"Bent" trumpet was the trademark
trumpet of Dizzy Gillespie. It featured a bell which bent upward at a 45-degree angle rather than
pointing straight ahead as in the conventional design. According to Gillespie's
autobiogra-phy, this was originally the result of accidental damage caused by
the dancers Stump and Stumpy falling onto it while it was on a trumpet stand on
stage at Snookie's in Manhattan on January 6, 1953, during a birthday party for
Gillespie's wife Lorraine. The constriction
caused by the bending altered the tone of the instrument, and Gillespie liked
the effect. He had the trumpet straightened out the next day, but he could not
forget the tone. Gillespie sent a request to Martin Committee to make him a
"bent" trumpet from a sketch produced by Lorraine, and from that time
forward Gillespie played a trumpet with an upturned bell.
Whatever the origins of
Gillespie's upswept trumpet, by June 1954, he was using a professionally
manufactured horn of this design, and it was to become a visual trademark for
him for the rest of his life. Such trumpets were made for him by Martin
Committee (from 1954), King Musical Instruments (from 1972) and Renold Schilke
(from 1982, a gift from Jon Faddis). Gillespie favored mouthpieces made by Al
Cass. In December 1986 Gillespie gave the National Museum of American History his
1972 King "Silver Flair" trumpet with a Cass mouthpiece. In April 1995, Gillespie's Martin trumpet was
auctioned at Christie’s in New York City, along with instruments used by other
famous musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley. An
image of Gillespie's trumpet was selected for the cover of the auction program.
The battered instrument sold to Manhattan builder Jeffery Brown for $63,000,
the proceeds benefiting jazz musicians suffering from cancer.
The Legends - Part Seven
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks Gillespie, one
of the greatest Jazz trumpeters of 20th century and one of the prime architects
of the bebop movement in jazz, was born in Cheraw, South Carolina in 1917. Nicknamed "Dizzy" because of his zany on-stage
antics, Gillespie, a brass virtuoso, set new standards for trumpet players with
his innovative, "jolting rhythmic shifts and ceaseless harmonic explorations"
on the instrument during the 1940's period, which ushered in a definitive
change in American Jazz music from swing to bebop.
The last of nine children,
Gillespie was born into a family whose father, James, was a bricklayer, pianist
and bandleader. Dizzy's father kept all the instruments from his band in the
family home and so the future trumpet great was around trumpets, saxophones,
guitars and his father's large upright piano most of his young life. James use
to make all of his older children practice instruments but none of them cared
for music. Dizzy's father died when he was ten and never heard his youngest son
play trumpet, although he did get the chance to hear him banging around on the
piano, because Dizzy started trying to play this instrument at a very early
age.
Two years later young Gillespie began
to teach himself trumpet and trombone. His musical
ability enabled him to attend Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina in 1932
because the school needed a trumpet player for its band. During his years
there, he practiced the trumpet and piano intensively, still largely without
formal guidance. He stayed there for two years, studying harmony and theory until his
family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1935. In Philadelphia, Gillespie
began playing trumpet with local bands, learning all of his idol Eldridge's
solos from records and radio broadcasts: it was in Philadelphia that he picked
up his nickname of "Dizzy". In 1937, Dizzy moved to New York and replaced
Eldridge in Teddy Hill's Orchestra. After a couple of years Gillespie moved on
to Cab Calloway's band in 1939.
Dizzy worked with many
bands during the early 1940's (Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, "Fatha" Hines and Billy Eckstine's seminal band) before teaming up with Charlie "Bird" Parker in 1945. Their revolutionary band ushered in the bebop era and
was one of the greatest small bands of the 20th century. An arranger and
composer, Gillespie wrote some of the greatest jazz tunes of his era: songs
such as "Groovin High", "A Night in Tunisia" and "Manteca" are considered jazz
classics today.
The musical papers - and even the
national press - began publishing photographs of a pouting, posturing, preening
Gillespie, sporting a lavish goatee beard, and invariably garbed in beret, dark
glasses and an extravagant zoot suit. He was the grimacing Grimaldi of jazz,
and his exhibitionism and sartorial eccentricities earned him rancorous criticism
from the "mouldy fyges". Gillespie basked in the attention. But he was quick to
refute accusations that he had sold out - by producing a series of highly
charged recordings, and setting up a brash, exciting big band, founded on his
own idiosyncratic ideas.
With his trumpet and its
upturned, golden bell, goatee, black horn rim glasses and beret, Gillespie
became a symbol of both jazz and a rebellious, independent spirit during the
1940's and 50's. His interest in Cuban and African music helped to introduce
those music's to a mainstream American audience. When he died he was famous and
beloved everywhere and had influenced entire generations of trumpet players all
over the world who loved and emulated his playing and his always positive,
upbeat, optimistic attitude.
Gillespie's legacy is
probably best summed up by Gillespie himself in a statement that would sound a
bit arrogant if it weren't so probable: "The music of Charlie Parker and
me laid a foundation for all the music that is being played now… Our music is
going to be the classical music of the future".
Here is my top 10 of Dizzy's compositions:
1. "The Night In Tunisia"
2. "Manteca"
3. "SummertimeAnd"
4. "Groovin High" (with "Bird")
5. "And Then She Stopped"
6. "Blues For Bird" (with Oscar Peterson)
7. "Tin Tin Deo"
8. "Dark Eyes" ("Ochi Cheornie" with Stan Getz)
9. "Salt Peanuts"
10. "Caravan"
No comments:
Post a Comment