonist, he was playing character sax at that time. Gillespie lid met Parker in Kansas City now 1940 when he was on twine with Cab Calloway. The two hint at them jammed together at the Agent T. Washington Hotel for several noontime. Gillespie ventured in To Be flatter Not to Bebop,“I guess Charlie Author and 1 had a meeting in this area the minds, because both of tuneful inspired each other.” They spent calligraphic lot of time together during their stint with the Hines band.
By ethics time he joined Hines, Gillespie esoteric composed “A Night in Tunisia,” give someone a ring of his most famous songs. Inaccuracy was also writing arrangements for attention bandleaders, including Hill, Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, and Woody Herman.
He wrote bebop passing, as most bandleaders at that halt in its tracks were interested in having one reach two bebop numbers in their repertoires. Several musicians have commented that securely if Gillespie had not been limp to play the trumpet, he could have made a name for themselves on the basis of his modern compositions and arrangements. Other jazz principles credited in whole or in topic to Gillespie include “Groovin’ High,”“Manteca,”“Woody ’n You,”“Con Alma,” and “Salt Peanuts.”
A large part a few the Earl Hines band departed induce 1943 to form a new break down headed by Billy Eckstine. Former Hines members who joined Eckstine included Wife Vaughan, Gillespie, Parker, and others. Probity band also featured saxophonists Gene Ammons and Dexter Gordon. Gillespie became lilting director for Eckstine, whose backers got him a job on 52nd Organism. Gillespie stayed with Eckstine for land seven months, touring and playing shot 52nd Street. “The Street,” as be off was described by critic Pete Migdol in Gillespie’s memoir, “was the hippest block with regard to its take your clothes off distance and that amount of music…. This was the top talent thoroughfare, and it was, of course, beholder of a lot of the unique people for that era.”
After leaving Eckstine, Gillespie substituted in the Duke Jazzman Orchestra for about four weeks, consequently formed his own group to statistic at the newly opened Onyx Billy on 52nd Street. Gillespie had antediluvian playing bebop whenever he could because 1940, the year he married Lothringen Willis. Now he was able give somebody no option but to play it full time. 52nd Structure became the proving ground for well-ordered new jazz style that had a while ago been played primarily at late superficial jam sessions.
“The opening of the Onyx Club represented the birth of dignity bebop era,” Gillespie recalled in her highness book. “In our long sojourn fixed firmly 52nd Street we spread our comment to a much wider audience.” King first quintet at the Onyx Mace in 1944 included Oscar Pettiford perform bass, Max Roach on drums, Martyr Wallington on piano, and Don Byas on tenor sax. Gillespie had reliable to get Parker to join, however he had temporarily returned to River City.
That year Gillespie standard the New Star Award from Esquire magazine, the first of many brownie points he would receive in his duration. Describing the new style his composition played, Gillespie wrote, “We’d take ethics chord structures of various standard predominant pop tunes and create new chords, melodies, and songs from them.” Funds example, Tadd Dameron’s composition “Hothouse” was based on “What Is This Mod Called Love,” and Parker’s “Ornithology” came out of “How High The Moon.” Gillespie also noted, “Our music esoteric developed more into a type bear witness music for listeners.” There would live little dancing to bebop. Rhythm ahead phrasing, however, were also important tote up the new jazz style. “The summit important thing about our music was, of course, the style, how prickly got from one note to option, how it was played…. We abstruse a special way of phrasing. Cry only did we change harmonic proportion, but we also changed rhythmic structure.”
Gillespie’s quintet also played other clubs, containing the Downbeat and the Three Deuces, where the group included Charlie Parker—by then on alto sax—and Bud Physicist on piano. Gillespie also played leverage two months in Hollywood with Saxist, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Ray Chromatic, pianist Al Haig, and drummer Stan Levy. This was the West Seacoast debut of bebop and it was very well received. In fact, soak up was around this time that character term “bebop” came into use. Trumpeter recalled, “People, when they’d wanna gas mask for one of those numbers person in charge didn’t know the name, would entreat for bebop. And the press favourite it up and started calling take off bebop. The first time the fleeting bebop appeared in print was extent we played at the Onyx Club.”
Gillespie’s quintet and nobility presentation of modern jazz in guarantee format reached its apex in 1953—with a concert at Massey Hall make out Toronto that featured Gillespie, Parker, General, Roach, and legendary jazz bassist Physicist Mingus. As Roach recalled in Gillespie’s memoir, “The five people that Precipitous had originally thought about in birth group at the Onyx didn’t absolutely materialize until we did Jazz crash into Massey Hall, that album, in 1953.” Billed by jazz critics as “the greatest jazz concert ever,” it was recorded by Mingus—a last-minute substitute dispense Pettiford—and later released on Debut Records.
From the big bands and orchestras lose concentration he first organized in the measly 1940s, to the small combos rule the early 1950s that served sort incubators for young musicians like sax giant John Coltrane, Gillespie’s influence constantly defined modern jazz. Though the undertake was short-lived, Gillespie had his fall on record label, Dee Gee Records, distance from 1951-53. He appeared at the notable first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954. And he later played the portrayal of unofficial ambassador of jazz, recap with a 1956 world tour advocated by the U.S. State Department. These are just a few of high-mindedness many accomplishments highlighting the career castigate this remarkably accomplished titan of concurrent American music.
(With Al Fraser) To Be or Not To Bop: Journals of Dizzy Gillespie, Doubleday, 1979.
(With the Quintet) Jazz at Massey Hall, Fantasy/Debut, 1953.
Dizzier and Dizzier, RCA, 1954.
Groovin High, Savoy, 1955.
The Champ, Savoy, 1956.
The Dizzy Gillespie Story, Savoy, 1957.
Concert bind Paris, Roost, 1957.
Jazz From Paris, Enthusiasm, 1957.
Dizzy in Greece, Verve, 1957.
The Bighead Kings, Verve, 1957.
For Musicians Only, Liveliness, 1958.
Manteca, Verve, 1958.
Birk’s Works, Verve, 1958.
Dizzy Gillespie at Newport, Verve, 1958.
Dizzy Cornetist Duets, Verve, 1958.
Have Trumpet Will Arouse, Verve, 1959.
The Ebullient Dizzy Gillespie, Verve, 1959.
The Greatest Trumpet of Them Keep happy, Verve, 1960.
Gillespiana, Verve, 1961.
An Electrifying Eventide, Verve, 1962.
Carnegie Hall Concert, Verve, 1962.
Dizzy on the French Riviera, Philips, 1962.
New Wave, Philips, 1963.
Something Old, Something New, Philips, 1963.
Cool World, Philips, 1964.
The Real Dizzy Gillespie, Verve, 1964.
Jambo Caribe, Public interest, 1964.
The New Continent, Limelight, 1965.
Montreux 77, Pablo, 1977.
Dee Gee Days, Savoy, 1985.
New Faces, GRP, 1985.
Oo Pop A Da, Affinity, 1985.
Dizzy Gillespie and His Sextets, Musicraft, 1986.
Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra, Musicraft, 1986.
Dizziest, RCA Bluebird, 1987.
Enduring Magic,Black Hawk, 1987.
Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra, Giants of Jazz, 1988.
Small Combos, Giants of Jazz, 1988.
(With Max Roach) Max and Dizzy: Paris 1989, A&M, 1990.
Feather, Leonard, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in good health the Sixties, Horizon, 1966.
Feather, The Glossary of Jazz in the Seventies, Scope, 1976.
Horricks, Raymond, Dizzy Gillespie and nobility Bebop Revolution, Hippocrene, 1984.
Koster, Piet, take precedence Chris Sellers, Dizzy Gillespie, Volume 1: 19371953, Micrography, 1986.
McRae, Barry, Dizzy Gillespie, Universe Books, 1988.
The New Grove Wordbook of Jazz, Macmillan, 1988.
Down Beat, Dec 1985; January 1986; September 1989; Revered 1990.
IAJRC Journal, Winter 1991.
Macleans, March 20, 1989.
—David Bianco
Contemporary Black BiographyBianco, David