John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (/ɡɪˈlɛspi/ gil-ESP-ee; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer.

[2] He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge[3] but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz.

His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality have made him an enduring icon.

[4] He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan,[5] Chuck Mangione,[6] and balladeer Johnny Hartman.

One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time, Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended up being similar to those of Miles Davis and Fats Navarro instead, and it was not until Jon Faddis's emergence in the 1970s that Dizzy's style was successfully recreated [....] Gillespie is remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time".

In August 1937 while gigging with Hayes in Washington D.C., Gillespie met a young dancer named Lorraine Willis who worked a Baltimore–Philadelphia–New York City circuit which included the Apollo Theater.

The incident is recounted by Gillespie and Calloway's band members Milt Hinton and Jonah Jones in Jean Bach's 1997 film, The Spitball Story.

Swing introduced a diversity of new musicians in the bebop era like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Oscar Pettiford, and Gillespie.

Gillespie compositions like "Groovin' High", "Woody 'n' You", and "Salt Peanuts" sounded radically different, harmonically and rhythmically, from the swing music popular at the time.

"A Night in Tunisia", written in 1942, while he was playing with Earl Hines's band, is noted for having a feature that is common in today's music: a syncopated bass line.

A concert by one of his small groups in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945, presented bebop to a broad audience; recordings of it were released in 2005.

Dizzy Gillespie and his Bebop Six, which included Parker, started an extended gig at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles in December 1945.

[26] After his work with Parker, Gillespie led other small combos (including ones with Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Lalo Schifrin, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, James Moody, J. J. Johnson, and Yusef Lateef) and put together his successful big bands starting in 1947.

He and his big bands, with arrangements provided by Tadd Dameron, Gil Fuller, and George Russell, popularized bebop and made him a symbol of the new music.

[27] His big bands of the late 1940s also featured Cuban rumberos Chano Pozo and Sabu Martinez, sparking interest in Afro-Cuban jazz.

[28][29][30] Gillespie and his Bebop Orchestra was the featured star of the 4th Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. On September 12, 1948.

The program description noted "the musicianship, inventive technique, and daring of this young man has created a new style, which can be defined as off the chord solo gymnastics."

Also performing that day were Frankie Laine, Little Miss Cornshucks, The Sweethearts of Rhythm, The Honeydrippers, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon, The Blenders, and The Sensations.

[35][36] In 1956 Gillespie organized a band to go on a State Department tour of the Middle East which was well-received internationally and earned him the nickname "the Ambassador of Jazz".

[37][38] During this time, he also continued to lead a big band that performed throughout the United States and featured musicians including Pee Wee Moore and others.

This band recorded a live album at the 1957 Newport jazz festival that featured Mary Lou Williams as a guest artist on piano.

The line-up included Jon Faddis, James Moody, Paquito D'Rivera, and the Mike Longo Trio with Ben Brown on bass and Mickey Roker on drums.

"[46] A longtime resident of Englewood, New Jersey,[47] Gillespie died of pancreatic cancer on January 6, 1993, at the age of 75 and was buried in Flushing Cemetery, Queens, New York City.

Released the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis, it uses audio from an improvised conversation between the two debating the causes of accidents and the possibility of accidentally launching nuclear weapons.

[68] A concert in honor of his 75th birthday was held in New York City's Carnegie Hall, 26 November 1992, in conjunction with the second Baha'i world congress, however, he was too ill to personally attend.

[64] The Rough Guide to Jazz describes his musical style: The whole essence of a Gillespie solo was cliff-hanging suspense: the phrases and the angle of the approach were perpetually varied, breakneck runs were followed by pauses, by huge interval leaps, by long, immensely high notes, by slurs and smears and bluesy phrases; he always took listeners by surprise, always shocking them with a new thought.

But with his endlessly funny asides, his huge variety of facial expressions and his natural comic gifts, he was as much a pure entertainer as an accomplished artist.

All the musicians respected him because, in addition to outplaying everyone, he knew so much and was so generous with that knowledge...[80]Gillespie's trademark trumpet featured a bell which bent upward at a 45-degree angle rather than pointing straight ahead as in the conventional design.

[82][83] In April 1995, Gillespie's Martin trumpet was auctioned at Christie's in New York City with instruments used by Coleman Hawkins, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis Presley.

[93] He was honored on December 31, 2006 in A Jazz New Year's Eve: Freddy Cole & the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.