Dizzy Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, 100 years ago today. Aren’t you glad? On an anniversary so auspicious, the Rifftides staff debated whether to attempt some sort of omnibus review of the career of a man so vital to the development and creative expansion of jazz. No, we decided, let’s keep it simple and remember him in a milieu that he loved.
We’ll hear Gillespie in 1960 in the company of five of his peers: J.J. Johnson, trombone; Stan Getz, tenor saxophone; Victor Feldman, piano; Sam Jones, bass; and Louis Hayes, drums. The occasion was a Jazz At The Philharmonic concert in Stockholm, Sweden in 1960. They play “Blue N’ Boogie,†which he wrote in 1945. It’s one of many Gillespie compositions that enriched and continue to enrich the jazz repertoire.
Dizzy Gillespie died in 1993 at the age of 75.