Gillespie, Dizzy (John Birks) 1917-93
US jazz trumpeter, composer and bandleader

He was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, and studied musical theory and harmony at Laurinburg Institute, North Carolina. He began his career in swing bands led by Teddy Hill, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet. Along with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and others, he was involved in informal jam session experiments in New York that produced the bebop style in the 1940s. In 1945 Gillespie formed the first of his several big bands working in the new idiom, and in 1956 he led an orchestra on two international tours as cultural missions for the US State Department. Although Gillespie worked intermittently with large orchestras, he is best known as a leader of small combos and as a virtuoso who extended the working range of the trumpet.

Bibliography: Tony Gentry, Dizzy Gillespie: Musician (1991)