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On October 21, 1917, John Birks Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina. He was the youngest of 14 children. His father was a poor farmer and a skilled amateur musician. He played bass in his own band and owned all the instruments because most of the other players were so poor that they would sell the instruments for money to buy food if they had them. The town of Cheraw was primarily black town and was very poor. By the time John was 7, he was beginning to learn that noone would take care of him, and that the world was harsh.
John looked back on his father as a disciplinarian, others just regarded him as mean. He would come home and beat his children every week for what they must ve done while he was gone. As a child, John became fascinated with music and played trombone in his band. One day his neighbor got a trumpet for christmas.
He begged to try it when it wasn t in use. When he was 17, he had earned enough money from his job that he could move 50 miles north and live in a school dorm while he got an education. He missed his family, and was having a hard time. He had to be in a club similar to 4 h to pay tuition. He hated it. He was anxious to leave the school and make a living on his own.
When his sister got married, he heard that her husband was moving them to New York city. He went with them to find a job. His brother Wesley soon moved there as well, so he and John lived in the same apartment. They shared expenses, but rarely saw each other.
Wesley s schedule was a normal one, but John s often had him staggering home at 5: 50 A. M. He was always searching for a permanent job, but all he could find were temp and fill-in jobs, which payed very little... Meanwhile, he was barely getting by.
Since he was a child, his idol was a trumpet player named Roy Eldridge. John was thrilled to meet and finally replace him in the Cab Calloway band. He played 3 rd trumpet, but was mainly an arranger for the band. Back then, arrangers would often hand-write parts so they didn t have to pay a printer. One day the band was reading a chart and john couldn t read the music.
The band started calling him the Dizzy cat because he couldn t read the parts. On a gig one time, he was late and the director said Where s Dizzy? ! ? . The audience laughed. The band decided that the name would stick. Dizzy was having a hard time in the Calloway band. Most of the other, more experienced players didn t like him.
While they were touring europe, the other players were saying that he was losing his chops (skill), and prevented him from getting other jobs. They were thought to be jealous of his growing skill as both a player and as a player. He would often be seen after show kissing passionate with a new woman every show. They were often white, so he also had to fight off a lot of jealous boyfriends. Because of this, he ALWAYS carried a knife with him. This habit has lead to one of the most infamous stories in jazz history.
One night, Dizzy was playing with the band and was taking a solo. During the solo, the drummer had lost the beat. Dizzy stopped, and held his nose which was a sign of ridicule and disrespect to a musician. The audience laughed. When Dizzy went back to his section, a 19 year old player was overcome with the mood of the whole situation. He began to rip pieces off his music and shoot spitballs at the drummer.
This continued for the whole show, until one of the spitballs flew righ in front of Cab s face. He immediately turned and pointed at Dizzy and said YOU, THROWING THE SPITBALLS! . He was surprised and said hey, I ain t thrown nuthin. Cab became enraged and began to climb over the saxophone section to get at Dizzy. He then ran back to his dressing room for the rest of the show.
When Dizzy thought everything had calmed down, he proceeded to go and get his things from the stage. As he passed Cab s room, Cab opened the door and grabbed Dizzy by the throat. Dizzy, being aggressive and hardened by the constant harassment from white men on the street, instinctively took out the knife he was hiding in a rabbit s foot and stabbed Calloway in the butt. He had to get 68 stitched in his rear, and fired Dizzy from the band.
Years later, Cab found out that Dizzy hadn t thrown the spitballs, and apologized. As Dizzy was searching for a new job, he met the most influential person in his life, Charlie Parker. They worked together for many years working to perfect a new style of music that was known as bop. Though he loved working with Parker, it was hard because he had a drug addiction. His horn was often in the pawnshop to buy drug money. As bop (or be-bop, as it was also known) began to grow in popularity, Dizzy was beginning to become the most emulated player in the world.
He was always searching for a new way of doing things. But Parker s addiction was becoming too much to bear. Dizzy s wife, Lorraine, urged him to leave until Parker became sober. When he left, Miles Davis took his spot in the band. It was then that a huge rivalry to began between Miles and Dizzy. But he was too worried to care.
He was still having a hard time getting by financially. But he had made an interesting discovery. One day someone fell on his trumpet, bending the bell upwards. He liked the was it sounded, because I can hear the notes faster.
His popularity was growing into the mainstream, and soon he was an international celebrity. But it was then that Parker s addiction had finally killed him. It was a great period of mourning in his life. It was a long time for him to get back together and continue with his life. It soon became a sort of depression for jazz musicians, because rock music was becoming very popular.
Many young musicians abandoned jazz to follow the crowd. But too many people were getting hurt at rock concerts for many parents to consider it for thier kids. Although jazz was losing popularity, Dizzy wasn, t. Right in to the 70 s he remained an international celebrity. He was mobbed by crowd s in every country that he visited. This continued until his late 60 s, when his appetite was getting to be so big that it was worrying his wife.
She sent him to a doctor to be diagnosed. The doctor said that he had cancer. But all during this time, colleges were constantly giving honorary awards and degrees. The news of his death on January 6, 1993 was a shock to everyone. His funeral was attended bt over 10, 000 and memorial concert s were held be Wynton Marsalis, Jon Faddis, Arturo Sandoval, and Maynard Ferguson. He had no children, but in memorials it was commented we are all your children.
I still believe that, because he was the father of modern music. If there was no bop, then there would be no Rock, grunge, reggae, fusion, rap or anything else that came after it. Bop was the bridge to what we have now. Thank Dizzy for that.
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