Dizzy Gillespie, known for his “swollen” cheeks and signature (uniquely angled) trumpet’s bell, got his start in the mid-1930s by working in prominent swing bands, including those of Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet. He later created his own band and developed his own signature style, known as “bebop,” and worked with musical greats like Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Earl Hines, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. Gillespie’s best-known compositions include “Oop Bob Sh’ Bam,” “Groovin’ High,” “Salt Peanuts,” “A Night in Tunisia” and “Johnny Come Lately.” Today, he is considered one of the most influential figures of jazz and bebop.
Famed jazz trumpeter and composer Dizzy Gillespie was born John Birks Gillespie on October 21, 1917, in Cheraw, South Carolina. He would go on to become one of the most recognizable faces of jazz music, with his “swollen” cheeks and signature trumpet’s bell, as well as one of the most influential figures of jazz and bebop.
When he was 18 years old, Gillespie moved with his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He joined the Frankie Fairfax Orchestra not long after, and then relocated to New York City, where he performed with Teddy Hill and Edgar Hayes in the late 1930s. Gillespie went on to join Calloway’s band in 1939, with whom he recorded “Pickin’ the Cabbage”—one of Gillespie’s first compositions and regarded by some in the jazz world as his first attempt to bring a Latin influence into his work.