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{guh-les'-pee}
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, b. Cheraw, S.C., Oct.
21, 1917, d. Jan. 6, 1993, was a jazz trumpeter-composer-bandleader
most noted for creating BEBOP along with Charlie PARKER and
Thelonious MONK and for his unique trumpet, whose bell pointed
upward at a 45-degree angle. Early musical training from his
father led Gillespie to formal study and a long career in
jazz. He was one of Cab Calloway's featured soloists in the
early 1940s and played in several other prominent big bands,
including that of Earl HINES. A fine musician and a superb
technician, by 1945 he had helped evolve the complex and difficult
bop mode. One of the most popular of jazz artists from the
mid-1950s into the 1990s, Gillespie led his own groups in
tours throughout the world.
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