Bebop or bop is a style of jazz characterized by fast tempo, instrumental virtuosity and improvisation based on the combination of harmonic structure and melody. It was developed in the early and mid-1940s. It first surfaced in musicians' argot some time during the first two years of American involvement in the Second World War. This style of jazz ultimately became synonymous with modern jazz, as either category reached a certain final maturity in the 1960s.

Etymology[link]

"In spite of the explanations of the origins of these words, players actually did sing the words 'bebop' and 'rebop' to an early bop phrase as shown in the following example."^[1]  Play (help·info)

The word "bebop" is usually stated^{[by whom?]} to be nonsense syllables (vocables) which were made in scat singing, and is supposed^{[weasel words]} to have been first attested^{[by whom?]} in 1928.^[2] Some researchers^[who?] speculate that it was a term used by Charlie Christian, because it sounded like something he hummed along with his playing.^[3] Dizzy Gillespie tells that the audiences coined the name after hearing him scat the then-nameless tunes to his players and the press ultimately picked it up, using it as an official term: "People, when they'd wanna ask for those numbers and didn't know the name, would ask for bebop."^[4]

However, the most plausible^{[weasel words]} theory is that it derives from the cry of "Arriba! Arriba!" used by Latin American bandleaders of the period to encourage their bands.^[5] This squares with the fact that, originally, the terms "bebop" and "rebop" were used interchangeably. By 1945, the use of "bebop"/"rebop" as nonsense syllables was widespread in R&B music, for instance Lionel Hampton's "Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop," and a few years later in rock and roll, for instance Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula" (1956).

History[link]

The 1939 recording of "Body and Soul" by Coleman Hawkins is an important antecedent of bebop. Hawkins' willingness to stray—even briefly—from the ordinary resolution of musical themes and his playful jumps to double-time signaled a departure from existing jazz. The recording was popular; but more importantly, from a historical perspective, Hawkins became an inspiration to a younger generation of jazz musicians, most notably Charlie Parker, in Kansas City.

In the 1940s, the younger generation of jazz musicians created a new style that came out of the 1930s' swing music. They partially strived to counter the popularization of swing with non-danceable music that demanded listening.^[6] Mavericks like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk were influenced by the preceding generation's adventurous soloists, such as pianists Art Tatum and Earl Hines, tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young and trumpeter Roy Eldridge. Gillespie and Parker, both out of the Earl Hines Band in Chicago had traveled with some of the pre-bop masters, including Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines and Jay McShann. While Gillespie was with Cab Calloway, he practiced with bassist Milt Hinton and developed some of the key harmonic and chordal innovations that would be the cornerstones of the new music; Charlie Parker did the same with bassist Gene Ramey while with McShann's group. These forerunners of the new music (which would later be termed "bebop," or "bop"-- although Parker himself never used that term, feeling it demeaned the music) began exploring advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords and chord substitutions. The bop musicians advanced these techniques with a more freewheeling, intricate and often arcane approach.

Minton's Playhouse in New York served as an incubator and experimental theater for early bebop players,^[7] including Don Byas, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Christian, who had already hinted at the bop style in innovative solos with Benny Goodman's band. Part of the atmosphere created at jams like the ones found at Minton's Playhouse was an air of exclusivity: the "regular" musicians would often reharmonize the standards in order to exclude those whom they considered outsiders or simply weaker players.^[6]

Christian's major influence was in the realm of rhythmic phrasing. Christian commonly emphasized weak beats and off beats, and often ended his phrases on the second half of the fourth beat. Christian experimented with asymmetrical phrasing, which was to become a core element of the new bop style. Swing improvisation was commonly constructed in two or four bar phrases that corresponded to the harmonic cadences of the underlying song form. Bop improvisers would often deploy phrases over an odd number of bars, and overlap their phrases across bar lines and across major harmonic cadences. Christian and the other early boppers would also begin stating a harmony in their improvised line before it appeared in the song form being outlined by the rhythm section. This momentary dissonance creates a strong sense of forward motion in the improvisation. Swing improvisers commonly emphasized the first and third beats of a measure. But in a bebop composition such as Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts," the rhythmic emphasis switches to the second and fourth beats of the measure. Such new rhythmic phrasing techniques give the typical bop solo a feeling of floating free over the underlying song form, rather than being tied into the song form.

Swing drummers had kept up a steady four-to-the-bar pulse on the bass drum. Bop drummers, led by Kenny Clarke, moved the drumset's time-keeping function to the ride or hi-hat cymbal, reserving the bass drum for accents. Bass drum accents were colloquially termed "dropping bombs." Notable bop drummers such as Max Roach, Shadow Wilson, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, and Kenny Clarke began to support and respond to soloists, almost like a shifting call and response.

This change increased the importance of the string bass. Now, the bass not only maintained the music's harmonic foundation, but also became responsible for establishing a metronomic rhythmic foundation by playing a "walking" bass line of four quarter notes to the bar. While small swing ensembles commonly functioned without a bassist, the new bop style required a bass in every small ensemble.

By 1950, a second wave of bebop musicians—such as Clifford Brown and Sonny Stitt—began to smooth out the rhythmic eccentricities of early bebop. Instead of using jagged phrasing to create rhythmic interest, as the early boppers had, these musicians constructed their improvised lines out of long strings of eighth notes, and simply accented certain notes in the line to create rhythmic variety.

Musical style[link]

	All The Things You Are By Charlie Parker from In a Soulful Mood
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Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers. The music itself seemed jarringly different to the ears of the public, who were used to the bouncy, organized, danceable tunes of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller during the swing era. Instead, bebop appeared to sound racing, nervous, and often fragmented. But to jazz musicians and jazz music lovers, bebop was an exciting and beautiful revolution in the art of jazz.

While swing music tended to feature orchestrated big band arrangements, bebop music highlighted improvisation. Typically, a theme (a "head," often the main melody of a pop or jazz standard of the swing era) would be presented together at the beginning and the end of each piece, with improvisational solos based on the chords of the tune. Thus, the majority of a song in bebop style would be improvisation, the only threads holding the work together being the underlying harmonies played by the rhythm section. Sometimes improvisation included references to the original melody or to other well-known melodic lines ("quotes," or "riffs"). Sometimes they were entirely original, spontaneous melodies from start to finish.

Chord progressions for bebop tunes were often taken directly from popular swing-era songs and reused with a new and more complex melody, forming new compositions. This practice was already well-established in earlier jazz, but came to be central to the bebop style. The style made use of several relatively common chord progressions, such as blues (at base, I-IV-V, but infused with II-V motion) and 'rhythm changes' (I-VI-II-V, the chords to the 1930s pop standard I Got Rhythm). Late bop also moved towards extended forms that represented a departure from pop and show tunes.

Bebop musicians also employed several harmonic devices not typical of previous jazz. Complicated harmonic substitutions for more basic chords became commonplace. These substitutions often emphasized certain dissonant intervals such as the flat ninth, sharp ninth, or the sharp eleventh/tri-tone. This unprecedented harmonic development which took place in bebop, is often traced back to a transcendent moment experienced by Charlie Parker while performing "Cherokee" at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, New York, in early 1942.

I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used, ... and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes. I couldn't play it.... I was working over ‘Cherokee,’ and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. It came alive—Parker.^[8]

Gerhard Kubik postulates that the harmonic development in bebop sprung from the blues, and other African-related tonal sensibilities, rather than twentieth century Western art music, as some have suggested. Kubik states: “Auditory inclinations were the African legacy in [Parker’s] life, reconfirmed by the experience of the blues tonal system, a sound world at odds with the Western diatonic chord categories. Bebop musicians eliminated Western-style functional harmony in their music while retaining the strong central tonality of the blues as a basis for drawing upon various African matrices.” (2005)^[9] Samuel Floyd states that blues were both the bedrock and propelling force of bebop, bringing about three main developments.

• A new harmonic conception, using extended chord structures that led to unprecedented harmonic and melodic variety.
• A developed and even more highly syncopated, linear rhythmic complexity and a melodic angularity in which the blue note of the fifth degree was established as an important melodic-harmonic device.
• The reestablishment of the blues as the music's primary organizing and functional principle.^[10]

While for an outside observer, the harmonic innovations in bebop would appear to be inspired by experiences in Western "serious" music, from Claude Debussy to Arnold Schoenberg, such a scheme cannot be sustained by the evidence from a cognitive approach. Claude Debussy did have some influence on jazz, for example, on Bix Beiderbecke's piano playing. And it is also true that Duke Ellington adopted and reinterpreted some harmonic devices in European contemporary music. West Coast jazz would run into such debts as would several forms of cool jazz. But bebop has hardly any such debts in the sense of direct borrowings. On the contrary, ideologically, bebop was a strong statement of rejection of any kind of eclecticism, propelled by a desire to activate something deeply buried in self. Bebop then revived tonal-harmonic ideas transmitted through the blues and reconstructed and expanded others in a basically non-Western harmonic approach. The ultimate significance of all this is that the experiments in jazz during the 1940s brought back to African-American music several structural principles and techniques rooted in African traditions—Kubik (2005).^[11]

Instrumentation[link]

Several Bebop musicians headlining on 52nd Street, May 1948

The classic bebop combo consisted of saxophone, trumpet, bass, drums, and piano. This was a format used (and popularized) by both Charlie Parker (alto sax) and Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet) in their 1940s groups and recordings, sometimes augmented by an extra saxophonist or guitar (electric or acoustic), occasionally adding other horns (often a trombone), or other strings (usually violin) or dropping an instrument and leaving only a quartet.

Although only one part of a rich jazz tradition, bebop music continues to be played regularly throughout the world. Trends in improvisation since its era have changed from its harmonically-tethered style, but the capacity to improvise over a complex sequence of altered chords is a fundamental part of any jazz education.

Influence[link]

By the mid-1950s musicians (Miles Davis and John Coltrane among others) began to explore directions beyond the standard bebop vocabulary. Simultaneously, other players expanded on the bold steps of bebop: "cool jazz" or "West Coast jazz", modal jazz, as well as free jazz and avant-garde forms of development from the likes of George Russell.

Bebop style also influenced the Beat Generation whose spoken-word style drew on jazz rhythms, and whose poets often employed jazz musicians to accompany them. The bebop influence also shows in rock and roll, which contains solos employing a form similar to bop solos, and "hippies" of the 60s and 70s, like the boppers had a unique, non-conformist style of dress, a vocabulary incoherent to outsiders, and a communion through music. Fans of bebop were not restricted to the United States; the music gained cult status in France and Japan.

More recently, Hip-hop artists (A Tribe Called Quest, Guru) have cited bebop as an influence on their rapping and rhythmic style. Bassist Ron Carter even collaborated with A Tribe Called Quest on 1991's The Low End Theory, and vibraphonist Roy Ayers and trumpeter Donald Byrd were featured on Jazzmatazz, by Guru, in the same year. Bebop samples, especially bass lines, ride cymbal swing clips, and horn and piano riffs are found throughout the hip-hop compendium.

Musicians[link]

Notable musicians identified with bebop:

Music portal

Quotation[link]

- Kenny Clarke ^[12]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Berendt, Joachim E. The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond. Trans. Bredigkeit, H. and B. with Dan Morgenstern. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1975.
• Deveaux, Scott.. The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
• Gidden, Gary. Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker. New York City: Morrow, 1987.
• Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Baillie, Harold B. Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Rosenthal, David. Hard bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955-1965. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Scaruffi, Piero. [2003] A History of Jazz Music, 1900-2000, chapter on Bebop (2007) ISBN 978-0-9765531-3-7

External links[link]

• Verve History of Jazz page on Bebop
• for a summary of Bebop's influence today
• Bebop Basics for Guitar
• Charlie Parker bebop solo licks
• Free Jazz Piano Lessons with emphasis on bebop

Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor in 1976
Background information
Birth name	William Taylor
Born	(1921-07-24)July 24, 1921 Greenville, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	December 28, 2010(2010-12-28) (aged 89)[1] Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Genres	Jazz, hard bop
Occupations	Pianist, composer, educator, broadcaster
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1944–2010
Associated acts	Charlie Parker Dizzy Gillespie Miles Davis Herbie Mann Christian McBride Nancy Wilson Dee Dee Bridgewater Cyrus Chestnut
Website	www.billytaylorjazz.com

Billy Taylor (July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010^[1][2]) was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.^[3][4]

Taylor was a Jazz activist. He sat on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America. In 1989, Billy Taylor, Ann Ruckert, Herb Storfer and Phoebe Jacobs started The Jazz Foundation to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, later including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina.^[5]

Billy Taylor was also one of the foremost jazz educators. He lectured in colleges, served on panels and travelled worldwide as a jazz ambassador. Critic Leonard Feather once said, "It is almost indisputable that Dr. Billy Taylor is the world's foremost spokesman for jazz." ^[2]

Biography[link]

Early life & career[link]

Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina but moved to Washington, D.C. when he was five. He grew up in a musical family and learned to play different instruments as a child, including guitar, drums and saxophone. But he was most successful at the piano and took classical piano lessons with Henry Grant, the same teacher that had educated Duke Ellington a generation earlier. He made his first professional appearance playing keyboard at the age of 13 and the compensation was one dollar.^[6] Taylor attended Dunbar High School, America's first high school for African American students. He went to Virginia State College and majored in sociology. Pianist Dr. Undine Smith Moore noticed young Taylor's talent in piano and he changed his major to music, graduating with a degree in music in 1942.^[6]

Taylor set out to New York City after graduation and started playing piano professionally from 1944, first with Ben Webster's Quartet on New York's 52nd Street. The same night he joined Webster's Quartet, he met Art Tatum, who became his mentor. Among other musicians he worked with, he played with Machito's mambo band, when he developed a love for Latin music. After an eight-month tour with the Don Redman Orchestra in Europe, Taylor stayed there with his wife Theodora and worked in Paris and Holland. Taylor returned to New York later that year and cooperated with Bob Wyatt and Sylvia Syms at the Royal Roost jazz club and Billie Holiday in a successful show called Holiday on Broadway. A year later, he became the house pianist at Birdland and performed with many of the greatest jazz talents in history, including Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.^[6] He played at Birdland longer than any other pianist in the history of the club. In 1949, Taylor published his first book, a textbook about bebop piano styles.

Mid-career[link]

He composed one of the his most famous tunes in 1952 "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free", and subsequently achieving more popularity with Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Nina Simone covered the song in her 1967 album Silk and Soul. It is widely known in the UK as a piano instrumental version, used for BBC Television's Film programme. Solomon Burke, Derek Trucks, The Lighthouse Family, Levon Helm and Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra have also recorded versions.

He continued dozens of the recordings in the 1950s and 1960s, notably the album he made with the Cuban percussionist Candido Camero titled Billy Taylor Trio with Candido, My Fair Lady Loves Jazz, Cross Section and Taylor Made Jazz.

His broadcast career also thrived. In 1961, Taylor founded New York's Jazzmobile, which provides arts education program of the highest quality via workshops, master classes, lecture demonstrations, arts enrichment programs, outdoor summer mobile concerts, special indoor concerts and special projects.^[7] In 1958, he became the Musical Director of NBC's The Subject is Jazz, the first ever television series focusing on jazz. The 13-part series was produced by the new National Educational Television Network (NET) and hosted guests including Duke Elington, Aaron Copland, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Rushing and Langston Hughes. He also worked as a DJ and program director on radio station WNEW in New York in the 1960s. During the 1960s, the Billy Taylor Trio was a regular feature of the Hickory House on West 55th street in Manhattan. From 1969 to 1972, Taylor served as the music director forThe David Frost Show and was the first African American to lead a talk show band. Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich were just a few of the jazz musicians who played on the show. In 1981, Jazzmobile produced a Jazz special for the National Public Radio, and for which the program received the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting Programs. Jazzmobile's 1990 Tribute Concert to Dr. Taylor at Avery Fisher Hall, part of the JVC Jazz Festival, featured Nancy Wilson, Ahmad Jamal Trio and Terence Blanchard Quintet.

Later career[link]

In 1981, after being profiled by CBS News Sunday Morning, he was hired as an on-air correspondent and then conducted more than 250 interviews with musicians. He received an Emmy Award for his segment on the multi-talented Quincy Jones.

In 1989, Taylor formed his own "Taylor Made" record label to document his own music. You Tempt Me (1996) is a strong outing by his 1985 trio (with Victor Gaskin and drummer Curtis Boyd) that includes a rendition of Duke Ellington's "Take the "A" Train". White Nights (1991) has Taylor, Gaskin, and drummer Bobby Thomas performing live from Leningrad in the Soviet Union, then came Solo (1992), and Jazzmobile Allstars (1992). In 1997, he received New York state governor's art award.

Taylor suffered from a 2002 stroke, which affected his right hand, but he continued to perform almost until his death. He died after a heart attack on December 28, 2010 in Manhattan, at age of 89. His legacy was honored in a Harlem memorial service on Jan.11, 2011, featuring performances by Taylor's final working trio, bassist Chip Jackson and drummer Winard Harper, along with longtime Taylor associates Jimmy Owens, Frank Wess, Geri Allen, Christian Sands and vocalist Cassandra Wilson. He is survived by his wife of 65 years, Theodora Castion Taylor; a daughter, Kim Taylor-Thompson; and a granddaughter. His son, artist Duane Taylor, died in 1988.^[8]

Legacy[link]

Taylor appeared on hundreds of albums and composed more than 300 songs during his career spanned over six decades. His 1963 song, "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free" dealt with civil rights issues and became the unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It was selected as "one of the greatest songs of the sixties" by the New York Times and was the theme music of the 1996 film "Ghosts of Mississippi". His 1967 instrumental recording of the tune is widely known in the United Kingdom as the opening theme music for the long-running TV series The Film Programme, for many years hosted by Barry Norman.

Engaging and educating more audience and young people had been a central part of Taylor's career. He holds the Wilbur D. Barrett Chair of Music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale, and holds 23 honorary degrees. Besides publishing instructional books on jazz, he taught jazz course at Howard University, Long Island University, The Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he earned his Masters and Ph.D in 1975.

His extensive appearance in television series and jazz educational programs brought the music he loves to the masses at the grass roots level as well as more formal arenas. He's sometimes more known as a television personality than a pianist. He was quoted saying in a 2007 article in the Post Magazine: "there's no question that being an advocate eclipsed my reputation as a musician. It was my doing. I wanted to prove to people that jazz has an audience. I had to do that for me." ^[2]

Awards and honors[link]

With over twenty-three honorary doctoral degrees, Taylor was also the recipient of two Peabody Awards for Jazzmobile, NEA Jazz Masters Award (1998) an Emmy Award (1983) for carrying out over 250 interviews for "CBS News Sunday Morning", a Grammy Award (2004)^[9] and a host of prestigious and highly coveted prizes, such as the Down Beat magazine's Lifetime Achievement award (1984), National Medal of Arts (1992), and the Tiffany Award (1991). He was also honored in 2001 with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award,^[10] and election to the Hall of Fame for the International Association for Jazz Education. He served as the artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he developed many critically acclaimed concert series including the Louis Armstrong Legacy series, and the annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. In addition, he performed at the White House seven times and was one of only three jazz musicians to be appointed to the National Council of the Arts.

Discography[link]

Billy Taylor at Usdan

As leader[link]

• 1945: Billy Taylor Piano (Savoy)
• 1953: Billy Taylor Trio (Prestige)
• 1954: Cross-Section (Prestige)
• 1954: Billy Taylor Trio with Candido (Prestige)
• 1955: A Touch Of Taylor (Prestige)
• 1956: Evergreens (ABC-Paramout)
• 1956: at the London House (ABC-Paramount)^[11]
• 1956: Cross Section (Prestige)
• 1957: Introduces Ira Sullivan (ABC-Paramount)
• 1957: My Fair Lady Loves Jazz (Impulse!)
• 1959: The New Trio (Argo)
• 1959: Taylor Made Flute (Argo)
• 1959: Custom Taylored (SeSac)
• 1959: Billy Taylor with Four Flutes (Riverside, with Herbie Mann, Jerome Richardson, Frank Wess)
• 1960: One For Fun (Atlantic)
• 1960: Billy Taylor Trio Uptown (Riverside)
• 1960: Warming Up (Riverside)
• 1961: Interlude (Moodsville)
• 1962: Impromptu (Mercury)
• 1963: Right Here, Right Now (Capitol)
• 1965: Midnight Piano (Capitol)
• 1966: Easy Life (Surrey)
• 1968: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free (Tower)
• 1969: A Sleeping Bee (Pausa MPS)
• 1970: Ok Billy (Bell)
• 1977: Jazz Live (Monmouth Evergreen)
• 1977: Live at Storyville (West 54 Records)
• 1981: With Joe Kennedy Where've You Been (Concord Jazz)
• 1985: You Tempt Me (Taylor-Made, 1989)
• 1988: White Nights And Jazz In Leningrad (Taylor-Made)
• 1989: Solo (Taylor-Made)
• 1989: Billy Taylor And The Jazzmobile All Stars (Taylor-Made)
• 1991: White Nights and Jazz in Leningrad (Taylor-Made)
• 1992: Dr. T with Gerry Mulligan (GRP)
• 1993: Live at MCG with Gerry Mulligan, Carl Allen, Chip Jackson
• 1993: It's a Matter of Pride (GRP)
• 1995: Homage (GRP)
• 1997: The Music Keeps Us Young (Arkadia Jazz)
• 1999: Ten Fingers - One Voice Arkadia Jazz
• 1999: Taylor Made at the Kennedy Center with Dee Dee Bridgewater Kennedy Center Jazz
• 2001: Urban Griot (Soundspot)
• 2002: Live at AJE New York (Soundspot)

As sideman[link]

With Arkadia Jazz All Stars

• Thank You, Duke!

With Sal Salvador

• Juicy Lucy (Bee Hive Records, 1978)

With Johnny Hartman

• Once In Every Life (Bee Hive, 1980)

With various

• Charlie Parker 10th Memorial Concert (Limelight Records, 1965)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Billy Taylor

• [1]
• Library of Congress exhibit
• Official Website that includes extensive video
• Billy Taylor's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• Billy Taylor's Piano Regimen on YouTube

Richard “Dick” Hyman
Dick Hyman (Eugene, Oregon, 2005).
Background information
Birth name	Richard Hyman
Born	(1927-03-08) March 8, 1927 (age 85)
Origin	New York, New York, U.S.
Genres	Swing Stride piano Spy music Lounge music
Occupations	Pianist keyboardist composer
Instruments	Piano Keyboards

Richard “Dick” Hyman (born March 8, 1927, New York City) is an American jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer, best known for his versatility with jazz piano styles. Over a 50 year career, he has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and, increasingly, as composer. His versatility in all of these areas has resulted in well over 100 albums recorded under his own name and many more in support of other artists.

Early life[link]

Dick Hyman was trained classically by his mother's brother, the concert pianist Anton Rovinsky, a fixture of the pre-war art scene in New York, noted for having premiered some of Charles Ives's works, such as The Celestial Railroad in 1928.^[1] Hyman said of Rovinsky, "He was my most important teacher. I learned touch from him and a certain amount of repertoire, especially Beethoven. On my own I pursued Chopin. I loved his ability to take a melody and embellish it in different arbitrary ways, which is exactly what we do in jazz. Chopin would have been a terrific jazz pianist. His waltzes are in my improvising to this day."^[1][2] Dick's older brother, Arthur, introduced him to the music of Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Teddy Wilson, and others. By high school, he was playing in dance bands throughout Westchester County.

Hyman completed his freshman year at Columbia University, and in June 1945, he enlisted in the Army, transferred to the Navy, and began playing in the band department. When he returned to Columbia, he won an on-air piano competition, earning him 12 free lessons with Teddy Wilson, the great swing-era pianist who a decade earlier had broken the race barrier as a member of the Benny Goodman Trio. A few years later, Hyman himself became Goodman's pianist.^[3]

Jazz[link]

While developing a facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Hyman has also investigated ragtime and the earliest periods of jazz and has researched and recorded the piano music of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Zez Confrey, Eubie Blake and Fats Waller which he often features in his frequent recitals. Hyman recorded two highly regarded ragtime albums under the pseudonym "Knuckles O'Toole", and included two original compositions.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1960s, he was regularly seen on NBC-TV's weekly musical series Sing Along with Mitch. Other solo recordings include the music of Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Duke Ellington. He recorded as a member of the 'Dick Hyman Trio', including a 78 RPM hit called 'Baubles Bangles and Beads.' During the 1970s, he was also member of Soprano Summit.^{[citation needed]}

Hyman served as artistic director for the Jazz in July series at New York's 92nd Street Y for twenty years, a post from which he stepped down in 2004. (He was succeeded in that post by his cousin, Bill Charlap, a highly regarded jazz pianist.) He continues his Jazz Piano at the Y series as well as his post as jazz advisor to The Shedd Institute's Oregon Festival of American Music. In 1995, he was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society. Since then, he has received honorary doctorates from Wilkes University, Five Towns College, Hamilton College and the University of South Florida at Tampa, Florida.^{[citation needed]}

Hyman has had an extensive career in New York as a studio musician and won seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He acted as music director for such television programs as Benny Goodman's final appearance (on PBS) and for In Performance at the White House. For five years (1969–1974), he was the in-studio organist for the stunt game show Beat the Clock. He received an Emmy Award for his original score for Sunshine's on the Way, a daytime drama, and another for musical direction of a PBS Special on Eubie Blake. He continues to be a frequent guest performer with The Jim Cullum Jazz Band on the long-running public radio series Riverwalk Jazz, and has been heard on Terry Gross' Fresh Air. He has also collaborated with Ruby Braff extensively on recordings at Arbors Records.^{[citation needed]}

Dick Hyman's Century Of Jazz Piano, an encyclopedic series of solo performances, has been released on Arbors Records. Other new recordings include Thinking About Bix and E Pluribus Duo with Ken Peplowski.

Broadway[link]

He wrote the orchestrations for the Broadway burlesque review Sugar Babies.

Classical[link]

Hyman's concert compositions for orchestra include his Piano Concerto, Ragtime Fantasy, The Longest Blues in the World, and From Chama to Cumbres by Steam, a work for orchestra, jazz combo, and prerecorded railroad sounds. A cantata based on the autobiography of Mark Twain was premiered in 2004.^{[citation needed]}

Film work[link]

He has served as composer/arranger/conductor/pianist for the Woody Allen films Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Broadway Danny Rose, Stardust Memories, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Bullets Over Broadway, Everyone Says I Love You, Sweet and Lowdown, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Melinda and Melinda.

Other scores include: Moonstruck, Scott Joplin, The Lemon Sisters and Alan and Naomi. His music has also been heard in Mask, Billy Bathgate, Two Weeks Notice, and other films. He was music director of The Movie Music of Woody Allen, which premiered at the Hollywood Bowl.^[4]

Dance[link]

Hyman composed and performed the score for the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet Company's Piano Man, and Twyla Tharp's The Bum's Rush for the American Ballet Theater. He was the pianist/conductor/arranger in Tharp's Eight Jelly Rolls, Baker's Dozen, and The Bix Pieces and similarly arranged and performed for Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess, a choreographed production of the Dance Theater of Dallas. In 2007, his Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which had been commissioned by the John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts, and set by Toni Pimble of the Eugene Ballet, premiered in Eugene, Oregon.

Electronic/Pop[link]

In the 1960s, Hyman recorded several innovative pop albums on Enoch Light's Command Records. At first, he used the Lowrey organ, on the albums Electrodynamics, Fabulous, Keyboard Kaleidoscope and The Man From O.R.G.A.N. He later recorded several albums on the Moog synthesizer which mixed original compositions and cover versions, including Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman, and The Age of Electronicus. The former has now been reissued on CD by Varese Sarabande with some, but not all, of the tracks from The Age of Electronicus.^{[citation needed]}

The track "The Minotaur" from The Electric Eclectics charted in the US top-40,^[5] becoming the first Moog single hit (although, as originally released on 45, it was labeled as the B-side to the shorter "Topless Dancers of Corfu"). Some elements from the track "The Moog And Me" (most notably the whistle that serves as the song's lead-in) on the same album were sampled by Beck for the track "Sissyneck" on his 1996 album Odelay.

Discography[link]

As leader[link]

• 1969 - MOOG: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman (Command Records)
• 1969 - The Age of Electronicus (Command Records)
• 1981 - Live At Michael's Pub (JazzMania) with Roger Kellaway
• 1988 - 14 Piano Favourites (Music & Arts)
• 1990 - Music Of 1937 (Concord)
• 1990 - Stride Piano Summit (Milestone) with Harry Sweets Edison, Jay McShann, Red Callender
• 1990 - Plays Duke Ellington (Reference)
• 1993 - Concord Duo Series, Vol. 6 (Concord) with Ralph Sutton
• 1995 - Elegies, Mostly (Gemini) with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
• 1995 - Cheek To Cheek (Arbors)
• 1998 - Dick & Derek At The Movies (Arbors) with Derek Smith
• 2001 - Forgotten Dreams (Arbors) with John Sheridan
• 2003 - A Night At The Cookery-1973 (JRB Records CD-3007)

As sideman[link]

With Ruby Braff

• You Brought a New Kind of Love (Arbors Records)

With Evan Christopher

• Delta Bound featuring Dick Hyman (Arbors Records)

With Howard Alden

• Howard Alden Plays the Music of Harry Reser (Stomp Off Records 1989)

References[link]

External links[link]

radio interview with Doug Miles WSLR

Steve Gadd
Gadd in 2007
Background information
Birth name	Stephen Kendall Gadd
Born	(1945-04-09) April 9, 1945 (age 67) Irondequoit, New York, United States
Genres	Jazz, post-bop, jazz fusion rock music, blues, R&B
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Drums, percussion
Years active	1968-present
Website	www.drstevegadd.com

Steve Gadd (born April 9, 1945^[1] in Irondequoit, New York) is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with popular musicians from a wide range of genres.

Biography[link]

Gadd is a native of Irondequoit, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York. When he was seven years old, his uncle, who was a drummer in the US army, encouraged him to take drum lessons. By the age of eleven he had sat in with Dizzy Gillespie.

After graduating from Irondequoit's Eastridge High School, he attended the Manhattan School of Music for two years before transferring to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, playing in wind ensembles and concert bands. After Gadd finished college in the late 1960s, he played regularly with Chuck Mangione and his brother Gap Mangione. His first recording was on Gap Mangione's debut solo album, Diana in the Autumn Wind (1968).

Gadd was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent three years as a drummer in the Army Music Program, most of which was spent with the Jazz Ambassadors of the U.S. Army Field Band in Ft. Meade, MD. While living in the Washington DC area, he briefly took lessons from the noted jazz drummer, Michael S. Smith. Following his military service, Gadd played and worked with a band in Rochester. In 1972, Gadd formed a trio with Tony Levin and Mike Holmes, traveling to New York with them. The trio eventually broke up, but Gadd began to work mainly as a studio musician. Gadd also played with Chick Corea's Return to Forever but left the group.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he toured internationally, and recorded with Paul Simon and also with Al Di Meola's Electric Rendezvous Band. In response to confusion over another drummer by the same name, Gadd, while on his We're on a Mission from Gadd tour in 2005, told fans that was not him. Gadd said, "I've never met the other Steve Gadd. We happened to stay in the same hotel once, though. I kept getting his messages and apparently he was getting mine."

In 1976, Gadd and other session musicians in New York City, including Richard Tee, Eric Gale and Cornell Dupree, formed the group Stuff. Their work included appearances on NBC's Saturday Night Live, both performing on their own and backing Joe Cocker.

By the end of the 1970s, Steve Gadd was an accomplished drummer, with transcriptions of his drum solos on sale in Japan. Chick Corea once commented, "Every drummer wants to play like Gadd because he plays perfect ... He has brought orchestral and compositional thinking to the drum kit while at the same time having a great imagination and a great ability to swing."^[2]

In 2005, along with Abraham Laboriel, Patrice Rushen and others, Gadd was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music for outstanding contributions to contemporary music.^[3][4]

The song "A Little Green Rosetta" from the Frank Zappa album Joe's Garage lampoons Steve Gadd's status as one of the highest paid session drummers in popular music.^{[citation needed]}

Session work[link]

A short list of musicians with whom Gadd has worked include Kate Bush, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Steely Dan, Al Jarreau, Joe Cocker, Stuff, Bob James, Chick Corea, Eric Clapton, Pino Daniele, James Taylor, Jim Croce, Eddie Gomez, The Manhattan Transfer, Michal Urbaniak, Steps Ahead, Al Di Meola, Manhattan Jazz Quintet, Carly Simon, Richard Tee, Jon Bon Jovi, Chet Baker, Paul Desmond, The Bee Gees, Michael McDonald, and David Sanborn.

1970s[link]

In 1975, Gadd played drums on "The Hustle" by Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony. That same year, he also played the recognizable drum intro and beat behind Paul Simon's hit, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Gadd demonstrated the strengths in his work on the title track of Steely Dan's Aja album – highlighted by Gadd's drum punctuation in the coda of the title cut. Corea's straight-ahead jazz albums Friends and Three Quartets, as well as Jim Hall's 1975 album Concierto are some more examples of Gadd's jazz playing. In 1979, Gadd performed a drum solo on Carly Simon's "SPY" LP.

1980s[link]

In 1981, Gadd played in the famous Simon & Garfunkel's Concert in Central Park. He was a featured performer and actor in the 1980 motion picture One Trick Pony starring Paul Simon. Simon's hit "Late in the Evening" was the movie's main title in which Gadd implemented the "Mozambique", a Cuban dance rhythm, into the song.

1990s[link]

Gadd recorded and toured with Eric Clapton in 1994/1996 and again from 1997 to 2004. 1997 also saw him on a world tour in a trio with the French jazz great Michel Petrucciani and his Paul Simon band colleague, bassist Anthony Jackson (captured on the "Trio in Tokyo" CD and "Live in Stuttgart" DVD/VHS).

2000s[link]

In 2009, Gadd returned to Clapton's band to play 11 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and was part of Clapton's touring band throughout May 2009.

Also in 2009, Gadd reunited with his band from 1973, "L'Image", featuring Mike Mainieri, Warren Bernhardt, David Spinozza and Tony Levin. The group performed at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City, toured Japan, and released the album "L'Image 2.0".

2010s[link]

Played next to Eric Clapton at Crossroads show. In 2011, Gadd worked with Kate Bush on her "50 Words for Snow" album. Kate Bush was interviewed by Jamie Cullum and told him that she had wanted to work with Steve Gadd for a long time but had not had the courage to approach him. She described Steve Gadd as "a sweet person, really down to earth" and said that "his interpretation of music is so sophisticated". She said she loved working with him and that there was a real chemistry that started to click in.

Equipment[link]

Steve Gadd uses Yamaha drums, which he has played since 1976. He has recently changed his gear to a setup consisting of "Birch Custom Absolute" toms and a maple bass drum. He also uses a chrome Yamaha Recording Custom Steel Shell snare drum.

He has been asked to contribute his ideas to develop his own signature series Zildjian K Custom Session cymbals.

Gadd also has Vic Firth sticks with his signature on them. The drumsticks are a very light, thin kind, black in color, and normal "wood color" on the tips. There is also an identical model with nylon tips. The stick is also slightly shorter than the American Classic 5A, and features a barrel tip for improved recording sound. It is 15+³⁄₄ in (40.0 cm) long and the diameter is .550 in (1.40 cm). Along with having his own signature stick, he also has his own signature brushes. These brushes are intended to solve the problem of wire brushes snagging on new coated drumheads by slightly angling the wires in the top 3/4” (1.9 cm) of the playing end. The wires glide across the head, allowing a smoother sweep and a velvet swish sound.

Gadd uses a variety of Remo heads: a coated Powerstroke 3 on the batter side of the snare, coated Pinstripes or coated Ambassadors on the batter sides of toms, and clear Ambassadors for the resonant sides. He uses a Pinstripe on the bass drum.^[5][6]

Discography[link]

As Steve Gadd & Friends

• Live At Voce - Deluxe Edition (2010) [BFM Jazz]

As Steve Gadd/ with the Gadd Gang:

• Gadd About (1984)
• The Gadd Gang (1986)
• Pigs and Wizards (1987)
• Here & Now (1988)
• Live at Bottom Line (1988)
• Gadd Gang (1991)

With Stuff:

• Stuff (1976)
• Stuff It (1978)
• Live Stuff (1978)
• Live In New York (1980)
• East (1981)
• Best Stuff (1981)

With Patti Austin:

• End of a Rainbow (CTI, 1976)

With B.B. King:

• Riding with the King

With Chick Corea:

• My Spanish Heart
• Friends
• Three Quartets
• The Leprechaun
• The Mad Hatter
• Rendezvous in New York
• The Ultimate Adventure
• (the unreleased version of Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy)

With Steely Dan:

• Aja on (title track)
• Gaucho on ("Glamour Profession", "My Rival", "Third World Man", the title track and 'percussion' on "Hey Nineteen")

With Simon and Garfunkel:

• The Concert in Central Park

With The Manhattan Transfer:

• Mecca for Moderns
• Pastiche

With Paul Simon:

• One-Trick Pony
• Still Crazy After All These Years (50 Ways To Leave Your Lover)
• Hearts and Bones
• You're the One
• Paul Simon's Concert in the Park, August 15, 1991
• Surprise
• Late in the Evening

With Steps Ahead:

• Smokin' in the Pit

With George Benson:

• Bad Benson
• Pacific Fire
• GB
• In Your Eyes
• Livin' Inside Your Love
• Good King Bad (CTI, 1975)
• In Concert-Carnegie Hall (CTI, 1975)

With Joe Brucato:

• Free (2007)
• Acoustic Joe Vol. 1 (2009)
• Thank You Soldier (2010)

With Eric Clapton:

• Live at Hyde Park (DVD)
• Pilgrim
• Reptile
• Riding with the King
• One More Car, One More Rider
• Me and Mr. Johnson
• Sessions for Robert J.
• Crossroads Guitar Festival 2004
• Back Home
• Clapton Chronicles

With James Brown:

• Black Caesar

With Art Farmer

• Crawl Space (CTI, 1977)
• Big Blues (CTI, 1978) with Jim Hall
• Yama with Joe Henderson (CTI, 1979)

With Milt Jackson:

• Goodbye (CTI, 1973)

With Hubert Laws:

• In the Beginning (CTI, 1974)
• The Chicago Theme (CTI, 1974)

With Yusef Lateef:

• In a Temple Garden (CTI, 1979)

With Jackie and Roy:

• A Wilder Alias (CTI, 1973)

With Al Jarreau:

• Tenderness
• Breakin' Away
• Jarreau
• This Time

With Rickie Lee Jones:

• Rickie Lee Jones
• Pirates
• Magazine

With Paul McCartney:

• Tug Of War
• Pipes Of Peace

With Chuck Mangione:

• Disguise
• Tarantella
• Main Squeeze
• Land of Make Believe
• Alive
• Together
• Friends And Love

With Michel Petrucciani:

• Trio in Tokyo
• Both Worlds

With Al Di Meola:

• Casino
• Elegant Gypsy
• Orange and Blue
• Tour de Force Live
• Electric Rendezvous
• Splendido Hotel
• Land of the Midnight Sun
• Consequence of Chaos

With Lee Ritenour:

• Feel the Night
• Captains Journey
• Friendship

With Bob James

• BJ4 (1977)
• Touchdown (1978)
• Lucky Seven (1979) (Tracks "Rush Hour" and "Blue Lick")

With Michel Jonasz:

• Michel Jonasz au Zénith (1993)
• Où vont les rêves (2002)

With Sunlightsquare:

• Urban Sessions (2006)

With Weather Report

• Mr Gone (1978) (Tracks "Young and Fine" and "And Then")

With Funk Factory

• Funk Factory (1975) (Tracks "Watusi Dance", "Rien Ne Va Plus", "Funk It" and "Lilliput")

With Lalo Schifrin

• Towering Toccata (CTI, 1976)

With Jeremy Steig

• Firefly (CTI, 1977)

With James Taylor

• New Moon Shine, 1991
• October Road, 2002^[7]
• James Taylor: A Christmas Album, 2006^[7]
• Covers, 2008
• Other Covers, 2009

With Art Garfunkel

• Some Enchanted Evening, 2007^[7]
• Songs from a Parent to a Child, 1997^[7]

With L'Image

• L'Image 2.0, 2009

With Lesley Meguid

• The Truth About Love Songs, 2010

With Chet Baker

• She Was Too Good to Me, 1974

With Don Sebesky

• The Rape of El Morro (CTI, 1975)

With Masahiko Satoh

• Amorphism, 1985

With Kate Bush:

• Director's Cut, 2011
• 50 Words for Snow, 2011

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gadd's official website
• Steve Gadd at Drummerworld - contains video and sound clips.
• Steve Gadd page on The Party Of The Century project - contains video and sound clips.
• Steve Gadd at OnlineDrummer - contains video clips.
• Steve Gadd at BehindTheDrums - contains discography and equipment list.
• BFM Jazz

Dizzy Gillespie
Gillespie in concert, Deauville, Normandy, France
Background information
Birth name	John Birks Gillespie
Born	(1917-10-21)October 21, 1917 Cheraw, South Carolina, U.S.
Died	January 6, 1993(1993-01-06) (aged 75) Englewood, New Jersey, U.S.
Genres	Bebop Afro-Cuban jazz
Occupations	Trumpeter, bandleader, singer, composer
Instruments	Trumpet, piano, trombone
Years active	1935–1993
Labels	Pablo Records, Verve Records, Savoy Records, RCA Victor Records, Milan Records, Douglas Records
Associated acts	Charlie Parker Cab Calloway Bud Powell

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( /ɡɨˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and, occasionally, singer.^[1]

Allmusic's Scott Yanow wrote, "Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up copying Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis's emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated . . . Arguably Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time."^[2]

Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge^[3] but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop.

In the 1940s Gillespie, together with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz.^[4] He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Jon Faddis^[5] and Chuck Mangione.^[6]

Biography[link]

Early life and career[link]

Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron, Hank Jones, Mary Lou Williams and Milt Orent in 1947

Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children of James and Lottie Gillespie. James was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to Dizzy. He started to play the piano at the age of four. Dizzy's father died when the boy was only ten years old. Dizzy taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve. From the night he heard his idol, Roy Eldridge, play on the radio, he dreamed of becoming a jazz musician.^[7] He received a music scholarship to the Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, North Carolina, which he attended for two years before accompanying his family when they moved to Philadelphia.^[8]

Dizzy's first professional job was with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and Teddy Hill, essentially replacing Roy Eldridge as first trumpet in 1937. Teddy Hill’s band was where Dizzy Gillespie made his first recording, King Porter Stomp. At this time, Dizzy met a young woman named Lorraine from the Apollo Theatre, whom he married in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1993. Dizzy stayed with Teddy Hill’s band for a year, then left and free-lanced with numerous other bands.^[5] In 1939, Dizzy joined Cab Calloway's orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental Pickin' the Cabbage, in 1940. (Originally released on Paradiddle, a 78rpm backed with a co-composition with Cozy Cole, Calloway's drummer at the time, on the Vocalion label, #5467).

Tadd Dameron, Mary Lou Williams and Dizzy Gillespie in 1947

Dizzy was fired by Calloway in late 1941, after a notorious altercation between the two. The incident is recounted by Dizzy, along with fellow Calloway band members Milt Hinton and Jonah Jones, in Jean Bach's 1997 film, The Spitball Story. Calloway did not approve of Dizzy's mischievous humor, nor of his adventuresome approach to soloing; according to Jones, Calloway referred to it as “Chinese music.” During one performance, Calloway saw a spitball land on the stage, and accused Dizzy of having thrown it. Dizzy denied it, and the ensuing argument led to Calloway striking Dizzy, who then pulled out a switchblade knife and charged Calloway. The two were separated by other band members, during which scuffle Calloway was cut on the hand.

During his time in Calloway's band, Dizzy Gillespie started writing big band music for bandleaders like Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey.^[5] He then freelanced with a few bands - most notably Ella Fitzgerald's orchestra, composed of members of the late Chick Webb's band, in 1942.

In 1943, Dizzy joined the Earl Hines band. Composer Gunther Schuller said:

... In 1943 I heard the great Earl Hines band which had Bird in it and all those other great musicians. They were playing all the flatted fifth chords and all the modern harmonies and substitutions and Dizzy Gillespie runs in the trumpet section work. Two years later I read that that was 'bop' and the beginning of modern jazz ... but the band never made recordings.^[9]

Gillespie said of the Hines band, "People talk about the Hines band being 'the incubator of bop' and the leading exponents of that music ended up in the Hines band. But people also have the erroneous impression that the music was new. It was not. The music evolved from what went before. It was the same basic music. The difference was in how you got from here to here to here ... naturally each age has got its own shit".^[10]

Next, Gillespie joined Billy Eckstine's (Earl Hines' long-time collaborator) big band and it was as a member of Eckstine's band that he was reunited with Charlie Parker, a fellow member of Hines's band. In 1945, Dizzy left Eckstine's band because he wanted to play with a small combo. A "small combo" typically comprised no more than five musicians, playing the trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass and drums.

The rise of bebop[link]

Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson and Timmie Rosenkrantz in September 1947, New York

Bebop was known as the first modern jazz style. However, it was unpopular in the beginning and was not viewed as positively as swing music was. Bebop was seen as an outgrowth of swing, not a revolution. Swing introduced a diversity of new musicians in the bebop era like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Oscar Pettiford, and Gillespie. Through these musicians, a new vocabulary of musical phrases was created.^[11] With Charlie Parker, Gillespie jammed at famous jazz clubs like Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House. Charlie Parker's system also held methods of adding chords to existing chord progressions and implying additional chords within the improvised lines.^[11]

Gillespie compositions like "Groovin' High", "Woody n' You" and "Salt Peanuts" sounded radically different, harmonically and rhythmically, from the swing music popular at the time. "A Night in Tunisia", written in 1942, while Gillespie was playing with Earl Hines' band, is noted for having a feature that is common in today's music, a non-walking bass line.^{[citation needed]} The song also displays Afro-Cuban rhythms.^[12] One of their first (and greatest) small-group performances together was only issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945. Gillespie taught many of the young musicians on 52nd Street, including Miles Davis and Max Roach, about the new style of jazz. After a lengthy gig at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, which left most of the audience ambivalent or hostile towards the new music, the band broke up. Unlike Parker, who was content to play in small groups and be an occasional featured soloist in big bands, Gillespie aimed to lead a big band himself; his first, unsuccessful, attempt to do this was in 1945.^{[citation needed]}

Gillespie with John Lewis, Cecil Payne, Miles Davis, and Ray Brown, between 1946 and 1948

After his work with Parker, Gillespie led other small combos (including ones with Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Lalo Schifrin, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, James Moody, J.J. Johnson, and Yusef Lateef) and finally put together his first successful big band. Dizzy Gillespie and his band tried to popularize bop and make Dizzy Gillespie a symbol of the new music.^[13] He also appeared frequently as a soloist with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. He also headlined the 1946 independently-produced musical revue film Jivin' in Be-Bop.^[14]

In 1948 Dizzy was involved in a traffic accident when the bicycle he was riding was bumped by an automobile. He was slightly injured, and found that he could no longer hit the B-flat above high C. He won the case, but the jury awarded him only $1000, in view of his high earnings up to that point.^[15]

In 1956 he organized a band to go on a State Department tour of the Middle East which was extremely well received internationally and earned him the nickname "the Ambassador of Jazz".^[16][17] During this time, he also continued to lead a big band that performed throughout the United States and featured musicians including Pee Wee Moore and others. This band recorded a live album at the 1957 Newport jazz festival that featured Mary Lou Williams as a guest artist on piano.

Afro-Cuban music[link]

Miriam Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie in concert, Deauville (Normandy, France), July 20, 1991.

In the late 1940s, Gillespie was also involved in the movement called Afro-Cuban music, bringing Afro-Latin American music and elements to greater prominence in jazz and even pop music, particularly salsa. Afro-Cuban jazz is based on traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms. Dizzy Gillespie was introduced to Chano Pozo in 1947 by Mario Bauza, a Latin jazz trumpet player. Chano Pozo became Gillespie's conga drummer for his band. Dizzy Gilespie also worked with Mario Bauza in New York jazz clubs on 52nd Street and several famous dance clubs such as Palladium and the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They played together in the Chick Webb band and Cab Calloway's band, where Gillespie and Bauza became life-long friends. Dizzy helped develop and mature the Afro-Cuban jazz style.^[18]

Afro-Cuban jazz was considered bebop-oriented, and some musicians classified it as a modern style. Afro-Cuban jazz was successful because it never decreased in popularity and it always attracted people to dance to its unique rhythms.^[18] Gillespie's most famous contributions to Afro-Cuban music are the compositions "Manteca" and "Tin Tin Deo" (both co-written with Chano Pozo); he was responsible for commissioning George Russell's "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop", which featured the great but ill-fated Cuban conga player, Chano Pozo. In 1977, Gillespie discovered Arturo Sandoval while researching music during a tour of Cuba.