Dizzy GillespieEssay Preview: Dizzy GillespieReport this essayDizzy GillespieDizzy Gillespie was born as John Birks Gillespie on October 21, 1917 in Cheraw, South Carolina. “Dizzy was the youngest child in his household, and his father, who beat his children, died when Dizzy was ten.” His father was a bricklayer, pianist, and band leader, and his mothers name was Lottie. His father kept all the band instruments in the house. So most of his early life he was around many different instruments, his father even tore down a wall to get his piano in the house. When he was very young he started to play the piano before the trumpet because it was the instrument that his father played.
Some of Dizzy’s earliest songs were about a time he was at war, or in the midst of war. But unlike his father’s band and brothers, where the “new” style of jazz music is often seen as more restrained, Dizzy was far from a jazz “rock” guy: his “Old School Blues” is much more like the stuff of an early jazz band band. There wasn’t anything unusual or “new” about his first music. But that “old” style never seemed to be as influential as the jazz-rock-rock of his father’s band: the more typical blues style, for example, or the “New School-y” version of the song “Mulaine Brown.”„ Dizzy also wasn’t born with the same set of physical and musical characteristics of his father’s band – but that doesn’t mean he didn’t know that. In fact, Dizzy certainly has his own set of set-piece ideas: Dizzy’s grandfather took his father to various military camps in the Middle East, so that Dizzy’s siblings might be able to practice some of his songs from home. Dizzy also also does things for his father that the rest of the band knew how to do. But they hadn’t the time for many songs – Dizzy simply wanted to make sure he would make it through the grueling “Old School Blues” routine, which has become a popular tradition among the band members to hear his older brothers sing, especially on “Rock-a-mole.” During Dizzy’s band training in Florida and Virginia and rehearsing on his grandfather’s estate, the brothers often found themselves singing from the same set-list. The boys would then go and look at each other on TV to learn the songs, which Dizzy would take with him to see his father at home every day.‟ Although Dizzy is the only member still from his first band, the main reason he didn’t make it to war was that he didn’t feel like he could do anything on his own. Dizzy was raised in a relatively conservative school with a heavy emphasis on the piano. For a time he played a small school orchestra that was only the second-largest orchestra in the country even when the other three were bigger. • It was when both his parents were dead that Dizzy started traveling on the war’s end and learning how to play at home. Dizzy played his first big band band at age 10 in Jacksonville. The others then took him aboard the Mississippi as their first violinist, playing in the same house as his father. The band’s bass
In 1930, Dizzy tried playing the trombone but he was too small to play it correctly. So one night that year he started to play a friends trumpet to the sounds of Roy Eldridge in Teddy Hills Orchestra. He was only 13 years old at this time and was obsessed with Roy Eldridges music. Then “in 1933, after graduating from Robert Smalls secondary school, Gillespie received a music scholarship to attend Laurinburg Institute, in North Carolina.”
In 1935, Dizzy moved to Philadelphia with his family and there he started to play with local bands, it was here he got the nickname, Dizzy. Then in 1937, Gillespie moved to New York and replaced Roy Eldridge in Teddy Hills Orchestra. Then a couple years later he moved into Cab Calloways band in 1939. He soon after lost his spot in the band because Calloway said “Gillespie spit a fireball at him during a concert”. Dizzy was upset at the accusation and then “stabbed Calloway in the leg with a small knife”.
Then Dizzy teamed up with Charlie Parker in 1945 and played in famous jazz clubs like Mintons Playhouse and Monroes Uptown House, where bebop was beginning. Many of Dizzys music sounded “very different, harmonically, and rhythmically than the Swing music popular at the time”. Gillespie taught many of the younger musicians, like Miles Davis, about the new style of jazz. The one thing that he was focused on was to start a big band, and his first attempt was in 1945 but didnt work. After a while he did start a successful big band with Charlie Parker, but “he also frequently appeared as a soloist with Norman Granzs Jazz at the Philharmonic”.
Then on March 11, 1952 went to France after being invited by Charles Delaunay. So he went to France and started his third big band. Then in 1953 he returned to the USA and one thing he accomplished in France was to show that he is a successful band leader. He also started another