Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (/ɡɪˈlɛspi/ gil-ESP-ee; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer.[2] He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge[3] but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality have made him an enduring icon.[2]
This article is about the jazz musician. For the Australian cricketer nicknamed "Dizzy", see Jason Gillespie.
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks Gillespie
October 21, 1917
Cheraw, South Carolina, U.S.
January 6, 1993 (aged 75)
Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.
- Musician
- composer
- Trumpet
- vocals
- piano
1935–1993
In the 1940s, Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.[4] He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan,[5] Chuck Mangione,[6] and balladeer Johnny Hartman.[7]
He pioneered Afro-Cuban jazz and won several Grammy Awards.[8] Scott Yanow wrote, "Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time, Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up being similar to those of Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis's emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated [....] Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time".[9]
Biography[edit]
Early life and career[edit]
The youngest of nine children of Lottie and James Gillespie, Dizzy Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina.[10] His father was a local bandleader,[11] so instruments were made available to the children. Gillespie started to play the piano at the age of four.[12] Gillespie's father died when he was only ten years old. He taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve. From the night he heard his idol, Roy Eldridge, on the radio, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician.[13]
He won a music scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina which he attended for two years before accompanying his family when they moved to Philadelphia in 1935.[14][15]
Gillespie's first professional job was with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and later Teddy Hill, replacing Frankie Newton as second trumpet in May 1937. Teddy Hill's band was where Gillespie made his first recording, "King Porter Stomp". In August 1937 while gigging with Hayes in Washington D.C., Gillespie met a young dancer named Lorraine Willis who worked a Baltimore–Philadelphia–New York City circuit which included the Apollo Theater. Willis was not immediately friendly but Gillespie was attracted anyway. The two married on May 9, 1940.[16]
Politics and religion[edit]
In 1962, Gillespie and actor George Mathews starred in The Hole, an animated short film by John and Faith Hubley. Released the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis, it uses audio from an improvised conversation between the two debating the causes of accidents and the possibility of accidentally launching nuclear weapons. The short went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film the following year.[38]
During the 1964 United States presidential campaign, Gillespie put himself forward as an independent write-in candidate.[39][40] He promised that if he were elected, the White House would be renamed the Blues House, and he would have a cabinet composed of Duke Ellington (Secretary of State), Miles Davis (Director of the CIA), Max Roach (Secretary of Defense), Charles Mingus (Secretary of Peace), Ray Charles (Librarian of Congress), Louis Armstrong (Secretary of Agriculture), Mary Lou Williams (Ambassador to the Vatican), Thelonious Monk (Travelling Ambassador) and Malcolm X (Attorney General).[41][42] He said his running mate would be Phyllis Diller. Campaign buttons had been manufactured years before by Gillespie's booking agency as a joke[43] but proceeds went to Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King Jr.;[44] in later years they became a collector's item.[45] In 1971, he announced he would run again[46][47] but withdrew before the election.[48]
Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker, Gillespie encountered an audience member after a show. They had a conversation about the oneness of humanity and the elimination of racism from the perspective of the Baháʼí Faith. Impacted by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, he became a Baháʼí that same year.[49][50] The universalist emphasis of his religion prodded him to see himself more as a global citizen and humanitarian, expanding on his interest in his African heritage. His spirituality brought out generosity and what author Nat Hentoff called an inner strength, discipline, and "soul force".[51]
Gillespie's conversion was most affected by Bill Sears' book Thief in the Night.[49] Gillespie spoke about the Baháʼí Faith frequently on his trips abroad.[52][53][54] He is honored with weekly jazz sessions at the New York Baháʼí Center in the memorial auditorium.[55] A concert in honor of his 75th birthday was held in New York City's Carnegie Hall, 26 November 1992, in conjunction with the second Baha'i world congress, however, he was too ill to personally attend.
Personal life[edit]
Gillespie married dancer Lorraine Willis in Boston on May 9, 1940.[14] They remained together until his death in 1993; Lorraine converted to Catholicism with Mary Lou Williams in 1957.[16][56] Lorraine managed his business and personal affairs.[57] The couple had no children, but Gillespie fathered a daughter, jazz singer Jeanie Bryson, born in 1958 from an affair with songwriter Connie Bryson.[58][59] Gillespie met Bryson, a Juilliard-trained pianist, at the jazz club Birdland in New York City.[59] In the mid-1960s, Gillespie settled down in Englewood, New Jersey, with his wife.[60] The local Englewood public high school, Dwight Morrow High School, named its auditorium after him: the 'Dizzy Gillespie Auditorium'.[61][62]
In popular culture[edit]
Samuel E. Wright played Dizzy Gillespie in the film Bird (1988), about Charlie Parker.[80] Kevin Hanchard portrayed Gillespie in the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue (2015).[81] Charles S. Dutton played him in For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000).