Trumpeting the Musically Gratifying Dizzy

When I think of his creative energy, the sparkle and grace in his playing and the volcanic personality he had, I can’t help but smile about Dizzy Gillespie.  

I feel as if the emotion was embedded in me though. No matter what, his name comes up, I start clapping enthusiastically inside and I can’t help it.

Musically Gratifying

I may have been too young to remember him being on Sesame Street though I saw a few images and clips this week as I spent many hours of my week with this audacious interest to watch some old interviews he was a part of, a few concerts he performed in, some podcasts that featured him speaking and many other things that focused on Dizzy.

Yup, that was my station of life this week as I compiled information to put together a centennial celebration show worthy of celebrating, I guess you can say, my favorite jazz artist’s centennial birthday. What I do remember that never left my heart was seeing him on an old episode of “The Cosby Show” as he was featured as Vanessa’s music teacher. That episode always leaves me feeling so happy. Even until today. Perhaps, it is one of the reasons I became a musician myself.

Let me clarify this before I move on. Many will not consider a singer a musician because we sing and when we go to a gig, we do not carry heavy equipment that needs to be set up on the stage. 

We however carry our instruments in our body. Our bodies are our instrument. We use our bodies to produce sound and add our vocal chords to any song, over wailing musicians. Therefore, vocalists certainly are musicians.

 Trumpeting My Excitement with Purpose

This year has been a year full of jazz great’s centennials with this year celebrating the 100 years of the first lady of jazz Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne who was the first black person to have a major contract with MGM studios, The genius of modern music better known as Thelonious Monk and John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie who was one of the founding fathers of the Afro-Cuban and/or Latin jazz tradition and a major figure of the bebop and modern jazz movement who remained an outgoing and tireless ambassador for bop throughout his life; just to name a few.

Dizzy had this creative edge that was unbeatable. Everything he performed came out of his horn with an outpouring of emotion. He had a keen sense of humor that could make a person laugh until tears fell out of their eyes.

He is most noted for enlivening the world of jazz with his iconic “swollen cheeks” and for blooming those flirtatious, race horse tempos and complex syncopations out of his up-angled trumpet. He is also known for his quirky humorousness on the stage which was one of the reasons why while in his first ever band, the Frankie Fairfax band, he gained his nickname Dizzy. Stanley Crouch called him, “one of the most influential players of his horn in the history of the music.”

“Music is An International Language” (Dizzy Gillespie)

As a jazz musician, Dizzy became a beacon of human possibility with jazz being an integrator of races as well as what gave people of color an identity. I found it amazing how music can bring people together. I experienced it on my first ever musical tour which occurred last year around this time in Russia. 

You do not even have to speak the same language and yet somehow can be on the same stage and music is the language that you and someone with a whole different set of cultures and traditions can speak to bridge the gap. It is one of the most incredible things that I ever experienced and a layer of music that I will always appreciate. 

Dizzy claimed that one of the reasons to be part of the musical exchange is that, “jazz transcends the barriers of political ideologies, of cultural, racial, ethnic and religious differences from Brazil to Senegal, from Denmark to Australia, from Senegal to Czechoslovakia, from the USA to the USSR. Jazz brings people together to smile, to enjoy and be enriched by the beauty and joy of our majestic music that elevates the human spirit. Jazz is a mirror of life and also jazz is a universal language” (Dizzy Gillespie).

“Improve Over the Years Adding Layers of Finish,

Polishing and Refining, Your Art’s Sheen

and Subtle Symmetry”

(Whitehead).

Dizzy said that as a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and have one foot forward into the future.  In the book Hard Bop by David Rosenthal, Dizzy admitted to learning a lot from “the first Picasso of jazz” better known by the world as Thelonious Monk; another centenarian of jazz. Dizzy was largely influenced by Roy Eldridge. Dizzy claimed that “When coming up, all trumpet players wanted to sound like Roy Eldridge.” But Dizzy certainly developed his own original sound. 

Dizzy said that “he could see somebody copying something because everybody has someone to copy and he didn’t care if he heard a guy say that he got his sound out of the air because that would be a lie. He didn’t care who the individual was and further said that no matter who you are as a musician, you definitely had a standard you studied and went by.”  This is true even for me. I find admiration in different artists and even though I started out trying to mimic what Whitney Houston and Sarah Vaughan may have done, I certainly did start adding who I am into the music and my style started to gain it’s own gossamer wings as I came out of my shell. Music like life is in a constant state of flux and we as musicians who study and practice our craft, are constantly changing.

One thing that will never change for me though is how much I like and respect Dizzy Gillespie. I am still very captivated by his energy and the more I learn about him, the more I am lured in to wanting to know and listen to more of his contributions to this world of music.

Speaking of music . . .

I have a radio show. Jazz on the JNote is a show I started while in college as I was in my final year and trying to complete my thesis which was on the topic of Jazz, Identity & Racism for which I read about 200 books to write 30 pages discussing the cultural aspects of jazz and its history. My first show featured music from my favorite jazz vocalist, Sarah Vaughan. 

Two years later, the show is still running and this week’s episode will celebrate the centennial of Dizzy Gillespie. 

Hope that you'll join me for this very special episode.  

Please visit www.theenglishconnectionmedia.com or http://mixlr.com/the-english-connection-media/  this Sunday evening, October 22 at 7PM EST to tune in. 

Thank you so much for checking out my blog post. Peace & blessings!