DIZZY GILLESPIE
1917 - 1993

Gillespie, John Birks ("Dizzy") (b. October 21, 1917, Cheraw, S.C.; d. January 7, 1993, Englewood, N.J.), African American trumpet player, the co-creator with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker of bebop or modern jazz, and an Afro-Cuban jazz innovator.

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie may have been the greatest trumpeter in the history of jazz. His bravura trumpet playing featured a brilliant but sensitive tone, a wide range, and mind-boggling speed and articulation. To the wider public, Gillespie's name also conjured up images of his distinctive trumpet with its upswept bell, the way his cheeks bulged out when he played, and his penchant for clowning that included a seriocomic campaign for president in 1964. But Gillespie was extremely serious about his music and was a leader in two major developments in jazz. Beginning in the 1940s, he played a key role in bringing Afro-Cuban music into American jazz. More significantly, during the mid-1940s Gillespie was a primary force — along with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker — in the development of bebop or modern jazz.

Although Gillespie's role in this movement is well known, he has generally received less attention than Parker, in part because Gillespie did not fit the stereotype of the ill-fated and misunderstood musician. Jazz has a long tradition of mythologizing its troubled geniuses. Gillespie was in many respects closer to being the counterpart in modern jazz of Louis Armstrong in traditional jazz. Like Armstrong had done in the 1920s, Gillespie redirected the course of jazz and expanded its improvisational possibilities. Both men played with a technical facility that astonished their peers. And like Armstrong, Gillespie had a winning personality and a gift for comedy.

John Birks Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of James and Lottie Gillespie's nine children. His father, a brickmason who led a band on the weekends, died not long before John's tenth birthday. During the Great Depression, the fatherless family survived by dint of hard work and struggle. Lottie Gillespie did laundry for white families, and John and his siblings picked cotton. Gillespie showed an early interest in music, and took his first piano lessons from a neighbor. He was also influenced by the sanctified church. "I first learned the meaning of rhythm there," he recalled in his autobiography to BE, or not . . . to BOP, "and all about how music could transport people spiritually."

In 1929 Gillespie joined the school band, playing trombone and, later, trumpet. His first public performances were in accompaniment to amateur minstrels in school minstrel shows. Gillespie and several other members of the band also formed a small group that played at local dances, white and black. In 1933 Gillespie received a scholarship to Laurinburg Technical Institute, a black high school in North Carolina, which he attended until his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1935. There, Gillespie joined the big-band of prominent local bandleader Frankie Fairfax, and members of the Fairfax band soon dubbed the antic young trumpeter "Dizzy."

After two years of playing in Philadelphia, Gillespie decided to move to New York City, the nation's jazz capital. He lived with older brother James P. Gillespie, played in jam sessions, and sat in with various groups, including Chick Webb's big-band at the Savoy Ballroom. During these years, Gillespie's major influence was the dynamic swing trumpeter Roy Eldridge. Gillespie played many of Eldridge's "licks" or characteristic phrases and memorized entire solos that his idol had recorded. Gillespie made his recording debut in 1937, soon after joining Teddy Hill's big-band and then joined the band on a European tour.

After returning from Europe, Gillespie discovered that the regulations of New York City's musicians' union made it difficult for him to find work. The only regular gig he found was with Cass Carr, "a West Indian guy who played the musical saw." Gillespie said that Carr "played for all the ethnic things" and "for all the communist dances," including a gig at the Communist Party of the United States of America's Camp Unity. "White-black relationships were very close among the communists," Gillespie recounted. Gillespie himself became a "card-carrying communist," although he later downplayed the significance of this decision.

After resolving his problems with the musicians' union, Gillespie played with some of the most prominent big-bands of the day, including those of Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lucky Millinder, Earl Hines, and Billy Eckstine. In 1937 Gillespie had met dancer Lorraine Willis, and three years later the two were married. During these years, Gillespie also began moving beyond Roy Eldridge's trumpet playing and the musical conventions of the swing era. Dissatisfied with the clichés and constraints of swing-era jazz, he began to explore new harmonic directions.

Gillespie faced considerable resistance from older jazz musicians. Bandleaders Les Hite and Lucky Millinder each fired the young trumpeter, and Cab Calloway disparagingly referred to Gillespie's trumpet solos as "Chinese music." Rather than tempering his style, Gillespie began to proselytize. When the Calloway band was playing its regular gig at the Cotton Club, Gillespie took bass player Milt Hinton up to the roof during band breaks to teach him bass parts that fit Gillespie's harmonically challenging solos.

But after-hours jam sessions proved far more important than the musically regimented big-bands in creating the bebop or bop revolution. The key gathering places for creative young musicians were two Harlem nightspots, Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House. Gillespie explained:

The house band at Minton's was especially significant and included pianist Thelonious Monk and drummer Kenny Clarke. Guitar player Charlie Christian, a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet, kept a spare amplifier at Minton's so that he could sit in whenever he was in town.

Gillespie, far more than Parker, retained an interest in big-bands, and he led several during the late 1940s and mid- to late-1950s. In 1946 he recorded the blazing and apocalyptic "Things to Come," a classic example of big-band bop. And in the following year, his big-band introduced Afro-Cuban music to jazz audiences. When Gillespie played in Cab Calloway's orchestra, Cuban trumpet player Mario Bauza had introduced him to the rhythms and harmonies of Afro-Cuban music.

In 1947 Gillespie turned to his old friend Bauza for advice on hiring a percussionist who could bring a Latin flavor to his big-band. Bauza recommended Cuban percussionist Luciano "Chano" Pozo, whom Gillespie featured prominently on several memorable Latin jazz recordings, including "Manteca" (1947) and "Guarachi Guaro" (1948). After economic difficulties forced him to break up his big-band in 1950, Gillespie retained his interest in Afro-Cuban music. In 1951 he recorded what would become his best-known Latin composition, the moody "Tin Tin Deo."

At a party in 1953, Gillespie's trumpet was accidentally knocked over and its bell bent upward. When Gillespie tried to play it, he found that he actually preferred the bent shape because the upturned bell made it easier to play softly and improved his ability to hear his own playing. Soon after, he had the Martin Company build him a trumpet designed with an upswept bell, and he played similar instruments for the rest of his life. Also in 1953, at Toronto's Massey Hall, Gillespie played with Parker in one of their rare reunions. A recording of that performance made by bass player Charles Mingus reveals the continued brilliance of Parker and Gillespie's collaborations. Yet by the mid-1950s, when Parker died, the musical innovations of the two men were so thoroughly integrated into jazz that many listeners and critics had begun to take them for granted. Gillespie, however, continued to play vital and challenging music, mostly in small-group settings but occasionally in larger ensembles.

In 1956 Gillespie was invited by the U.S. State Department to organize a big-band and act as a musical good-will ambassador on a world tour. It was the first time the American government had recognized the most distinctly American art form — jazz. The new Gillespie band included the young trumpeter Quincy Jones and featured a number of Jones's compositions and arrangements. The tour was a resounding success, and the band continued to play together until 1958. Gillespie also performed a number of large-scale works, including pianist Lalo Schifrin's "Gillespiana" (1960) and "The New Continent" (1962), trombonist J. J. Johnson's "Perceptions" (1961), and — as the featured soloist with Machito and his orchestra — composer Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill's "Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods" (1975).

In 1971 Gillespie toured with an all-star group known as the Giants of Jazz that included Thelonious Monk, drummer Art Blakey, and saxophonist Sonny Stitt. The response of audiences and critics was overwhelmingly positive, and for the rest of his life Gillespie was regarded as one of the giants of jazz. He well understood his own musical influence, particularly on jazz trumpeters. "If he's younger than me and playing trumpet," Gillespie declared, "then he's following in my footsteps." Even in his mid-seventies, he kept up a grueling schedule of appearances at nightclubs and jazz festivals. During the 1980s, Gillespie's embouchure weakened and his playing became more erratic, but his live performances remained dynamic and musically challenging. He continued to play actively until early 1992.Contributed By:

James Clyde Sellman