John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993). A signed photo of the revolutionary be-bop trumpet player, vocalist, and bandleader.
Born in Cheraw, SC, Dizzy studied harmony and theory at Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina. He played in Cab Calloway’s famed orchestra from 1939-1941. Later, he went on to lead his own Jazz bands and combos. After a pair of dancers fell onto his trumpet and bent its bell, Dizzy found he preferred the horn’s new tone and modified his later trumpets to suit. He was the first African American to make an overseas tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Gillespie’s playing was so complex that fellow artists were not able to replicate it until Jon Faddis did so in the 1970s.
Down Beat Magazine, America’s preeminent Jazz review since 1934, named Gillespie to their annual Hall of Fame according to its Readers’ Poll in 1960, and at right, presented Dizzy with these awards in 1972 and 1973 for the category of Trumpet in their “International Jazz Critics Poll.”