Dizzy Gillespie

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(b Cheraw, sc, 21 Oct 1917). American jazz trumpeter. After playing in various bands he joined Cab Calloway's orchestra in 1939, making c 60 recordings. A founder of bop, he was largely responsible for introducing into jazz whole-tone scales, altered chords, substitute harmonies and 9th, 11th and 13th chords. His 1945 recordings with Charlie Parker were much praised and in the late 1940s he experimented with big-band bop. His Manteca (with Gil Fuller, 1947) established African-Cuban jazz. His late career was largely with small groups. Gillespie's technique and versatility make him the leading jazz trumpeter after Armstrong.

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Fifty years after helping found a new style of progressive jazz that came to be known as bebop, Dizzy Gillespie's (1917-1993) music is still a major contributing factor to the development of modern jazz.

As a trumpet virtuoso Gillespie stands firmly as a major influence in the development of the jazz trumpet. His band was a virtual training ground for younger musicians. In 1990 he led and wrote the arrangements for a group that included bassist John Lee, guitarist Ed Cherry, drummer Ignacio Berroa, conga drummer Paul Hawkins, and saxophonist Ron Holloway. More than 40 years earlier Gillespie was the first bandleader to use a conga player. Employing Latin rhythms and forging an Afro-Cuban style of polyrhythmic music was one of Gillespie's many contributions to the development of modern jazz.

Before Gillespie there was New Orleans musician Buddy Bolden - the earliest known jazz cornetist - who was followed by King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Roy Eldridge. In his memoir, To Be or Not to Bop, Gillespie described the influence of Armstrong and Eldridge on his trumpet playing: "Roy Eldridge was a French-style trumpet player. Eldridge was in a direct line from Louis Armstrong, and he was the voice of that era, the thirties. I hardly ever listened to Louis, but was always aware of where Roy's inspiration came from. So I was looking at Louis Armstrong, you see, because they are one and the same. My inspiration came through Roy Eldridge, from Louis Armstrong 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. In Philadelphia, where his family had moved from Cheraw, South Carolina, Gillespie learned Eldridge's trumpet solos from fellow trumpeter Charlie Shavers. It was then that Gillespie earned his nickname for his erratic and mischievous behavior. When Gillespie was in the Frankie Fairfax band in Philadelphia he carried his new trumpet in a paper bag; that inspired fellow musicians like Bill Doggett to call him "Dizzy." While Gillespie himself acknowledged the paper bag incident, but he said the nickname didn't stick until later.

Gillespie's basic style of solo trumpet playing at that time involved "running them changes" - improvising on chord changes in a song and introducing new chord changes based on the song's melody. He had taught himself piano and used the instrument to experiment with new melodies and chord changes. When he went to New York in 1937 he did not have a specific job, but was introduced to other musicians by Shavers. Gillespie joined in jam sessions, sometimes after hours at clubs in Harlem like Monroe's Uptown House and Dicky Wells's. He would also sit in with bands; while jamming one night with Chick Webb's band at the Savoy Ballroom, Gillespie met Mario Bauza, a Cuban trumpeter who introduced him to Latin rhythms.

Within a year Gillespie was hired by the Teddy Hill Orchestra for a European tour when the regular trumpet player didn't want to go. Hill probably liked Gillespie's style, which was similar at that time to Roy Eldridge's; Eldridge had left Hill's band to join Fletcher Henderson. By 1937 - when he was only 19 - Gillespie had already made a name for himself among New York musicians, who couldn't help but notice his radically fresh take on solo trumpet playing: he utilized the upper register of notes above high C, played with great speed, and used new rhythms and chord changes. Gillespie made his first recordings with the Teddy Hill Orchestra just prior to leaving for Europe on "The Cotton Club Show."

Gillespie joined the Cab Calloway Orchestra in 1939 and stayed until 1941. Gillespie wrote in his memoir, "It was the best job that you could possibly have, high class." Calloway played the Cotton Club and toured extensively. During this period Gillespie continued to play all-night jam sessions at Minton's and Monroe's Uptown House to develop his musical knowledge and style. In 1939 the most in-demand trumpet players for recording dates in New York were Eldridge, Shavers, and Buck Clayton. Gillespie was fourth on the list, but somehow managed to land a recording date with Lionel Hampton, which resulted in the famed "Hot Mallets" session. In this session Gillespie became the first musician to record in the modern jazz style with a small group. Lionel Hampton said of the session, as quoted in Gillespie's book, "[Gillespie] came out with a new style, came out with a bebop style. He came out with a different style than we'd ever heard before. A lot of people don't know that was the creation of bebop, the beginning of bebop." Of course, it wasn't called bebop just yet.

Gillespie left Calloway in 1941 following a misunderstanding. During a performance someone from the vicinity of the trumpet section was having fun aiming spitballs at the bandleader, who was singing in front of the band at the time. Naturally Calloway assumed Gillespie was responsible. By most accounts, however, Gillespie was completely innocent and had been set up. Words led to action; Gillespie pulled a knife on Calloway and actually cut him a few times. While the two later reconciled and remained friends, Gillespie was forced to leave the band. This well-known incident illustrates the flip side of Gillespie's jovial personality; he often found himself in situations where he might need to defend himself, and was fully prepared to do so.

Gillespie joined the Earl "Fatha" Hines band in 1942, about the same time Charlie Parker did. Although Parker became famous as an alto saxophonist, he was playing tenor sax at that time. Gillespie first met Parker in Kansas City in 1940 when he was on tour with Cab Calloway. The two of them jammed together at the Booker T. Washington Hotel for several hours. Gillespie ventured in To Be or Not to Bebop, "I guess Charlie Parker and I had a meeting of the minds, because both of us inspired each other." They spent a lot of time together during their stint with the Hines band.

By the time he joined Hines, Gillespie had composed "A Night in Tunisia," one of his most famous songs. He was also writing arrangements for other bandleaders, including Hill, Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, and Woody Herman. He wrote bebop arrangements, as most bandleaders at that time were interested in having one or two bebop numbers in their repertoires. Several musicians have commented that even if Gillespie had not been able to play the trumpet, he could have made a name for himself on the basis of his original compositions and arrangements. Other jazz standards credited in whole or in part to Gillespie include "Groovin' High," "Manteca," "Woody 'n You," "Con Alma," and "Salt Peanuts."

A large part of the Earl Hines band departed in 1943 to form a new group headed by Billy Eckstine. Former Hines members who joined Eckstine included Sarah Vaughan, Gillespie, Parker, and others. The band also featured saxophonists Gene Ammons and Dexter Gordon. Gillespie became musical director for Eckstine, whose backers got him a job on 52nd Street. Gillespie stayed with Eckstine for about seven months, touring and playing on 52nd Street. "The Street," as it was described by critic Pete Migdol in Gillespie's memoir, "was the hippest block with regard to its short distance and that amount of music…. This was the top talent street, and it was, of course, discoverer of a lot of the new people for that era."

After leaving Eckstine, Gillespie substituted in the Duke Ellington Orchestra for about four weeks, then formed his own group to play at the newly opened Onyx Club on 52nd Street. Gillespie had been playing bebop whenever he could since 1940, the year he married Lorraine Willis. Now he was able to play it full time. 52nd Street became the proving ground for a new jazz style that had previously been played primarily at late night jam sessions.

"The opening of the Onyx Club represented the birth of the bebop era," Gillespie recalled in his book. "In our long sojourn on 52nd Street we spread our message to a much wider audience." His first quintet at the Onyx Club in 1944 included Oscar Pettiford on bass, Max Roach on drums, George Wallington on piano, and Don Byas on tenor sax. Gillespie had tried to get Parker to join, but he had temporarily returned to Kansas City.

Also in 1944 Gillespie received the New Star Award from Esquire magazine, the first of many awards he would receive in his career. Describing the new style his quintet played, Gillespie wrote, "We'd take the chord structures of various standard and pop tunes and create new chords, melodies, and songs from them." For example, Tadd Dameron's composition "Hothouse" was based on "What Is This Thing Called Love," and Parker's "Ornithology" came out of "How High The Moon." Gillespie also noted, "Our music had developed more into a type of music for listeners." There would be little dancing to bebop. Rhythm and phrasing, however, were also important to the new jazz style. "The most important thing about our music was, of course, the style, how you got from one note to another, how it was played…. We had a special way of phrasing. Not only did we change harmonic structure, but we also changed rhythmic structure."

Gillespie's quintet also played other clubs, including the Downbeat and the Three Deuces, where the group included Charlie Parker - by then on alto sax - and Bud Powell on piano. Gillespie also played for two months in Hollywood with Parker, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Ray Brown, pianist Al Haig, and drummer Stan Levy. This was the West Coast debut of bebop and it was very well received. In fact, it was around this time that the term "bebop" came into use. Gillespie recalled, "People, when they'd wanna ask for one of those numbers and didn't know the name, would ask for bebop. And the press picked it up and started calling it bebop. The first time the term bebop appeared in print was while we played at the Onyx Club."

Gillespie's quintet and the presentation of modern jazz in that format reached its apex in 1953 - with a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto that featured Gillespie, Parker, Powell, Roach, and legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus. As Roach recalled in Gillespie's memoir, "The five people that Dizzy had originally thought about in the group at the Onyx didn't really materialize until we did Jazz at 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 for Pettiford - and later released on Debut Records.

From the big bands and orchestras that he first organized in the late 1940s, to the small combos of the early 1950s that served as incubators for young musicians like saxophone giant John Coltrane, Gillespie's influence consistently defined modern jazz. Though the enterprise was short-lived, Gillespie had his own record label, Dee Gee Records, from 1951-53. He appeared at the historic first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954. And he later played the role of unofficial ambassador of jazz, beginning with a 1956 world tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. These are just a few of the many accomplishments highlighting the career of this remarkably accomplished titan of contemporary American music.

In 1989, the year he became 72 years of age, Dizzy Gillespie received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences' Grammy Award ceremonies. The honor - one of many bestowed on the trumpet virtuoso - recognized nearly 50 years of pioneering jazz performances. That same year he received the National Medal of Arts from President George Bush "for his trail-blazing work as a musician who helped elevate jazz to an art form of the first rank, and for sharing his gift with listeners around the world."

Not letting age slow him down, 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 Commandre d'Ordre des Artes et 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. The next year, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers' Duke Award for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader.

Although his health was failing due to pancreatic cancer, Gillespie continued to play the music that he loved late in his life. His last public appearance was in Seattle in February of 1992. Gillespie passed away quietly in his sleep on October 6, 1993 at the age of 75.

Further Reading

Feather, Leonard, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties, Horizon, 1966.

Feather, Leonard, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies, Horizon, 1976.

Horricks, Raymond, Dizzy Gillespie and the Bebop Revolution, Hippocrene, 1984.

Koster, Piet, and Chris Sellers, Dizzy Gillespie, Volume 1: 1937-1953, Micrography, 1986.

McRae, Barry, Dizzy Gillespie, Universe Books, 1988.

New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Macmillan, 1988.

Detroit Free Press, January 7, 1993; January 8, 1993.

Down Beat, December 1985; January 1986; September 1989; August 1990.

Entertainment Weekly, January 22, 1993.

IAJRC Journal, Winter 1991.

Maclean's, March 20, 1989.

New Yorker, September 17, 1990.

New York Times, January 7, 1993; January 13, 1993; January 17, 1993.

Time, January 18, 1993.

Times (London), January 8, 1993.

Washington Post, January 7, 1993; January 10, 1993.

jazz musician; trumpet player; composer; bandleader

Personal Information

Real name, John Birks Gillespie; born October 21, 1917, to James and Lottie Gillespie; youngest of nine children; father was a bricklayer by day and a musician by night; raised in Cheraw, SC; family moved to Philadelphia, PA, 1935; married Lorraine Willis (a dancer), 1940.
Education: Attended Laurinburg Institute; left before graduating to join family in Philadelphia.

Career

Moved to New York City in 1937 and began playing trumpet in jam sessions with various musicians; played with the Teddy Hill Orchestra, beginning in 1937, and the Cab Calloway Orchestra, 1939-41; made first recording in 1939 with Lionel Hampton; joined Earl "Fatha" Hines band, 1942; with Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, and others, formed new group headed by Billy Eckstein, 1943; also played for other bands including the Duke Ellington Orchestra, c. 1943; formed own quintet, 1944; has played in, led, and composed for numerous big bands, orchestras, and small groups throughout the world.

Life's Work

In 1989, the year he became 72 years of age, Dizzy Gillespie received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences' Grammy ceremonies. The award, one of many bestowed on this trumpet virtuoso, recognized nearly 50 years of pioneering jazz performances. That same year he received the National Medal of Arts from President Bush "for his trail-blazing work as a musician who helped elevate jazz to an art form of the first rank, and for sharing his gift with listeners around the world."

Not letting age slow him down, Gillespie in 1989 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. In addition to the previously mentioned awards, he was crowned a traditional chief in Nigeria; he received France's most prestigious cultural award, the Commandre d'Ordre des Artes et Lettres; and he was named regent professor at the University of California and received his fourteenth honorary doctoral degree, this one from the Berklee College of Music. The next year at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received ASCAP's Duke Award for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader.

Fifty years after he helped found a new style of progressive jazz that came to be known as bebop, Dizzy Gillespie is still contributing all he can to the development of modern jazz--his band is a training ground for younger musicians. In mid-1990 he led and wrote the arrangements for a group that included John Lee (bass), Ed Cherry (guitar), Ignacio Berroa (drums), Paul Hawkins (conga drum), and Ron Holloway (saxophone). More than 40 years earlier, Gillespie was the first bandleader to use a conga player. Chano Pozo, a Cuban who couldn't speak English, played conga for a memorable year with the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra before meeting an untimely death in 1948. Employing Latin rhythms and forging an Afro-Cuban style of polyrhythmic music was one of Gillespie's many contributions to the development of modern jazz.

As a trumpet virtuoso, Gillespie stands firmly as a major influence in the development of the jazz trumpet. Before Gillespie, there was New Orleans musician Buddy Bolden, the earliest known jazz cornetist, who was followed by King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Roy Eldridge. In his memoir, To Be Or Not To Bop, Gillespie described the influence of Armstrong and Eldridge on his trumpet playing: "Roy Eldridge was a French-style trumpet player. Eldridge was in a direct line from Louis Armstrong, and he was the voice of that era, the thirties. I hardly ever listened to Louis, but was always aware of where Roy's inspiration came from. So I was looking at Louis Armstrong, you see, because they are one and the same. My inspiration came through Roy Eldridge, from Louis Armstrong and King Oliver and Buddy Bolden. That's the way it happened." Successors to this line of innovative jazz trumpeters after Gillespie include Miles Davis, who developed a style of cool jazz that contrasted with Gillespie's hard bop, and contemporary trumpeters like Wynton Marsalis and Wallace Roney.

Gillespie played with bands in Philadelphia from 1935 to 1937 before moving to New York. In Philadelphia, where his family had moved from Cheraw, South Carolina, Gillespie learned Eldridge's trumpet solos from fellow trumpeter Charlie Shavers while earning his nickname for his erratic and mischievous behavior. When Gillespie was in the Frankie Fairfax band in Philadelphia, he carried his new trumpet in a paper bag; that caused fellow musicians like Bill Doggett to call him "Dizzy." While Gillespie himself acknowledges the paper bag incident, he says the nickname didn't stick until later.

Gillespie's basic style of solo trumpet playing at that time involved "running them changes," improvising on chord changes in a song and introducing new chord changes based on the song's melody. He had taught himself piano and used the instrument to experiment with new melodies and chord changes. When he came to New York in 1937, he didn't have a specific job there, but he was introduced to other musicians by Charlie Shavers. Gillespie and other musicians played jam sessions, sometimes after hours at clubs in Harlem like Monroe's Uptown House and Dicky Wells'. He would also sit in with other bands, and while sitting in with Chick Webb's band at the Savoy Ballroom, he met Mario Bauza, a Cuban trumpeter who introduced Gillespie to Latin rhythms.

Within the year, Gillespie was hired into the Teddy Hill Orchestra for a European tour when the regular trumpet player didn't want to go. Hill probably liked Gillespie's style, which was similar at that time to Roy Eldridge's, who had left Hill's band to join Fletcher Henderson. As early as 1937, New York musicians were generally impressed with Gillespie, who was only 19, noting "he had a whole different conception of solo trumpet playing." In his solos he utilized the upper register of notes above high C, played with great speed, and used new rhythms and chord changes. Gillespie made his first recordings with the Teddy Hill Orchestra just prior to leaving for Europe. On the European tour, billed as "The Cotton Club Show," Gillespie was the youngest member of the band.

Gillespie joined the Cab Calloway Orchestra in 1939 and stayed until 1941. Gillespie wrote in his memoir, "It was the best job that you could possibly have, high class." They played the Cotton Club and toured extensively. During this period Gillespie continued to play all-night jam sessions at Minton's and Monroe's Uptown House to develop his musical style and knowledge. In 1939 the top trumpet players for recording dates in New York were Roy Eldridge, Charlie Shavers, and Buck Clayton. Gillespie was fourth on the list but somehow managed to land a recording date with Lionel Hampton, resulting in the famous "Hot Mallets" session. In this session, Gillespie became the first to record in the modern jazz style with a small group. Lionel Hampton said of this session, as quoted in Gillespie's book, "[Gillespie] came out with a new style, came out with a bebop style. He came out with a different style than we'd ever heard before. A lot of people don't know that was the creation of bebop, the beginning of bebop." Of course, it wasn't called bebop just yet.

Gillespie left the Calloway aggregation in 1941 following a misunderstanding with the leader. During a performance someone from the vicinity of the trumpet section was having fun aiming spitballs at the leader, who was singing in front of the band at the time. Naturally, Calloway assumed Gillespie was responsible. This time, however, Gillespie was set up and was completely innocent. Words led to action, and Gillespie pulled a knife on Calloway and actually cut him a few times. While the two men later made up and remained friends, Gillespie had to leave the band. It's an interesting and well-known incident, illustrating the flip side of Gillespie's jovial personality. He was often in situations where he might need to defend himself, and he was fully prepared to do so.

Gillespie joined the Earl "Fatha" Hines band in 1942, about the same time Charlie Parker did. Although Parker became famous as an alto saxophonist, he was playing tenor sax at that time in the Hines band. Gillespie first met Parker in Kansas City in 1940, when he was on tour with Cab Calloway. The two of them jammed together at the Booker T. Washington Hotel in Kansas City for several hours. As Gillespie wrote, "I guess Charlie Parker and I had a meeting of the minds, because both of us inspired each other." They hung out together quite a lot during their stint in the Hines band.

By the time he joined Earl Hines, Gillespie had composed "A Night in Tunisia," one of his most famous songs. He was also writing arrangements for other bandleaders, including Jimmy Dorsey, Teddy Hill, Cab Calloway, and Woody Herman. He would write bebop arrangements for their bands, because every bandleader at that time was interested in having one or two bebop numbers in their repertoires. Several musicians have commented that even if Gillespie couldn't play the trumpet, he could have made a name for himself on the basis of his original compositions and arrangements. Other jazz standards credited in whole or in part to Gillespie include "Groovin' High," "Manteca," "Woody 'n You," "Con Alma," and "Salt Peanuts."

A large part of the Earl Hines band left in 1943 to form a new group headed by Billy Eckstine. Former Hines members who joined Eckstine included Sarah Vaughan, Gillespie, Parker, and others. Gillespie became musical director for Eckstine, whose backers got him a job on 52nd Street. The band also included saxophonists Gene Ammons and Dexter Gordon. Gillespie stayed with Eckstine for about seven months, touring and playing on 52nd Street. "The Street," as described by critic Pete Migdol in Gillespie's memoir, "was the hippest block with regard to its short distance and that amount of music.... This was the top talent street, and it was, of course, discoverer of a lot of the new people for that era."

After leaving Eckstine, Gillespie subbed in the Duke Ellington Orchestra for about four weeks, then formed his own group to play at the newly opened Onyx Club on 52nd Street. Billie Holiday (also in this issue) was also playing at the Onyx Club in 1944. Gillespie had been playing bebop whenever he could since 1940, the year he married Lorraine Willis and met Charlie Parker. Now he was able to play it full time. The Street became the proving ground for the new jazz style that had previously been played primarily at late night jam sessions.

"The opening of the Onyx Club represented the birth of the bebop era," Gillespie recalled in his book. "In our long sojourn on 52nd Street we spread our message to a much wider audience." His first quintet at the Onyx Club in 1944 included Oscar Pettiford (bass), Max Roach (drums), George Wallington (piano), Don Byas (tenor sax), and Gillespie. Gillespie had tried to get Parker to join, but Parker had temporarily returned to Kansas City.

In 1944 Gillespie also received the New Star Award from Esquire magazine, the first of many awards he would receive in his career. Describing the new style his quintet played, Gillespie wrote, "We'd take the chord structures of various standard and pop tunes and create new chords, melodies, and songs from them." For example, Tadd Dameron's composition, "Hothouse," was based on "What Is This Thing Called Love?," and Parker's "Ornithology" came out of "How High The Moon." Gillespie also noted, "Our music had developed more into a type of music for listeners." There would be little dancing to the new bebop. Rhythm and phrasing were also important to the new jazz style. "The most important thing about our music was, of course, the style, how you got from one note to another, how it was played.... We had a special way of phrasing. Not only did we change harmonic structure, but we also changed rhythmic structure."

Gillespie's quintet also played other clubs, including the Downbeat and the Three Deuces, where the quintet included Charlie Parker (alto sax) and Bud Powell (piano). He also played for two months in Hollywood with Parker, Milt Jackson (vibes), Ray Brown (bass), Al Haig (piano), and Stan Levy (drums). This was the first exposure of bebop on the West Coast and it was very well received. It was around this time that the term "bebop" came into use. Gillespie recalled, "People, when they'd wanna ask for one of those numbers and didn't know the name, would ask for bebop. And the press picked it up and started calling it bebop. The first time the term bebop appeared in print was while we played at the Onyx Club."

Gillespie's quintet and the presentation of modern jazz in that format reached its apex in 1953, with a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto that featured Gillespie, Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus (bass), and Max Roach. As Roach recalled in Gillespie's memoir, "The five people that Dizzy had originally thought about in the group at the Onyx didn't really materialize until we did Jazz at Massey Hall, that album, in 1953." Billed by jazz critics as "the greatest jazz concert ever," it was recorded by Mingus, who was a last-minute substitute for Oscar Pettiford, and later released on Debut Records.

There is, of course, much more to the Dizzy Gillespie story: His big bands and orchestras that he first organized in the late 1940s, his small groups from the early 1950s that served as incubators for young musicians like John Coltrane, his work with musicians like saxophonist James Moody and pianist/composer Lalo Schifrin, his role as unofficial ambassador of jazz beginning with a 1956 world tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department, his own short-lived record label (Dee Gee Records, 1951-53), his appearance at the very first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, his marriage of more than 50 years to Lorraine, and more. Much of it is documented in To Be Or Not To Bop, which was published in 1979.

Gillespie died of pancreatic cancer complicated by diabetes, on January 6, 1993, at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, New Jersey.

Awards

New Star Award from Esquire magazine, 1944; Lifetime Achievement Award from National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences, 1989; National Medal of Arts from President George Bush, 1989; Commadre d'Ordre des Artes et Lettres (France), 1989; Duke Award from ASCAP, 1989; and numerous other awards and honors, including several honorary degrees.

Works

Selective Discography

• (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 In Paris, Roost, 1957.
• Jazz From Paris, Verve, 1957.
• Dizzy In Greece, Verve, 1957.
• The Trumpet Kings, Verve, 1957.
• For Musicians Only, Verve, 1958.
• Manteca, Verve, 1958.
• Birk's Works, Verve, 1958.
• Dizzy Gillespie at Newport, Verve, 1958.
• Dizzy Gillespie Duets, Verve, 1958.
• Have Trumpet Will Excite, Verve, 1959.
• The Ebullient Dizzy Gillespie, Verve, 1959.
• The Greatest Trumpet Of Them All, Verve, 1960.
• Gillespiana, Verve, 1961.
• An Electrifying Evening, 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 Essential Dizzy Gillespie, Verve, 1964.
• Jambo Caribe, Limelight, 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.

Writings

• (With Al Fraser) To Be or Not To Bop: Memoirs of Dizzy Gillespie, Doubleday, 1979.

Further Reading

Books

• Feather, Leonard, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties, Horizon, 1966.
• Feather, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies, Horizon, 1976.
• Horricks, Raymond, Dizzy Gillespie and the Bebop Revolution, Hippocrene, 1984.
• Koster, Piet, and Chris Sellers, Dizzy Gillespie, Volume 1: 1937-1953, Micrography, 1986.
• McRae, Barry, Dizzy Gillespie, Universe Books, 1988.
• The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Macmillan, 1988.

Periodicals

• down beat, December 1985; January 1986; September 1989; August 1990.
• IAJRC Journal, Winter 1991.
• Maclean's, March 20, 1989.
• New Yorker, September 17, 1990.

— David Bianco

Gillespie, Dizzy (John Birks Gillespie) (gəlĕs'pē), 1917-93, American jazz musician and composer, b. Cheraw, S.C. He began to play the trumpet at 15 and later studied harmony and theory at Laurinburg Institute, N.C. He played with the bands of Cab Calloway and Billy Eckstine. Gillespie and Charlie "Bird" Parker are considered the leaders of the bop (or bebop) movement in modern jazz. Gillespie's playing was characterized by intelligent musicianship and technical facility.

Bibliography

See his autobiography, To Be or Not to Bop (1979); biographies by M. James (1961), B. McRae (1988), and A. Shipton (1999).

For The Record...

Born John Birks Gillespie, October 21, 1917; son of James (a bricklayer and musician) and Lottie Gillespie; youngest of nine children; raised in Cheraw, SC; married Lorraine Willis (a dancer), 1940. Education: Attended Laurinburg Institute. Moved to New York City in 1937 and began playing trumpet in jam sessions with various musicians; played with the Teddy Hill Orchestra, beginning in 1937, and the Cab Calloway Orchestra, 1939-41; made first recording in 1939 with Lionel Hampton; joined Earl “Fatha” Hines band, 1942; with Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, and others, formed new group headed by Billy Eckstein, 1943; also played for other bands, including the Duke Ellington Orchestra, c. 1943; formed quintet, 1944; has played in, led, and composed for numerous big bands, orchestras, and small groups throughout the world. Awards: New Star Award from Esquire magazine, 1944; Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences, 1989; National Medal of Arts from President George Bush, 1989; Commadre d’Ordre des Artes et Lettres (France), 1989; Duke Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 1989; and numerous other awards and honors, including several honorary degrees. Addresses: Home—- Camden, NJ.

Trumpeter, composer, bandleader

In 1989, the year he became 72 years of age, Dizzy Gillespie received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences’ Grammy Award ceremonies. The honor—one of many bestowed on the trumpet virtuoso—recognized nearly 50 years of pioneering jazz performances. That same year he received the National Medal of Arts from President George Bush "for his trail-blazing work as a musician who helped elevate jazz to an art form of the first rank, and for sharing his gift with listeners around the world."

Not letting age slow him down, Gillespie in 1989 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 Commandre d’Ordre des Artes et 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. The next year, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers’ Duke Award for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader. Fifty years after helping found a new style of progressive jazz that came to be known as bebop, Dizzy Gillespie is still contributing all he can to the development of modern jazz. His band is a virtual training ground for younger musicians. In 1990 he led and wrote the arrangements for a group that included bassist John Lee, guitarist Ed Cherry, drummer Ignacio Berroa, conga drummer Paul Hawkins, and saxophonist Ron Hollo-way. More than 40 years earlier Gillespie was the first bandleader to use a conga player. Employing Latin rhythms and forging an Afro-Cuban style of polyrhythmic music was one of Gillespie’s many contributions to the development of modern jazz.

Influenced by Roy Eldridge and Louis Armstrong
As a trumpet virtuoso Gillespie stands firmly as a major influence in the development of the jazz trumpet. Before Gillespie there was New Orleans musician Buddy Bolden—the earliest known jazz cornetist—who was followed by King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Roy Eldridge. In his memoir, To Be Or Not To Bop, Gillespie described the influence of Armstrong and Eldridge on his trumpet playing: "Roy Eldridge was a French-style trumpet player. Eldridge was in a direct line from Louis Armstrong, and he was the voice of that era, the thirties. I hardly ever listened to Louis, but was always aware of

where Roy’s inspiration came from. So I was looking at Louis Armstrong, you see, because they are one and the same. My inspiration came through Roy Eldridge, from Louis Armstrong 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. In Philadelphia, where his family had moved from Cheraw, South Carolina, Gillespie learned Eldridge’s trumpet solos from fellow trumpeter Charlie Shavers. It was then that Gillespie earned his nickname for his erratic and mischievous behavior. When Gillespie was in the Frankie Fairfax band in Philadelphia he carried his new trumpet in a paper bag; that inspired fellow musicians like Bill Doggett to call him "Dizzy." While Gillespie himself acknowledges the paper bag incident, he says the nickname didn’t stick until later.

Gillespie’s basic style of solo trumpet playing at that time involved "running them changes"—improvising on chord changes in a song and introducing new chord changes based on the song’s melody. He had taught himself piano and used the instrument to experiment with new melodies and chord changes. When he went to New York in 1937 he did not have a specific job, but was introduced to other musicians by Shavers. Gillespie joined in jam sessions, sometimes after hours at clubs in Harlem like Monroe’s Uptown House and Dicky Wells’s. He would also sit in with bands; while jamming one night with Chick Webb’s band at the Savoy Ballroom, Gillespie met Mario Bauza, a Cuban trumpeter who introduced him to Latin rhythms.

Already a Musical Force at 19
Within a year Gillespie was hired by the Teddy Hill Orchestra for a European tour when the regular trumpet player didn’t want to go. Hill probably liked Gillespie’s style, which was similar at that time to Roy Eldridge’s; Eldridge had left Hill’s band to join Fletcher Henderson. By 1937—when he was only 19—Gillespie had already made a name for himself among New York musicians, who couldn’t help but notice his radically fresh take on solo trumpet playing: he utilized the upper register of notes above high C. played with great speed, and used new rhythms and chord changes. Gillespie made his first recordings with the Teddy Hill Orchestra just prior to leaving on a European tour with a revue that featured talent from Harlem’s famed Cotton Club.

Gillespie joined the Cab Calloway Orchestra in 1939 and stayed until 1941. Gillespie wrote in his memoir, "It was the best job that you could possibly have, high class." Calloway played the Cotton Club and toured extensively. During this period Gillespie continued to play all-night jam sessions at Minton’s and Monroe’s Uptown House to develop his musical knowledge and style. In 1939 the most in-demand trumpet players for recording dates in New York were Eldridge, Shavers, and Buck Clayton. Gillespie was fourth on the list, but somehow managed to land a recording date with Lionel Hampton, which resulted in the famed "Hot Mallets" session. In this session Gillespie became the first musician to record in the modern jazz style with a small group. Lionel Hampton said of the session, as quoted in Gillespie’s book, "[Gillespie] came out with a new style, came out with a bebop style. He came out with a different style than we’d ever heard before. A lot of people don’t know that was the creation of bebop, the beginning of bebop. "Of course, it wasn’t called bebop just yet.

Gillespie left Calloway in 1941 following a misunderstanding. During a performance someone from the vicinity of the trumpet section was having fun aiming spitballs at the bandleader, who was singing in front of the band at the time. Naturally Calloway assumed Gillespie was responsible. By most accounts, however, Gillespie was completely innocent and had been set up. Words led to action; Gillespie pulled a knife on Calloway and actually cut him a few times. While the two later reconciled and remained friends, Gillespie was forced to leave the band. This well-known incident illustrates the flip side of Gillespie’s jovial personality; he often found himself in situations where he might need to defend himself, and was fully prepared to do so.

Inspired, and Inspired by, Charlie Parker
Gillespie joined the Earl "Fatha" Hines band in 1942, about the same time Charlie Parker did. Although Parker became famous as an alto saxophonist, he was playing tenor sax at that time. Gillespie first met Parker in Kansas City in 1940 when he was on tour with Cab Calloway. The two of them jammed together at the Booker T. Washington Hotel for several hours. Gillespie ventured in To Be or Not to Bebop, "I guess Charlie Parker and I had a meeting of the minds, because both of us inspired each other." They spent a lot of time together during their stint with the Hines band.

By the time he joined Hines, Gillespie had composed "A Night in Tunisia," one of his most famous songs. He was also writing arrangements for other bandleaders, including Hill, Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, and Woody Herman. He wrote bebop arrangements, as most bandleaders at that time were interested in having one or two bebop numbers in their repertoires. Several musicians have commented that even if Gillespie had not been able to play the trumpet, he could have made a name for himself on the basis of his original compositions and arrangements. Other jazz standards credited in whole or in part to Gillespie include "Groovin’ High," "Manteca," "Woody ’n You," "Con Alma," and "Salt Peanuts."

Bebop Born on 52nd Street
A large part of the Earl Hines band departed in 1943 to form a new group headed by Billy Eckstine. Former Hines members who joined Eckstine included Sarah Vaughan, Gillespie, Parker, and others. The band also featured saxophonists Gene Ammons and Dexter Gordon. Gillespie became musical director for Eckstine, whose backers got him a job on 52nd Street. Gillespie stayed with Eckstine for about seven months, touring and playing on 52nd Street. "The Street," as it was described by critic Pete Migdol in Gillespie’s memoir, "was the hippest block with regard to its short distance and that amount of music…. This was the top talent street, and it was, of course, discoverer of a lot of the new people for that era."

After leaving Eckstine, Gillespie substituted in the Duke Ellington Orchestra for about four weeks, then formed his own group to play at the newly opened Onyx Club on 52nd Street. Gillespie had been playing bebop whenever he could since 1940, the year he married Lorraine Willis. Now he was able to play it full time. 52nd Street became the proving ground for a new jazz style that had previously been played primarily at late night jam sessions.

"The opening of the Onyx Club represented the birth of the bebop era," Gillespie recalled in his book. "In our long sojourn on 52nd Street we spread our message to a much wider audience." His first quintet at the Onyx Club in 1944 included Oscar Pettiford on bass, Max Roach on drums, George Wallington on piano, and Don Byas on tenor sax. Gillespie had tried to get Parker to join, but he had temporarily returned to Kansas City.

Quintet Revolutionized Jazz
That year Gillespie received the New Star Award from Esquire magazine, the first of many awards he would receive in his career. Describing the new style his quintet played, Gillespie wrote, "We’d take the chord structures of various standard and pop tunes and create new chords, melodies, and songs from them." For example, Tadd Dameron’s composition "Hothouse" was based on "What Is This Thing Called Love," and Parker’s "Ornithology" came out of "How High the Moon." Gillespie also noted, "Our music had developed more into a type of music for listeners." There would be little dancing to bebop. Rhythm and phrasing, however, were also important to the new jazz style. "The most important thing about our music was, of course, the style, how you got from one note to another, how it was played.… We had a special way of phrasing. Not only did we change harmonic structure, but we also changed rhythmic structure."

Gillespie’s quintet also played other clubs, including the Downbeat and the Three Deuces, where the group included Charlie Parker—by then on alto sax—and Bud Powell on piano. Gillespie also played for two months in Hollywood with Parker, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Ray Brown, pianist Al Haig, and drummer Stan Levy. This was the West Coast debut of bebop and it was very well received. In fact, it was around this time that the term "bebop" came into use. Gillespie recalled, "People, when they’d wanna ask for one of those numbers and didn’t know the name, would ask for bebop. And the press picked it up and started calling it bebop. The first time the term bebop appeared in print was while we played at the Onyx Club."

1953 Triumph in Toronto
Gillespie’s quintet and the presentation of modern jazz in that format reached its apex in 1953—with a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto that featured Gillespie, Parker, Powell, Roach, and legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus. As Roach recalled in Gillespie’s memoir, "The five people that Dizzy had originally thought about in the group at the Onyx didn’t really materialize until we did Jazz at 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 for Pettiford—and later released on Debut Records. From the big bands and orchestras that he first organized in the late 1940s, to the small combos of the early 1950s that served as incubators for young musicians like saxophone giant John Coltrane, Gillespie’s influence consistently defined modern jazz. Though the enterprise was short-lived, Gillespie had his own record label, Dee Gee Records, from 1951-53. He appeared at the historic first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954. And he later played the role of unofficial ambassador of jazz, beginning with a 1956 world tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. These are just a few of the many accomplishments highlighting the career of this remarkably accomplished titan of contemporary American music.

Selected discography
(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 in Paris, Roost, 1957.
Jazz from Paris, Verve, 1957. Dizzy in Greece, Verve, 1957.
The Trumpet Kings, Verve, 1957.
For Musicians Only, Verve, 1958.
Manteca, Verve, 1958.
Birk’s Works, Verve, 1958.
Dizzy Gillespie at Newport, Verve, 1958.
Dizzy Gillespie Duets, Verve, 1958.
Have Trumpet Will Excite, Verve, 1959.
The Ebullient Dizzy Gillespie, Verve, 1959.
The Greatest Trumpet of Them All, Verve, 1960.
Gillespiana, Verve, 1961.
An Electrifying Evening, 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 Essential Dizzy Gillespie, Verve, 1964.
Jambo Caribe, Limelight, 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.

Selected writings
(With Al Fraser) To Be or Not To Bop: Memoirs of Dizzy Gillespie, Doubleday, 1979.

Sources
Books
Feather, Leonard, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties, Horizon, 1966.
Feather, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies, Horizon, 1976.
Horricks, Raymond, Dizzy Gillespie and the Bebop Revolution, Hippocrene, 1984.
Koster, Piet, and Chris Sellers, Dizzy Gillespie, Volume 1: 1937-1953, Micrography, 1986.
McRae, Barry, Dizzy Gillespie, Universe Books, 1988.
The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Macmillan, 1988.


Periodicals
Down Beat, December 1985; January 1986; September 1989; August 1990.
IAJRC Journal, Winter 1991.
Maclean’s, March 20, 1989.
New Yorker, September 17, 1990.

• Genres: Jazz

Biography

Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis' emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated. Somehow, Gillespie could make any "wrong" note fit, and harmonically he was ahead of everyone in the 1940s, including Charlie Parker. Unlike Bird, Dizzy was an enthusiastic teacher who wrote down his musical innovations and was eager to explain them to the next generation, thereby insuring that bebop would eventually become the foundation of jazz.

Dizzy Gillespie was also one of the key founders of Afro-Cuban (or Latin) jazz, adding Chano Pozo's conga to his orchestra in 1947, and utilizing complex poly-rhythms early on. The leader of two of the finest big bands in jazz history, Gillespie differed from many in the bop generation by being a masterful showman who could make his music seem both accessible and fun to the audience. With his puffed-out cheeks, bent trumpet (which occurred by accident in the early '50s when a dancer tripped over his horn), and quick wit, Dizzy was a colorful figure to watch. A natural comedian, Gillespie was also a superb scat singer and occasionally played Latin percussion for the fun of it, but it was his trumpet playing and leadership abilities that made him into a jazz giant.

The youngest of nine children, John Birks Gillespie taught himself trombone and then switched to trumpet when he was 12. He grew up in poverty, won a scholarship to an agricultural school (Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina), and then in 1935 dropped out of school to look for work as a musician. Inspired and initially greatly influenced by Roy Eldridge, Gillespie (who soon gained the nickname of "Dizzy") joined Frankie Fairfax's band in Philadelphia. In 1937, he became a member of Teddy Hill's orchestra in a spot formerly filled by Eldridge. Dizzy made his recording debut on Hill's rendition of "King Porter Stomp" and during his short period with the band toured Europe. After freelancing for a year, Gillespie joined Cab Calloway's orchestra (1939-1941), recording frequently with the popular bandleader and taking many short solos that trace his development; "Pickin' the Cabbage" finds Dizzy starting to emerge from Eldridge's shadow. However, Calloway did not care for Gillespie's constant chance-taking, calling his solos "Chinese music." After an incident in 1941 when a spitball was mischievously thrown at Calloway (he accused Gillespie but the culprit was actually Jonah Jones), Dizzy was fired.

By then, Gillespie had already met Charlie Parker, who confirmed the validity of his musical search. During 1941-1943, Dizzy passed through many bands including those led by Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Fess Williams, Les Hite, Claude Hopkins, Lucky Millinder (with whom he recorded in 1942), and even Duke Ellington (for four weeks). Gillespie also contributed several advanced arrangements to such bands as Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, and Woody Herman; the latter advised him to give up his trumpet playing and stick to full-time arranging.

Dizzy ignored the advice, jammed at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House where he tried out his new ideas, and in late 1942 joined Earl Hines' big band. Charlie Parker was hired on tenor and the sadly unrecorded orchestra was the first orchestra to explore early bebop. By then, Gillespie had his style together and he wrote his most famous composition "A Night in Tunisia." When Hines' singer Billy Eckstine went on his own and formed a new bop big band, Diz and Bird (along with Sarah Vaughan) were among the members. Gillespie stayed long enough to record a few numbers with Eckstine in 1944 (most noticeably "Opus X" and "Blowing the Blues Away"). That year he also participated in a pair of Coleman Hawkins-led sessions that are often thought of as the first full-fledged bebop dates, highlighted by Dizzy's composition "Woody'n You."

1945 was the breakthrough year. Dizzy Gillespie, who had led earlier bands on 52nd Street, finally teamed up with Charlie Parker on records. Their recordings of such numbers as "Salt Peanuts," "'Shaw Nuff," "Groovin' High," and "Hot House" confused swing fans who had never heard the advanced music as it was evolving; and Dizzy's rendition of "I Can't Get Started" completely reworked the former Bunny Berigan hit. It would take two years for the often frantic but ultimately logical new style to start catching on as the mainstream of jazz. Gillespie led an unsuccessful big band in 1945 (a Southern tour finished it), and late in the year he traveled with Parker to the West Coast to play a lengthy gig at Billy Berg's club in L.A. Unfortunately, the audiences were not enthusiastic (other than local musicians) and Dizzy (without Parker) soon returned to New York.

The following year, Dizzy Gillespie put together a successful and influential orchestra which survived for nearly four memorable years. "Manteca" became a standard, the exciting "Things to Come" was futuristic, and "Cubana Be/Cubana Bop" featured Chano Pozo. With such sidemen as the future original members of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Milt Jackson, John Lewis, Ray Brown, and Kenny Clarke), James Moody, J.J. Johnson, Yusef Lateef, and even a young John Coltrane, Gillespie's big band was a breeding ground for the new music. Dizzy's beret, goatee, and "bop glasses" helped make him a symbol of the music and its most popular figure. During 1948-1949, nearly every former swing band was trying to play bop, and for a brief period the major record companies tried very hard to turn the music into a fad.

By 1950, the fad had ended and Gillespie was forced, due to economic pressures, to break up his groundbreaking orchestra. He had occasional (and always exciting) reunions with Charlie Parker (including a fabled Massey Hall concert in 1953) up until Bird's death in 1955, toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic (where he had opportunities to "battle" the combative Roy Eldridge), headed all-star recording sessions (using Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt on some dates), and led combos that for a time in 1951 also featured Coltrane and Milt Jackson. In 1956, Gillespie was authorized to form a big band and play a tour overseas sponsored by the State Department. It was so successful that more traveling followed, including extensive tours to the Near East, Europe, and South America, and the band survived up to 1958. Among the young sidemen were Lee Morgan, Joe Gordon, Melba Liston, Al Grey, Billy Mitchell, Benny Golson, Ernie Henry, and Wynton Kelly; Quincy Jones (along with Golson and Liston) contributed some of the arrangements. After the orchestra broke up, Gillespie went back to leading small groups, featuring such sidemen in the 1960s as Junior Mance, Leo Wright, Lalo Schifrin, James Moody, and Kenny Barron. He retained his popularity, occasionally headed specially assembled big bands, and was a fixture at jazz festivals. In the early '70s, Gillespie toured with the Giants of Jazz and around that time his trumpet playing began to fade, a gradual decline that would make most of his '80s work quite erratic. However, Dizzy remained a world traveler, an inspiration and teacher to younger players, and during his last couple of years he was the leader of the United Nation Orchestra (featuring Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval). He was active up until early 1992.

Dizzy Gillespie's career was very well documented from 1945 on, particularly on Musicraft, Dial, and RCA in the 1940s; Verve in the 1950s; Philips and Limelight in the 1960s; and Pablo in later years. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi

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