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biography
| name: |
Gillespie, Dizzy
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popular name of John Birks Gillespie
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pronunciation:
[gilespee]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1917–93)
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| biography:
| Jazz trumpeter and composer, born in Cheraw, South Carolina, USA. He worked in prominent swing bands (1937–44), including those of Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet. As a bandleader, often with Charlie Parker on saxophone, he developed the music known as bebop, with dissonant harmonies and polyrhythms, a reaction to swing. His own big band (1946–50) was his masterpiece, affording him scope as both soloist and showman. He was immediately recognizable from the unusual shape of his trumpet, with the bell tilted upwards at an angle of 45° - the result of someone accidentally sitting on it in 1953, but to good effect, for when he played it afterwards he discovered that the new shape improved the sound quality, and he had it incorporated into all his trumpets thereafter. His memoirs To Be or Not to Bop (with Al Fraser) appeared in 1979. |
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