Dizzy GillespieEssay Preview: Dizzy GillespieReport this essayDizzy Gillespie deservedly ranks amongst the most influential and innovative jazz musicians of all times. Every note played with his trumpet captivated a legion of devout followers from all different age demographics and cultural backgrounds. Only Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong can tread the waters of his talent and his ever-growing legend, which was propelled by his revolutionary style. The Bebop revolution would have been a real yawner without notable Dizzy Gillespie tracks and stunning collaborations with top artists from the time period. He played alongside great musicians like Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Earl Hines, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach and Coleman Hawkins. His career was well decorated with a mantle full of awards and memories of elated crowds from the most legendary venues in the country. Countless times the collective sigh of the crowd would be followed by wide-eyed enthusiasm, dancing and an eruption of applause.
John Birks Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina in 1917 (Aycock, 1997). He grew up in a modest, blue collar family of nine children, and enjoyed a childhood of love and discipline (Aycock, 1997). His upbringing no doubt helped him avoid some of the common pitfalls many popular musicians faced. In addition to laying bricks, his father was the leader of a local band (Aycock, 1997). Dizzy was often exposed to many different instruments and unique styles of music, often times experimenting with the instruments while his father was gone (Horricks, 1984). Intrigued by music Dizzy began his fast-track toward perfecting his craft early in life, a brand of enthusiasm towards learning that never left him. Dizzy began playing the trombone at the age of fourteen, but soon found true love after experimenting with a neighbor’s trumpet (Aycock, 1997). By the age of eighteen, Gillespie found employment in the music business, when he began playing with the Frank Fairfax band, under the close eye of his early mentor, Roy Eldridge, who Dizzy later replaced in the Teddy Hill band in 1937 (Horricks, 1984).
The birth of Bebop music was built on a similar evolutionary process that has taken over many different art forms since the beginning of human history. There was a yearning for change and a desire to break the binding chains of the standard New Orleans jazz, Dixieland, and Swing music (Aycock, 1997). In the 1940’s Dizzy Gillespie and a legion of young and talented musicians went to war against traditional jazz music and forged a new modern landscape of immense record sales, popularity and fame. The creation of Bebop catered to the would-be gods of jazz, because their talent rose to the top. Musical characteristics of Bebop shifted away from simple melody variations and moved towards intense improvisation and difficult harmonic progressions (Horricks, 1984). There was an air of confidence brewing amongst the young innovators and a sense of pride in maintaining their dominance. Dizzy Gillespie said this about the subject, “There were some who couldn’t blow at all but would take six or seven choruses to prove it. So on afternoons before a session Thelonious Monk and I began to work out some complex variations on chords and the like, and we used them at night to scare away the no-talent guys (Horricks, 1984, p. 30).”
The crucible that bred the Bebop style was New York City and the famous Minton’s Playhouse (Aycock, 1997). This venue can be viewed as a more of a laboratory of modern jazz experiments than a simple small club. This intimate setting was seemingly the only place in the world capable of understanding what they were witnessing (Horricks, 1984). The pages of jazz history were being penned directly in front of the crowd, on a small stage, of a small club owned by former Harlem saxophonist Henry Minton (Aycock, 1997). Under the watchful eye of Teddy Hill the musical direction of the club shifted in favor of up-and-coming musical acts like Dizzy, Charlie Christian, Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke (Horricks, 1984).
Dizzy Gillespie’s stint with the Teddy Hill band netted him $45 a week, and more importantly, his future wife Lorraine Willis (Horricks, 1984). Soon his talent landing him a spot in Cab Calloway’s band, which led to his first recording as a soloist, which included classics like Pickin’ the Cabbage, Hard Time and Bye-Bye Blues (Horricks, 1984). Dizzy spent a great deal of time trying to unravel the mystery of what exactly he was trying to play. His journey of self discovery happened at the expense of many “serious musicians,” who didn’t dare move off the beaten path. Dizzy’s erratic style of music caused a great deal of friction amongst his band mates (Davis, 13). He was getting closer to perfecting his style, but it didn’t stop people’s confusion and serious doubt of his skill. His ability to play fast and his musical flexibility helped to later forge
disco and fusion.
Dizzy grew up in a modest home in the northern suburbs of Glasgow. He spent most of his early childhoods in the town’s church and family home, where he attended the Stirling Dukes (Cobham, 1986). The boys attended Stirling College, and each year, Dizzy’s father would open the most promising music school in the town (Dublin University in 1996) and play there. But they were all students from families of varying backgrounds. Dizzy was one of those who became discouraged from spending enough of their time there to pursue their own music. He started attending university on a scholarship (Fowler, 1986, p. 33). The boys started drinking in a pub and, although he never went back, Dizzy did not return to Glasgow. He continued to attend at St.irling and then Glasgow University, which resulted in his continuing to have a long and varied career in musical pursuits, until he eventually died.
One of the most important lessons from Dizzy’s life is the value that must be shown in order to achieve and maintain great achievement. From these values you can see a dynamic growth of both Dizzy’s music and people around him. The most popular lyric ever recorded on record was “One of These Is More Beautiful than Another”, which was first published in 1992 by the Tannock Recordings. The lyrics on that record are some of the best lyric words of all Time. If you are a musician who is able to capture those moments you can do a lot with that, too!
Dizzy was born in the city of Glasgow in 1782. His parents met in a young age and shared a love for literature. They worked and lived in Glasgow for an extensive period of time, before working as both the president and secretary of Stirling City Hall in the 1960s. That summer Dizzy and the other pupils began to play at The Stirling Dukes School, an alumnus of Glasgow University in 1997, where they became students of the renowned Dizzy Collins. When they attended Oxford University they enrolled in the first class of music course, on the idea that students could have a fun summer in their first days as a musician. It was at Oxford that Dizzy became an internationally renowned English Jazz musician. He had great successes in the jazz scene in his second year at Oxford, as well as the first major solo concert in the city, which featured the great musician Paul McCartney (Cobham, 1988). Dizzy was an internationally successful musician, not least of all because of his great versatility. With the advent of live performance and his ability as a jazz musician and vocalist, they were able to play in both concerts and on the stages of venues of jazz clubs and orchestras in many countries.
The lessons Dizzy learned for life went beyond his musical skills. He trained and studied for years at the London Conservatory of Music in an attempt to understand what he needed and where he needed more. Dizzy also studied at numerous colleges around the world