Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie was the showman of bebop and, just as importantly, its teacher. Where Charlie Parker was instinct, Gillespie was instinct plus a clear head for how it all worked. He could explain the new harmony, write it down, lead a band through it. Bebop needed both men, and Dizzy was the one who could organize the revolution.

His trumpet playing was dazzling – high, fast, and harmonically fearless, with a sense of humor running through it. The image is unforgettable: the cheeks ballooning out like a bullfrog, the trumpet bell bent up at a 45-degree angle (the result of an accident he decided he liked). Behind the clowning was one of the most sophisticated musicians of the century.

He also opened a door no one else did. Fascinated by Afro-Cuban rhythm, Gillespie brought the conga player Chano Pozo into his big band and helped invent Latin jazz, a fusion still going strong today. He heard connections across the whole Black Atlantic and put them into the music.

And he lasted. Where bebop chewed up so many of its founders, Gillespie kept working for fifty years, an ambassador for the music, generous with younger players, funny to the end. He carried the revolution into old age and never let it calcify.