Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie came from Cherow, South Carolina. He was born on October 21, 1917. In all phases of his life he had appeared to be many years younger than he actually was.
In 1937, Diz took over Roy Eldridge's chair in Teddy Hill's band. Roy was Dizzy's great model. The Hill band had grown out of the Luis Russell orchestra, and Russell himself had taken over the King Oliver band in 1929. Thus, the jazz genealogy from Dizzy back to King Oliver and Louis Armstrong is surprisingly short.
Dizzy Gillespie recorded, in mid-1937, just after becoming a member of Teddy Hill's band, Jelly Roll Morton's "King Porter Stomp."
Diz was successful from the moment he began to play. In Paris it was first noticed that his playing was different. A French drummer wrote at the time: "There is in the band of Teddy Hill a very young trumpeter who promises much. It is a pity that he has no opportunity to make recordings here. He is - along with trombonist Dickie Wells - by far the most gifted musician in the band. His name is Dizzy Gillespie."
Diz says: "When I was growing up, all I wanted to play was Swing. Eldridge was my boy. All I ever did was try to play like him; but I never quite made it. I'd get all messed up because I couldn't get it. So I tried something else. That has developed into what became known as bop."
Dizzy was interested in Afro-Cuban rhythms. He played with musicians from the Cuban orchestra of Machito. In 1947 he added the Cuban drummer Chano Pozo to his band and thus brought a wealth of ancient West African rhythms and drum-patterns into modern jazz.
To the question of how the future of jazz would develop Gillespie answered: "Probably it will go back to where it all started from: a man beating a drum."

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