DIZZIE GILLESPIE AND LATIN JAZZ

Prepared by Len Cummins

Dizzy Gillespie was born John Birks Gillespie on 21 October, 1917 and was one of the most
important musicians in jazz. Along with Louis Armstrong, he is the greatest player and
innovator of the jazz trumpet. He revived the importance of the trumpet in jazz after the
saxophone became dominant in the 1930s. The dazzling speed of his playing demonstrated a
technical mastery, but there was also a wealth of ideas and emotion present. Gillespie also
helped make bop a lasting form in jazz after its development by Charlie Parker. He wrote down
his innovations and taught them to other musicians. Gillespie was one of the founders of Latin
Jazz. He had a conga player in his band in 1947 and used poly-rhythms. Gillespie was also a
great showman who was known for his onstage wit, scat singing, puffed-out cheeks and bent
trumpet, the result of a dancer tripping over his horn in the early 1950s.

In the late 1940s, Gillespie was also involved in the movement called Afro-Cuban music,
bringing Latin and African elements to greater prominence in jazz and even pop music,
particularly salsa. Gillespie's most famous contributions to Afro-Cuban music are the
compositions "Manteca", "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop", and the Cuban congo player, Chano Pozo.
In 1977, Gillespie discovered Arturo Sandoval while researching music during a tour of Cuba.

Latin Jazz has two varieties: Afro-Cuban and Brazilian. Afro-Cuban Jazz was played in the U.S.
directly after the bebop period, while Brazilian Jazz became more popular in the 1960s and
1970s.
Afro-Cuban Jazz began as a movement after the death of Charlie Parker, and notable bebop
musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor started Afro-Cuban bands at that time.
Gillespie’s work was mostly with big bands of this genre while the music was influenced by such
Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians as Tito Puente and, much later, Arturo Sandoval. There were
many Americans who were drawing upon Cuban rhythms for their work.
Brazilian Jazz is, in North America at least, nearly synonymous with bossa nova, a Brazilian
popular style which is derived from samba with influences from jazz as well as other 20 th-century
classical and popular music. Bossa is generally slow, played around 80 beats per minute or so.
The music uses straight eighths, rather than swing eighths, and also uses difficult polyrhythms.
The best-known bossa nova compositions are considered to be jazz standards in their own right.
The related term jazz-samba essentially describes an adaptation of bossa nova compositions to
the jazz idiom by American performers such as Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, and usually played
at 120 beats per minute or faster. Samba itself is actually not jazz but, being derived from older
Afro-Brazilian music, it shares some common characteristics.

Dizzy Gillespie published his autobiography, To Be or not to Bop in 1979. In the 1980s, he led
the United Nations Orchestra, and had a guest appearance on Sesame Street. Gillespie’s tone
gradually faded in the last years in life hence his performances often focused more on his
proteges such as Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis, and began incorporating various comedic
routines. He died of cancer in early 1993 at age 75, and is buried in the Flushing Cemetery in
Queens, New York. At the time of his death, Dizzy was survived by his widow, Lorraine Willis
Gillespie, a daughter, jazz singer Jeanie Bryson, and a grandson, Radji Birks Bryson-Barrett.
 Dizzy Gillespie and Latin Jazz
Written by Len Cummins

Dizzy Gillespie and Latin Jazz

He is the man that brought it to past
Combining Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles
This musical genre touch many lives.

Blending salsa, samba and bossa nova

Latin Jazz flowed through North America
Songs like ‘Manteca’ and ‘Cubano Be, Cubano Bop’
Dizzy’s band used to make audiences rock.