Dizzy Gillespie
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Dizzy Gillespie was a giant in the jazz world--a virtuoso player, composer, arranger, innovator of bebop, and forerunner of Afro-Cuban music. While he received musical training as a child, he taught himself to play trumpet. In 1935 he joined a Philadelphia band where he picked up the “Dizzy” moniker for his onstage antics.
Gillespie made his first recording with the Teddy Hill Band in 1937, “King Porter Stomp.” He joined Cab Calloway’s band in 1939 and began to veer away from the traditional trumpet style that he had picked up from Louis Armstrong, Charlie Shavers, and Roy Eldridge. There he also met trumpeter Mario Bauza who piqued his interest in Afro-Cuban music. By 1940 Gillespie was participating in after-hours sessions with other musicians--Charlie Parker, Kenny Clarke, and Bud Powell--whose experimentation would spark the bop revolution. After leaving Calloway he joined Earl Hines’ band (which included Parker) and wrote “Interlude” which would become “Night in Tunisia.”
The musical direction of Gillespie and Parker would not gain public acceptance for several years. You couldn’t dance to it-- anathema for the swing generation. In 1946 Dizzy formed an all-star band that included Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. In collaboration with Walter Fuller they wrote the fiery “Manteca.”
In 1953 someone fell on Gillespie’s trumpet and bent the bell at a 45-degree angle. He liked playing it that way and had instruments specially made for him. In 1956 he toured the world as leader of a State Department-sponsored big band, and in the late ‘80s he led the United Nations Orchestra until he retired in 1992. Other of his compositions firmly established in the jazz repertoire are “Groovin’ High,” “Birks Works,” “Con Alma,” “Anthropology” with Walter Bishop Jr. and Charlie Parker, and “Salt Peanuts.”
- Sandra Burlingame
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Dizzy Gillespie, United Nations Orchestra
Dizzy Gillespie - Live at the Royal Festival Hall, London (1989)
Eagle Rock Ent
DVD
Alyn Shipton
Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie
Oxford University Press
To Be or Not to Bop
Doubleday
Donald L. Maggin
Dizzy: The Life and Times of John Birks Gillespie
HarperEntertainment
Gene Lees
You Can't Steal a Gift: Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat
Yale University Press
The Dizzy Gillespie Collection: Trumpet (Artist Transcriptions)
Hal Leonard Corporation
Vol. 9 - Dizzy Gillespie: Jazz Play Along Series (Jazz Play Along)
Various
DownBeat - The Great Jazz Interviews (A 75th Anniversary Anthology) (Book)
Hal Leonard
Down Beat: Sixty Years of Jazz
Wynton Marsalis, Geoffrey Ward
Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life
Random House Trade Paperbacks
Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns
Jazz: A History of America's Music
Knopf
Jonah Winter
Dizzy
Arthur A. Levine Books
Scott Yanow
Bebop : Third Ear - The Essential Listening Companion
Miller Freeman Books
Dizzy Gillespie - Live in Montreal (Montreal Jazz Festival) (1981)
Swing Era - Dizzy Gillespie - Jivin' in Be-Bop
Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, John Lewis, Milt Jackson
Dizzy's Dream Band
Fox Lorber
Dizzy Gillespie: A Night in Chicago
Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Hinton, Marian McPartland, Art Blakey, Gerry Mulligan
A Great Day in Harlem
Homevision
Dizzy Gillespie, Arturo Sandoval
A Night in Havana - Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba
New Video Group
Jazz Icons: Dizzy Gillespie Live in ‘58 and ‘70
Tdk DVD Video
Louis Armstrong, Roy Haynes, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk
Masters of American Music: Celebrating Bird - The Triumph of Charlie Parker
Euroarts
A Night in Tunisia
View Video
VHS
Jazz in America:Dizzy Gillespie
Nelson Entertainment
Maureen Stapleton, Hans Koller, Dizzy Gillespie
Voyage to Next
Lightyear Video
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