Dizzy Gillespie

Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.)

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was born the 21st of October 1917 in Cheraw, South Carolina and died the 6th of January 1993. He was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, singer, and composer. Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.

In addition to featuring in these epochal moments in jazz, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz, the modern jazz version of the "Spanish Tinge." Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz.

In addition to his instrumental skills, Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop, which was originally regarded as threatening and frightening music by many listeners raised on older styles of jazz.

He had an enormous impact on virtually every subsequent trumpeter, both by the example of his playing and as a mentor to younger musicians.