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Quick Facts
- NAME: Dizzy Gillespie
- OCCUPATION: Trumpet Player
- BIRTH DATE: October 21, 1917
- DEATH DATE: January 06, 1993
- EDUCATION: Laurinburg Institute
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Cheraw, South Carolina
- PLACE OF DEATH: Englewood, New Jersey
Best Known For
A jazz trumpeter and composer, Dizzy Gillespie played with Charlie Parker and developed the music known as bebop.
Dizzy Gillespie. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 06:44, May 21, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417
Dizzy Gillespie [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417, May 21
" Dizzy Gillespie." 2012. Biography.com 21 May 2012, 06:44 http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417
' Dizzy Gillespie', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417 [accessed May 21, 2012]
" Dizzy Gillespie," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417 (accessed May 21, 2012).
Dizzy Gillespie [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 May 21]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417.
Dizzy Gillespie, http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417 (last visited May 21, 2012).
Dizzy Gillespie, http://www.biography.com/people/dizzy-gillespie-9311417 (last visited May 21, 2012).
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.
Profile
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.
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