Tune Tuesday

Happy 108th birthday to a jazz legend – Dizzy Gillespie!

Dizzy was a jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. His accomplishments alone could be the subject of 5-20 blogs. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called 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 a couple of dancers falling onto the instrument while it was on a trumpet stand on stage. 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 the Martin Band Instrument Company to make him a “bent” trumpet from a sketch produced by his wife, Lorraine, and from that time forward played a trumpet with an upturned bell.

The Rough Guide To Jazz describes his style this way: “The whole essence of a Gillespie solo was cliff-hanging suspense: the phrases and the angle of the approach were perpetually varied, breakneck runs were followed by pauses, by huge interval leaps, by long, immensely high notes, by slurs and smears and bluesy phrases; he always took listeners by surprise, always shocking them with a new thought. His lightning reflexes and superb ear meant his instrumental execution matched his thoughts in its power and speed. And he was concerned at all times with swing—even taking the most daring liberties with pulse or beat, his phrases never failed to swing.”

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis says this about Dizzy: “His playing showcases the importance of intelligence. His rhythmic sophistication was unequaled. He was a master of harmony—and fascinated with studying it. He took in all the music of his youth—from Roy Eldridge to Duke Ellington—and developed a unique style built on complex rhythm and harmony balanced by wit. Gillespie was so quick-minded, he could create an endless flow of ideas at unusually fast tempo. Nobody had ever even considered playing a trumpet that way, let alone had actually tried. All the musicians respected him because, in addition to outplaying everyone, he knew so much and was so generous with that knowledge…”

Dizzy wrote “A Night in Tunisia” in 1942 while he was playing with the Benny Carter Band. Gillespie called the tune “Interlude” and said “some genius decided to call it ‘A Night in Tunisia'”. It would become one of his signature songs of his bebop band.  In January 2004, The Recording Academy added the 1946 Victor recording by Gillespie to the Grammy Hall of Fame.