A Night in Tunisia

"A Night in Tunisia" or "Night in Tunisia" is a musical composition written by Dizzy Gillespie circa 1941-2 while Gillespie was playing with the Benny Carter Band. It has become a jazz standard.

It is also known as "Interlude", under which title it was recorded (with lyrics) by Sarah Vaughan (from the EP "Hot Jazz", 1953) and Anita O'Day. Gillespie himself called the tune "Interlude" and says "some genius decided to call it 'Night in Tunisia'". It appears as the title track of 30 CDs and is included in over 500 currently available CDs. In January 2004, The Recording Academy added the Dizzy Gillespie & his Sextet’s 1946 Victor recording to its Grammy Hall of Fame.

"Night in Tunisia" was one of the signature pieces of Gillespie's bebop big band, and he also played it with his small groups.

Gillespie said the tune was composed at the piano at Kelly's Stables in New York. Strangely, on his live album A Night at Birdland Vol. 1, Art Blakey introduces his cover version with this statement: "At this time we'd like to play a tune [that] was written by the famous Dizzy Gillespie. I feel rather close to this tune because I was right there when he composed it in Texas on the bottom of a garbage can." The audience laughs, but Blakey responds, "Seriously." The liner notes say, "The Texas department of sanitation can take a low bow."

Tunisia

Tunisia (Arabic: تونس‎  Tūnis; Berber: ⵜⵓⵏⴻⵙ), officially the Tunisian Republic or the Republic of Tunisia (Arabic: الجمهورية التونسية‎  al-Jumhūrīya at-Tūnisīya; Berber: ⵜⴰⴳⴷⵓⴷⴰ ⵏ ⵜⵓⵏⴻⵙ) is the northernmost country in Africa, covering 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 sq mi). Its northernmost point, Ras ben Sakka, is the northernmost point on the African continent. It is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. As of 2013, its population is estimated at just under 10.8 million. Its name is derived from its capital city, Tunis, which is located on the country's northeast coast.

Geographically, Tunisia contains the eastern end of the Atlas Mountains and the northern reaches of the Sahara desert. Much of the rest of the country's land is fertile soil. Its 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) of coastline includes the African conjunction of the western and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Basin and, by means of the Sicilian Strait and Sardinian Channel, features the African mainland's second and third nearest points to Europe after Gibraltar.