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Dizzy Gillespie -- Celebrating His Life

Dizzy-GillespieGetty Images

Dizzy Gillespie is considered one of the most influential and innovative figures in jazz music. Gillespie made a name for himself as a trumpet-playing pioneer of bebop music and was also credited as a major part of the Afro-Cuban music movement in the United States.

Today would have been the band leader's 93rd birthday, and even companies like Google are celebrating his massive influence by generating a mosaic of Gillespie on their homepage.

Dizzy Gillespie, who passed away on Jan. 6, 1993 at the age of 75, began playing piano when he was only 4-years-old. By the age of 12, he had already taught himself how to play the trumpet and trombone and had aspirations of becoming a famous jazz musician.

Throughout the 1940's and 1950's, Gillespie became a prominent jazz composer and performer and became known for a sound that diverged from the norm at that time. Gillespie's influence continues today, especially with songs such as 'A Night in Tunisia,' which is noted for having a non-walking bass line and has gone down in history as a jazz staple.

His trumpet is just as famous as Gillespie himself, which is bent upward at a 45 degree angle. The trumpet produced a more constricted sound and is now housed in the Smithsonian Museum. With a career that spanned for more than half a century, there is no doubt that Gillespie will always be recognized as an American icon.

Watch Dizzy Gillespie and his band perform 'A Night in Tunisia.'


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Casey K Fernandez

Hello,
I, too, would like to get in touch with his family to see if anyone has the "baby picture" Dizzy had kept in his wallet to show people "what he looked like as a baby". I was fortunate enough to have met Dizzy in my parents home (now mine) in San Francisco in the '70's. He was in town and my mother, Fran Jordan (at that time) was the secretary for the Baha'i Faith who was given the pleasure to show Dizzy around town when he was here. Dizzy was a Baha'i, and when he came to our house I was about 13 - 14 years old. He was gracious and funny, and out of nowhere he asked me if I would like to see his baby pictire. I said "Sure", and he took out his wallet and opened it up to a black and white picture of a naked babies body - with his Dizzy adult head attached to it. It was a perfect picture with his glowing smiling face beaming out at you like a baby would if it were tickled! I groaned and he laughed his wonderful full chuckle at pulling the wool over my eyes in jest...We all had a good laugh, and that is what I remember of the wonderful man. So kind, charming, and a little mischievous in good fun, with a smile that could make the world smile with him...
I always wondered if anyone ever kept that picture he had made of himself for pranks on people...it was a gem...and perfctly amusing and charming as Dizzy was himself....

February 20 2011 at 7:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Maria

If anyone knows how to contact his family, I have pictures of him as young man that he gave my grandmother. He looked about 20.

October 21 2010 at 11:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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