The Ambassador of Jazz!
Famous for his pouched cheeks and together with Charlie Parker having invented Bebop, Dizzy Gillespie was a jazz legend.
Up there with Miles Davis and Louie Armstrong in the world of famous Trumpeters, Dizzie’s hero was Roy Eldridge, a skilled Trumpet player whose improvisational style Mr. Gillespie would develop with more complex harmony and rhythms.
Unlike Charlie Parker, Dizzy lived a relatively long life, recording, touring the world, and teaching his style to, among others, Miles Davis.
Being extremely active he would work with pretty much every famous player in the business, spreading his music worldwide.
During a 1956 tour of the Middle East, his influence worldwide had gotten so great he earned the nickname the Ambassador of Jazz.
Dizzy Gillespie’s most famous composition is A Night In Tunisia. As a session player, his most notable solo was on Stevie Wonder‘s Do I Do in 1982.
However, these are only two cherry-picked examples, Dizzy Gillespie’s back catalog is enormous. Check it out here: List of works by Dizzie Gillespie.
Dizzy Gillespie tunes | Related pages
A Night In Tunisia
||: Eb7 | Dm7 | Eb7 | Dm7 |
| Eb7 | Dm7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 :||
| Am7b5 | D7b9 | Gm6 D7b9 | Gm6 |
Summertime
| Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C | Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C |
Summertime, and the living is easy.
| Ebm7 Gb | Ebm7 Ebm7/Db | F7b9/C Gb7 | F7 |
Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high.
Dizzy Gillespie on the web
