on this day (October 21, 1917 — January 6, 1993) ♫♪♫♪♫♪ ______John Birks ,aka, “Dizzy” Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and occasional singer. Allmusic’s Scott Yanow wrote, “Dizzy Gillespie’s contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying 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. Arguably Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time.” Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop. ____Gillespie’s trademark trumpet featured a bell which bent upward at a 45-degree angle rather than pointing straight ahead as in the conventional design. According to Gillespie’s autobiography, this was originally the result of accidental damage caused by the dancers Stump and Stumpy falling onto it while it was on a trumpet stand on stage at Snookie’s in Manhattan on January 6, 1953, during a birthday party for Gillespie’s wife Lorraine. The constriction caused by the bending altered the tone of the instrument, and Gillespie liked the effect. He had the trumpet straightened out the next day, but he could not forget the tone. Gillespie sent a request to Martin Committee to make him a “bent” trumpet from a sketch produced by Lorraine, and from that time forward Gillespie played a trumpet with an upturned bell. Gillespie’s biographer Alyn Shipton writes that Gillespie probably got the idea for a bent trumpet when he saw a similar instrument in 1937 in Manchester, England, while on tour with the Teddy Hill Orchestra. According to this account (from British journalist Pat Brand) Gillespie was able to try out the horn and the experience led him, much later, to commission a similar horn for himself. ♫♪ ♫♪_Dizzy Gillespie – “And Then She Stopped” (Dizzy Gillespie and quintet recorded in 1965 to coincide with the release of the album ‘Dizzy on The French Riviera’, with Kenny Barron replacing Lalo Schifrin on piano.) ♫♪__| youtu.be/vZc7qbRS1FY |__ the caribe _|| ;)
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 12:59:51 +0000
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