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Dizzy Gillespie biography

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Quick Facts

  • PLACE OF BIRTH: Cheraw, South Carolina
  • PLACE OF DEATH: Englewood, New Jersey
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A jazz trumpeter and composer, Dizzy Gillespie played with Charlie Parker and developed the music known as bebop.

Synopsis

Born John Birks Gillespie on October 21, 1917, in Cheraw, South Carolina, Dizzy Gillespie worked in prominent swing bands, including those of Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet, developing his own band later and his own signature style, known as bebop.

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Jazz trumpeter, composer. Born John Birks Gillespie on October 21, 1917 in Cheraw, South Carolina. He worked in prominent swing bands (1937–44), including those of Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet. As a bandleader, often with Charlie Parker on saxophone, he developed the music known as bebop, with dissonant harmonies and polyrhythms, a reaction to swing.

Gillespie's own big band (1946–50) was his masterpiece, affording him scope as both soloist and showman. He was immediately recognizable from the unusual shape of his trumpet, with the bell tilted upwards at an angle of 45° - the result of someone accidentally sitting on it in 1953, but to good effect, for when he played it afterwards he discovered that the new shape improved the sound quality, and he had it incorporated into all his trumpets thereafter.

Gillespie's memoirs To Be or Not to Bop (with Al Fraser) appeared in 1979. In 1990, he received the Kennedy Center Honors Award.

© 2012 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.

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