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DIZZY
GILLESPIE
trumpet
LIFELINE
1917-1993
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1917
John Birks Gillespie
is born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children.
He starts to play the trumpet (and other instruments) aged twelve,
and, although accepted at the Laurenburg Institute in North Carolina
to play in the school band, receives little formal tuition.
1937
In New York
Dizzy joins the Teddy Hill band as a Roy
Eldridge sound-a-like. He moves on to the Cab Calloway band
in 1939 where he first develops an interest in Afro-Cuban music.
His style matures and he begins to think deeply about his music.
He is dismissed by Calloway in 1941.
1943-45
Having played
with Ella Fitzgerald and Benny
Carter, and after a stint in the Earl
Hines band, Gillespie leads his own group with Oscar
Pettiford before moving on to Billy Eckstine's band as musical
director in 1944 (Eckstine welcomes the new sound of bebop)
and taking part in the first small group bebop recordings with
Coleman Hawkins. In 1945 Dizzy forms
his first big band, although it is short-lived and a financial
disaster.
1950-1993
Gillespie lives the life of the wandering musician, occasionally
reforming a big band, as in 1956-58, and touring and recording widely
and leading numerous small groups. Along the way, a 1953 accident
on the bandstand bends the bell of his trumpet. He likes the sound,
and this, with the distended cheek muscles, are Dizzy's visual calling
card. He achieves a TV following, collects numerous academic honours,
and becomes a cultural ambassador for the US State Department.
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1935
Gillespie moves
to Philadelphia and joins the Frankie Fairfax band, where he plays
alongside Charlie Shavers. Shavers introduces Gillespie to the work
and style of Roy Eldridge, who becomes
Gillespie's early musical idol. The label 'Dizzy' is attached to
his name because of his clownish behaviour, which does not disappear
with maturity!
1940
On tour he meets
Charlie Parker for the first time in
Kansas City. He later plays with
him at jam sessions in New York.
1946-50
Having regrouped with Parker and travelled
to Los Angeles at the end of 1945, Gillespie
again starts a big band: this time it is kept on the road for four
years and is a great musical success: it assimilates fully
the new bop Lingua Franca. Gillespie employs Chino Pozo, a
Cuban percussionist. The band is the launching point of the group
that will later become the Modern Jazz Quartet, as John Lewis, Milt
Jackson, Kenny Clarke and Ray Brown take
the stage during concerts to give the over-worked brass section a
rest. In the big band at various times are J.J.
Johnson, Sonny Stitt, James Moody and John
Coltrane.
BEBOP REVOLUTION
It has often been argued that Charlie Parker
was the prime mover in the bebop revolution, an argument
never openly contested by Dizzy himself. Alyn
Shipton, in his book Groovin'
High, has argued cogently that it was
in fact Gillespie who played the greater role, playing
in the key groups, teaching the music to others and helping to develop
the original bebop repertory. |
STYLE
Gillespie
took the trumpet to technical levels previously undiscovered in jazz
and his style was built around the drama and dynamism created by this
colossal technique, with huge interval leaps, high notes,
rapid runs and angular phrasing off the beat. But it wasn't just that
he could play notes faster and higher than those around him which
marks him out. He possessed a superb musical
ear, and with this came the facility to translate what
he heard instantly into his own playing. But above all else, as
far as Gillespie was concerned jazz was about swing and
this, rather than technical fireworks and quick wittedness, was at
the heart of his playing. Like Charles Mingus,
Gillespie was influenced as a child by the Sanctified Church, with
its call and response and rhythmic dynamism.
DIZZY THE EDUCATOR
The jazz world of the 1930s and 1940s was a competitive one, and,
unusual for the time and reflecting perhaps confidence in his own
worth, Dizzy was a benevolent and generous educator. He was interested
in those around him, fostering at various times the careers of his
rivals, Fats Navarro, Miles
Davis, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan
and, later, Jon Faddis.
Gillespie was a gifted composer: A Night In Tunisia, Groovin'
High, Woody'n'You, Salt Peanuts and Con Alma
have all become a standard part of the jazz canon. |
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