Jazz Articles about Dizzy Gillespie

About Dizzy Gillespie

Album Review

Norman Granz: The Sound Of America

Read "The Sound Of America" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
October 26, 2026

If there were a more important “back office" figure in the history of American jazz than Norman Granz, who would it be? When Granz first heard Coleman Hawkins, he knew that the music was going to have a major role in his life--but he did not yet know how many others would be in his debt as well. Hundreds, if not thousands of musicians would owe him a living. Some, like Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, would nearly become his ...

Jazz Fiction

Adventures In Jazz In Wales and Beyond In The 1960s

by Mike Raggett
October 11, 2026

School Days “So are you coming tonight, Barry?" Phil Adams asked his colleague. “No, I think I'm going to give tonight a miss. It's so cold out there and I can't face the walk back here after the gig again. I doubt we'll get a lift tonight." “Well, I can't miss it. My namesake Phil Seamen is on drums for the visit of Art Themen." “Oh, he's the doctor guy, isn't he?"

Album Review

Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, Max Roach: Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings

Read "Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
December 28, 2023

This is the stuff of legend, one for the ages. It all started here; the greatest jazz concert of all time. How many times has the Massey Hall Concert (Toronto, 1953) been described that way? For the average All About Jazz reader, Massey Hall happened before he or she was born. Besides, there were other famous jazz concerts such as The Carnival of Swing (Randall's Island, NY, 1938), Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert (that remained unreleased until 1958), Gene ...

Radio & Podcasts

Gillespie in the Fifties

by Patrick Burnette
October 20, 2023

Most jazz fans know Dizzy Gillespie's crucial role in the creation of bebop and every good collection should have at least a few tracks from his glory days of the forties. The man wrote “Night in Tunisia" for heaven's sake! But what happened later on, after his partner Bird was gone and the listening public had moved on from ooh-bop-sh-bam madness? In this episode we look at five recordings from the following decade and ponder why a genius-level player like ...

Album Review

Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker: Live Revisited

Read "Live Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 8, 2023

The first six tracks on this album, which were recorded at New York City's Town Hall on June 22, 1945, are amongst the most exciting in the jazz compendium. Not only because of their intrinsic artistic merit but also because they mark one of the first, if not the first, occasion the vanguard of the bop revolution emerged from the basements of 52nd Street, equipped with a fully formed manifestation of the new music, on to a stage bigger than ...

Radio & Podcasts

Hot vs. Cool: A Battle of Jazz + New Releases

by David Brown
October 11, 2022

A battle of bands this week, as we spin Leonard Feather's 1952 recording Hot vs. Cool: A Battle of Jazz. This double 7" EP featuring a bop group led by Dizzy Gillespie and a trad jazz band led by Jimmy McPartland facing off on the stage of Birdland. Then, new releases from Eve Risser, Marta Warelis, Eri Yamamoto, Panorama Jazz Band, Camille Bertault, Tim Bern/Matt Mitchell and more. Plus, a set of love songs with Sun Ra, Anita O'Day and ...

Album Review

Charlie Parker: Be Bop Live

Read "Be Bop Live" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 6, 2021

The name of the record label is ezz-thetics, which was also a composition by George Russell and an album of the same name (which featured Eric Dolphy) released by Riverside Records in 1961. Maybe a better moniker for the label is “Lest We Forget." Not that we could ever abandon Charlie Parker, but today when streaming services replace CDs and LPs, which also replaced 78s and live radio broadcasts (the streaming service of its day), Parker has the possibility of ...