Home » Jazz Articles » Dizzy Gillespie
Jazz Articles about Dizzy Gillespie
As Dizzy's World Turns
by Michael Bourne
Master raconteur, award winning jazz broadcaster and Downbeat contributor, Michael Bourne recounts a series of remarkable stories about Dizzy Gillespie based on experiences that stretch over a couple of decades. Embodying Bobop I happened to be at home in St. Louis when Dizzy Gillespie was playing at this new jazz joint near the baseball park, called The Gourmet Rendezvous, owned by jazz DJ Spider Burks, so I went. I was still relatively new at Downbeat at ...
Continue ReadingIn Praise of Liner Notes
by Marc Davis
Joni Mitchell was onto something. You don't miss liner notes until you don't have them. I admit: Many liner notes leave me cold, for two reasons. First, they're way too detailed, especially in jazz. Every take has to be scrupulously annotated. Who played third trumpet in that big band? Was that Bird's second or third take? Was that recorded in 1943 or 1944? Phooey. Second, the actual commentary tends to be syrupy. Has anyone ...
Continue ReadingDizzy Gillespie: Dizzy’s Big 4
by C. Michael Bailey
Dizzy Gillespie Dizzy's Big 4 OJC 1975/2013 Concord Music Group kicked off their Pablo Records 40th anniversary celebration with the releases of John Coltrane: Afro Blue Impressions (Pablo, 1963/2013) and Sarah Vaughan: Sophisticated Lady: The Duke Ellington Songbook (Pablo,2013) both supplemented by improved programming. These releases have been followed by additional straight remasters of: Zoot Sims And The Gershwin Brothers (Pablo, 1975/2013), Art Tatum: Solo Masterpieces, Volume 1 (Pablo, 1975/2013), and, now, Dizzy's Big ...
Continue ReadingDizzy Gillespie: Four Classic Albums
by David Rickert
Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was one of the few jazz musicians equally adept (and influential) in small groups and fronting big bands. After the bebop heyday, he spent the fifties equally divided between smaller groups and a larger orchestra. His days as a bebop pioneer and a developer of Afro-Cuban music behind him, he now had a new role: ambassador. The sessions covered by this compilation come from around the time that Gillespie led a crack big band for a State ...
Continue ReadingDizzy Gillespie: I'm Beboppin Too & The Cool World
by George Kanzler
Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big BandI'm BeBoppin' Too Half Note2009 Dizzy GillespieThe Cool WorldPhilips-Verve2009 The legacy of Dizzy Gillespie's pioneering bebop big band could not be served better than by the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band, the successor to the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Star Big Band that featured Jon Faddis. Since his departure the band ...
Continue ReadingDizzy Gillespie: Showtime at The Spotlite
by George Kanzler
Clark Monroe's Uptown House in Harlem was an incubator of bebop, so it wasn't a surprise that Monroe gave Dizzy Gillespie a venue for reviving his big band at the short-lived (1944 to early 1947) 52nd Street club, The Spotlite, in 1946. Two CDs capture two sets toward the end of that historic engagement in June, as recorded by Jerry Newman, the same intrepid fan who recorded gestational bebop after-hours jams at Uptown House and Minton's Playhouse in Harlem earlier ...
Continue ReadingDizzy Gillespie: Bebop Birthday
by Marcia Hillman
The bent trumpet, the beret, the horn-rimmed glasses and ballooning cheeks when he played--these alone are enough to identify trumpeter, bandleader, singer and composer “Dizzy" Gillespie. Born John Birks Gillespie in rural Cheraw, South Carolina on October 21st, 1917, he was the youngest of nine children. His father was a musician, so he was exposed to music and was able to obtain a working knowledge of several instruments--he was playing piano at the age of four, started on trombone at ...
Continue Reading
