John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie Biography
His trademark bent horn, puffed-out cheeks and scat singing made John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993) one of jazz’s most identifiable performers. But beyond his status as one of the most familiar and beloved jazz icons, Gillespie was one of the music’s most innovative trumpeters and composers, as well as a crucial force in the birth of bebop and Afro-Cuban jazz. While his complex playing style and singular improvisational skills made him an influential figure early in his career, Gillespie’s outgoing personality and colorful showmanship helped to make him an international cultural ambassador. As much as any musician of his era, Gillespie helped to bring jazz to a broad audience, far beyond the usual boundaries of the jazz community.
The youngest of nine children in a musical family, the South Carolina-born Gillespie taught himself to play trombone and trumpet during childhood, and later dropped out of agricultural college to pursue music. In New York in the late ’30s and early ’40s, Gillespie honed his highly original trumpet style while playing with bands led by Charlie Barnet, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines and Lucky Millinder. It was during his time in Hines’ orchestra that Gillespie first worked with Charlie Parker and wrote his best-known composition, “A Night In Tunisia.”
In 1944, Gillespie participated in a pair of Coleman Hawkins-led sessions that are widely cited as the first full-fledged bebop recordings. The following year, Gillespie teamed up with Parker for a series of seminal recordings that are widely credited with creating bebop’s template. Gillespie would subsequently reunite with Parker on several occasions. He also formed a groundbreaking orchestra of his own, which at various times included such notable players as Kenny Barron, John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Wynton Kelly, Yusef Lateef, Junior Mance, James Moody, Lee Morgan, Lalo Schifrin and the four original members of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Gillespie also led quintets and sextets, and worked with the likes of Stan Getz, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt in various combinations.
In 1956, Gillespie formed a big band to tour the Middle East under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department. That trip was so well received that he subsequently undertook a series of successful international tours that took him to Europe, South America and the Near East. He also participated in several all-star projects, including Norman Granz’s fabled Jazz At the Philharmonic tours. Gillespie continued recording and touring until 1992, the year before his death.
Recent Comments