
birth name: John Birks Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie always broke new ground. His collaborations with Charlie Parker in the forties set the benchmark by which modern jazz has been measured. But he didn't stop there: over the next forty years, he traveled around the world to find new inspirations, mentor young talent, and led a spiritually rich and jovial lifestyle that made him a true ambassador for his music. ~ Jazz.com: Dizzy Gillespie ~ retrieved October 21, 2013 © Allmusic
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Honoring musicians. Celebrating birthdays. Remembering death days.
January 6, 1962 ~ Billboard Hot 100 ~ #3 (2) Bobby Vee, Run To Him ~ #2 (3) Chubby Checker, The Twist ~ #1 (1) The Tokens, The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Continued…
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' emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated. Somehow, Gillespie could make any "wrong" note fit, and harmonically he was ahead of everyone in the 1940s, including Charlie Parker. Unlike Bird, Dizzy was an enthusiastic teacher who wrote down his musical innovations and was eager to explain them to the next generation, thereby insuring that bebop would eventually become the foundation of jazz. ~ Allmusic: Dizzy Gillespie ~ retrieved January 6, 2014 © Allmusic
Dizzy Gillespie ~ Awarded a 1982 NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) Jazz Masters Fellowship.
As a Session musician, guest or band member
Aretha Franklin ~ Who's Zoomin' Who? (1985) ~ Ranked #89 Rolling Stone 100 Best Albums Of The Eighties in 1990 ~ “If I see someone cute,” Aretha Franklin told producer Narada Michael Walden during an initial telephone conversation to discuss working together on an album the singer was planning, “I may wink. Then he may wink, and it's like 'Who's zoomin' who?'” ~ 1990 © Rolling Stone