Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie就是对Bop爵士乐有最大贡献的人之一，Dizzy Gillespie 是 Be-bop爵士乐风的宗师，是拉丁爵士的创始者，是位兼具喇叭手、编曲、乐队经理及歌手等多重身分于一身的爵士乐界巨人，也是由于他和许多乐手的努力，使得爵士乐有传统的纽奥尔良风格以及摇摆乐之外，爵士乐也是可以有更多不同的前景。风趣的个性和特徵 鼓胀的双颊与向上倾斜 30度角的小号，是 Dizzy 的正字标记。吹奏时，经常很轻易的让两个脸颊会肿胀到像牛蛙一样。关于他的特殊乐器造型的故事是，1953年，在一次表演中，有个舞者不小心跌倒，意外地将 Dizzy的小号压弯了，Dizzy却神色从容地拿起弯曲的小号继续吹奏，他觉得这把小号的音色更优，之后他还特别订做一支这样独特造型的小喇叭。
 
家境清寒，父亲是个业余乐手。家中有九个孩子，父亲将不同的乐器介绍给每个孩子，他是最小的一个。12岁时他先学伸缩喇叭后才改学小喇叭。1935年，Gillespie 离开学校，来到费城加入Frank Fairfax乐团，别人开始用 Dizzy这个绰号称呼他。20岁时加入Teddy Hill的乐队，在Teddy Hill的乐队取代另一位小号手 Roy Eldridge 。21岁时加入Cab Calloway的大乐团，这个环境对他有很大的帮助。
 
在Cab Calloway的大乐团时有更多表现的机会，也在这个时候他对Afro-Cuban jazz有了兴趣。 他是个个性活泼乐观的人，在舞台上和私底下皆是如此。从大乐团起步 Dizzy 也和他那个时期的乐手一样是从大乐队开始的，也是由于这层关系让Dizzy得以有机会向Louis Armstrong及Roy Eldridge等前辈学习。1940年在堪萨斯城遇见Charlie Parker ，这是他的音乐生命中最关键的一件事。
 
1942年，Dizzy和Charlie Parker加入Earl Hines 的大乐队，这是第一个表演 BeBop的乐队，之后歌手 Billy Eckstine 跳出来自组乐队，Dizzy and Bird 加上Sarah Vaughan全部跟著转台。1944年，Dizzy 参加由 Coleman Hawkins 主导的演奏，此场音乐会使得 BeBop 乐风正式成形。1945年，Dizzy 终于有了自己的五重奏乐队，并且和 Charlie Parker 到处表演与录制唱片，他们的 BeBop新乐风在美国东岸受到大众的肯定与支持，模仿者到处都是，但他们去到美国西岸表演时，观众的反应却是十分冷淡。而吉莱斯皮并未心灰意冷，他重整旗鼓，建立起一支成功的乐队。这支乐队整整奋斗了四年，这是迪兹最成功的四年。
 
Dizzy Gillespie的贝雷帽，山羊胡子和波普眼镜是他的标志，这同时也是爵土乐的标志。从技巧上来说，Charlie Parker似乎更胜一筹，但是从影响力来看，Dizzy Gillespie无疑是最重要的。1948年至1949年期间，几乎所有摇摆乐时代的音乐家都开始尝试着演奏从前他们不屑一顾的波普爵士乐。一段时期内，各大唱片公司为将这种新的声音推向市场，成为一种风行的时尚，着实下了一番功夫。
 
然而当爵士乐跨入五十年代时，这种风行时尚的狂热宣告结束。迫于经济压力，不得已解散了他具有始创意义的大乐队，他偶尔也和Charlie Parker合作。1955年Charlie Parker去世。但是两位巨人的合作无疑是激动人心、令人难忘的，正是由于他们的努力和相互的促进开创了爵土乐的主流。后来，Dizzy Gillespie加盟爵士爱乐乐团，在参加巡回演出中，他有机会同好战的罗伊·埃尔德里奇在乐坛一决胜负。他曾领衔全明星音乐会与斯坦·格茨、索尼·罗林斯，索尼·斯蒂特同台演出。1951年他指挥了以科特兰和米尔特·杰克逊为主要乐手的小型爵士乐队。这些经历都大大丰富了Dizzy Gillespie的演艺生涯。1956年，在美国国务院的资助下，Dizzy Gillespie经授权组建一支大乐队，旨在参加海外巡演，宣传美国文化。这次巡回演出极为成功，于是一再延期，成为了一次真正的全球巡演，在近东，欧洲以及南美，到处都留下该乐队的足迹。演出整整持续了两年之久，直到1958年才结束。这支大乐队解散之后，Dizzy Gillespie再次拿起了指挥棒，指挥小型乐队。
 
整个六十年代，他的小型乐队成为了培养优秀青年音乐家的摇篮。Dizzy Gillespie雄风犹在，他定期参加爵士节的音乐家聚会，偶尔也指挥大乐队的演出。七十年代，Dizzy Gillespie和爵士巨人乐队一道巡回演出，年迈的他显得力不从心，小号演奏音色逐渐黯淡下来。技艺的下降使得他在八十年代的演奏显得古怪离奇。然而Dizzy Gillespie是个从不言败的人，他依然坚持全球演出，提携青年—代。在他人生的最后岁月，他担任了联合国交响乐队的指挥。直到1992年，七十五岁的他依旧活跃在乐坛。
 
by Scott Yanow
 
Dizzy Gillespies 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 emergence in the 1970s that Dizzys style was successfully recreated. Somehow, Gillespie could make any wrong note fit, and harmonically he was ahead of everyone in the 1940s, including Charlie Parker. Unlike Bird, Dizzy was an enthusiastic teacher who wrote down his musical innovations and was eager to explain them to the next generation, thereby insuring that bebop would eventually become the foundation of jazz.
 
Dizzy Gillespie was also one of the key founders of Afro-Cuban (or Latin) jazz, adding Chano Pozos conga to his orchestra in 1947, and utilizing complex poly-rhythms early on. The leader of two of the finest big bands in jazz history, Gillespie differed from many in the bop generation by being a masterful showman who could make his music seem both accessible and fun to the audience. With his puffed-out cheeks, bent trumpet (which occurred by accident in the early 50s when a dancer tripped over his horn), and quick wit, Dizzy was a colorful figure to watch. A natural comedian, Gillespie was also a superb scat singer and occasionally played Latin percussion for the fun of it, but it was his trumpet playing and leadership abilities that made him into a jazz giant.
 
The youngest of nine children, John Birks Gillespie taught himself trombone and then switched to trumpet when he was 12. He grew up in poverty, won a scholarship to an agricultural school (Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina), and then in 1935 dropped out of school to look for work as a musician. Inspired and initially greatly influenced by Roy Eldridge, Gillespie (who soon gained the nickname of Dizzy) joined Frankie Fairfaxs band in Philadelphia. In 1937, he became a member of Teddy Hills orchestra in a spot formerly filled by Eldridge. Dizzy made his recording debut on Hills rendition of King Porter Stomp and during his short period with the band toured Europe. After freelancing for a year, Gillespie joined Cab Calloways orchestra (1939-1941), recording frequently with the popular bandleader and taking many short solos that trace his development; Pickin the Cabbage finds Dizzy starting to emerge from Eldridges shadow. However, Calloway did not care for Gillespies constant chance-taking, calling his solos Chinese music. After an incident in 1941 when a spitball was mischievously thrown at Calloway (he accused Gillespie but the culprit was actually Jonah Jones), Dizzy was fired.
 
By then, Gillespie had already met Charlie Parker, who confirmed the validity of his musical search. During 1941-1943, Dizzy passed through many bands including those led by Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Fess Williams, Les Hite, Claude Hopkins, Lucky Millinder (with whom he recorded in 1942), and even Duke Ellington (for four weeks). Gillespie also contributed several advanced arrangements to such bands as Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, and Woody Herman; the latter advised him to give up his trumpet playing and stick to full-time arranging.
 
Dizzy ignored the advice, jammed at Mintons Playhouse and Monroes Uptown House where he tried out his new ideas, and in late 1942 joined Earl Hines big band. Charlie Parker was hired on tenor and the sadly unrecorded orchestra was the first orchestra to explore early bebop. By then, Gillespie had his style together and he wrote his most famous composition A Night in Tunisia. When Hines singer Billy Eckstine went on his own and formed a new bop big band, Diz and Bird (along with Sarah Vaughan) were among the members. Gillespie stayed long enough to record a few numbers with Eckstine in 1944 (most noticeably Opus X and Blowing the Blues Away). That year he also participated in a pair of Coleman Hawkins-led sessions that are often thought of as the first full-fledged bebop dates, highlighted by Dizzys composition Woodyn You.
 
1945 was the breakthrough year. Dizzy Gillespie, who had led earlier bands on 52nd Street, finally teamed up with Charlie Parker on records. Their recordings of such numbers as Salt Peanuts, Shaw Nuff, Groovin High, and Hot House confused swing fans who had never heard the advanced music as it was evolving; and Dizzys rendition of I Cant Get Started completely reworked the former Bunny Berigan hit. It would take two years for the often frantic but ultimately logical new style to start catching on as the mainstream of jazz. Gillespie led an unsuccessful big band in 1945 (a Southern tour finished it), and late in the year he traveled with Parker to the West Coast to play a lengthy gig at Billy Bergs club in L.A. Unfortunately, the audiences were not enthusiastic (other than local musicians) and Dizzy (without Parker) soon returned to New York.
 
The following year, Dizzy Gillespie put together a successful and influential orchestra which survived for nearly four memorable years. Manteca became a standard, the exciting Things to Come was futuristic, and Cubana Be/Cubana Bop featured Chano Pozo. With such sidemen as the future original members of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Milt Jackson, John Lewis, Ray Brown, and Kenny Clarke), James Moody, J.J. Johnson, Yusef Lateef, and even a young John Coltrane, Gillespies big band was a breeding ground for the new music. Dizzys beret, goatee, and bop glasses helped make him a symbol of the music and its most popular figure. During 1948-1949, nearly every former swing band was trying to play bop, and for a brief period the major record companies tried very hard to turn the music into a fad.
 
By 1950, the fad had ended and Gillespie was forced, due to economic pressures, to break up his groundbreaking orchestra. He had occasional (and always exciting) reunions with Charlie Parker (including a fabled Massey Hall concert in 1953) up until Birds death in 1955, toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic (where he had opportunities to battle the combative Roy Eldridge), headed all-star recording sessions (using Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt on some dates), and led combos that for a time in 1951 also featured Coltrane and Milt Jackson. In 1956, Gillespie was authorized to form a big band and play a tour overseas sponsored by the State Department. It was so successful that more traveling followed, including extensive tours to the Near East, Europe, and South America, and the band survived up to 1958. Among the young sidemen were Lee Morgan, Joe Gordon, Melba Liston, Al Grey, Billy Mitchell, Benny Golson, Ernie Henry, and Wynton Kelly; Quincy Jones (along with Golson and Liston) contributed some of the arrangements. After the orchestra broke up, Gillespie went back to leading small groups, featuring such sidemen in the 1960s as Junior Mance, Leo Wright, Lalo Schifrin, James Moody, and Kenny Barron. He retained his popularity, occasionally headed specially assembled big bands, and was a fixture at jazz festivals. In the early 70s, Gillespie toured with the Giants of Jazz and around that time his trumpet playing began to fade, a gradual decline that would make most of his 80s work quite erratic. However, Dizzy remained a world traveler, an inspiration and teacher to younger players, and during his last couple of years he was the leader of the United Nation Orchestra (featuring Paquito DRivera and Arturo Sandoval). He was active up until early 1992.
 
Dizzy Gillespies career was very well documented from 1945 on, particularly on Musicraft, Dial, and RCA in the 1940s; Verve in the 1950s; Philips and Limelight in the 1960s; and Pablo in later years.