Thanks to Google's homepage artwork, I find that today is Dizzy Gillespie's birthday. Here are a few glimpses of him, from youtube. First, one of the first Diz tracks I ever listened to: Long Long Summer, by Lalo Schifrin, Argentine composer/arranger and Diz's pianist for several stretches in the early 60s and the 70s. Live in 1962 (see below the embedded video for details). Nice montage of B&W stills and album covers in the youtube video.
This version is live from "Dizzy on the French Riviera" (and apparently on a budget Compact Jazz compilation as well). I'm not certain whether it was this live track, or a May 1962 version recorded in New York, also for Phillips, that I listened to (borrowed from the Dartmouth College music department library) in high school. This live version is from a Verve reissue "Dizzy on the French Riviera", of the Phillips LP "Dizzy on the Riviera", recorded at a jazz festival at Juan les Pins, July 24, 1962. I'm guessing this is a bonus track for the CD as the discography at the end of Dizzy's fantastic memoirs "To Be or not to Bop" doesn't list the track as on the original LP. Besides Diz on trumpet, the Juan les Pins concert featured Leo Wright on alto sax, Lalo Schifrin, piano, Chris White on bass, Rudy Collins on drums, and Pepito Riestria on additional percussion, and Elec Bacsik (not heard on this track) on guitar. (There's a possibility that the New York date is the source of this bonus track, or that the two albums were combined for the CD. I'll find out when it arrives in the mail.)
Very nicely structured solo from Diz on this, showing his increasingly bluesy bent that developed through the 50s and early 60s, and a few of the complex fast passages that were a trademark as he and others pioneeered bebop in the 1940s. Dizzy's in total command of the horn here, getting a brassy, golden, slightly blaring tone when he wants to, a more suave and neutral tone in some fast legato passages that reminds one of Miles Davis on open horn (of course we know who was a key influence on Miles!), or a slightly more brittle and very agile tone in complex bebopish passagework. He's also in total command of the structure of the solo, making his phrases respond to and build on each other, telling a story, getting into slightly different bags as he goes along. His solo's followed by an ensemble interlude after which he repeats a beautifully played latin riff, reminding us that he was one of the most important --- probably the most important --- forces bringing latin rhythms into jazz, and probably also in bringing bebop into latin music.
Next, one of a couple of tracks that got me to understand bebop, again early in high school, is the 1950 Bloomdido from a Charlier Parker / Dizzy Gillespie reunion "Bird and Diz" on Verve. Parker, who Gillespie sometimes referred to as "the other half of my heartbeat", and Gillespie were the star soloists as bebop developed in the 1940s, and their collaboration, as well as the work of each with his own groups, was a major force in creating this music. I first came to dig Parker on the blues Parker's Mood (which I knew through the best alternate take, from the Charlie Parker Memorial Album, which is as great as but different from the master take), but the blues is easier to get into than fast bebop. Bloomdido bridged the gap for me. Again, a nice photomontage for the vid.
Parker, Gillespie, and pianist Thelonious Monk are masterful on this. Amazingly inventive phrasing, well-structured solos. Critics often lament that the drummer on this is the "rhythmically inappropriate" Buddy Rich rather than a bop drummer like Max Roach, but it doesn't seem to bother the soloists one bit on this track. I'd even say that his somewhat more foursquare, slightly less swinging beat here might help drive the soloists to some taut, edgy, quick-thinking statements. Getting away from the setting you're most comfortable in can spark invention, if you can handle it, and it goes without saying that these guys could. And inventions's not in short supply here. The Verve reissue contains alternate versions of this and other tracks that are strongly recommended; the solos are different and usually just as good as on the issued versions. This is some of the world's greatest music by any standard.
Finally, a great Youtube find; this is what they looked and sounded like in action: Gillespie, Parker, Dick" Hyman on piano, Sandy Block on bass, play Tadd Dameron's bop classic "Hothouse" on television in 1952: