John Birks Gillespie was the youngest nine children in a family where his father, a mason by trade, played the piano in an amateur orchestra. His first instrument was the trombone but gave up soon because of the short length of his arms, preventing him from reaching all the notes. At fourteen he started playing trumpet with a neighbor and his love of the instrument where it would pass to the great history of jazz began in earnest to get a scholarship to study harmony and music theory at Laurinburg Institute North Carolina North. After settling his family in Philadelphia in 1935, won a seat in the orchestra of Frank Fairfax, where at that time played the gifted trumpeter Charlie Shavers, who shared trio also has an idol of himself Gillespie Roy Eldridge. Like many other young people, Gillespie went to New York and there connected with the Teddy Hill Orchestra, and in a test session of the orchestra and given its crazy, Hill gave him the nickname that will never leave him in for life and what would be known in the history of jazz "Dizzy" which meant "crazy" • Your premiere with Teddy Hill's orchestra, was a European tour in 1937 and there performed his first solo on "King Porter Stomp "giving evidence at that time, a great musical immaturity. On his return to New York, the band signed a contract in the famous hall "Savoy Ballroom" and Things began to get better, especially with the inclusion in the band drummer, Kenny Clarke.
is in 1939 when Dizzy has his first encounter with real jazzy jazz heavyweights such as the vibraphone, Lionel Hampton, alto sax, Benny Carter, and three formidable tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Chu Berry . The result was that the style called the tension of those musicians who predicted a bright future. While his boss was appointed manager of the famous club "Myntons Playhouse, located in the basement of the Hotel Cecil on West 118th Street in Harlem. A further charge made enormous significance in the history of Dizzy and the jazz. Recommended by Cuban trumpeter Mario Bauza, Gillespie joined the Cab Calloway Orchestra which was never found at home given the style of music to the eccentric showman. But the fact that changed his life and music of Gillespie, was the first encounter with the alto saxophonist, Charlie Parker, his authentic "alter ego". Held in Kansas City, when both became part of the Earl Hines band in early 1943. They began to develop high quality music and an aesthetic very close to what will soon be called bebop. In 1944, Calle 52, New York, had become the Mecca of jazz, and in less than two blocks, there nine club offering high-level music and also the Minton's, was in full swing, celebrating historic jam session, encouraged by the group of drummer, Kenny Clarke, saxophonist Don Byas, pianist, Thelonius Monk and of course, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, who had been developing the new musical language.
While bebop germinated in the basements of Harlem, former vocalist for the band of Earl Hines, Billy Eckstine, is launched on an adventure to launch his own orchestra and became the first bebop big band. Dizzy was the musical director and it is where some of the young talents of the day: Charlie Parker on alto sax, the singer Sarah Vaughan, tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, drummer, Art Blakey, etc. Eckstine's orchestra was the ideal laboratory for the boppers in search of work but soon abandoned Dizzy looking for smaller musical adventures. So he formed a quartet with bassist Oscar Petifford to fulfill a contract at the club "Onyx" and at that time, just in 1945, Gillespie was consolidated as the star of the new musical movement. Dizzy was fixed ideas between eyebrows and always had the idea to form his own band that formed in 1946 with the help of several musicians who believed in their project. In 1947, the magazine "Metronome" was named best trumpeter of the year, ahead of his idol, Eldridge and RCA offered him a substantial contract. By that time and given the fans of Dizzy and Caribbean rhythms, brought his band for those paths recorded among other great successes, the famous "Manteca."
will be touring Europe in 1948 and was assassinated in Harlem around the percussionist, Chano Pozo. The band disbanded in 1950 and directed his steps made studio recordings with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Monk and other musicians associated recording a series of magnificent albums. In 1953 participates in Toronto in the famous century concert at Massey Hall next to the great stars of bebop, Charlie Mingus included, would record former historic session for his newly launched label "debut." Acts in the first Newport festival, teach in "Lenox Shool of Music. Touring with Norman Granz JATP, succeed and in 1956, the State Department, entrusted with the task of acting as a musical ambassador of the U.S. Middle East, Greece, Yugoslavia and finally South America in a band formed for the occasion and that Quincy Jones and Norman Granz, help you organize to the point that once declared that it was the best band he had. The Sixties and the bossa nova also drew the attention of Dizzy would include a theme in their repertoire. In the seventies a part of the "Giants of Jazz" star formation collected by the producer, George Wein, to a series of tours. Its activity was declining over the years but still had time to record in 1989 an interesting duo album with drummer, Max Roach, at a concert in Paris. Dizzy Gillespie, died in 1993 and his death was lost at an unparalleled performer with superlative skill, managed to customize a phrase full of arabesques and supported in what was a new way of approaching harmony. From his pen have come so famous tracks like "Salt Peanuts," "Groovin 'High," "Be-Bop," "A Night in Tunisia" and many other extraordinary compositions that have long given glory to jazz. Dizzy Gillespie made and makes many people happy with their music.
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