SHORT TAKES : Dizzy Has ‘Em in Moscow Aisles

Dizzy Gillespie treated a Moscow audience Thursday night to nearly three hours of the finest American jazz in his first Soviet appearance ever and was rewarded with bouquets after nearly every number.

The 72-year-old trumpeter, born John Birks Gillespie the year of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, said he had always dreamed of playing in the Soviet Union but never had the chance.

“This happens to be the culmination of all my expectations,” Gillespie told the audience at the Rossiya Hotel concert hall.

Muscovites packed the 2,500 seats of the hall, spilled out into the aisles and along the walls and crowded in front of the stage to hear the American jazz master with the trademark bulging cheeks and turned-up trumpet. Dozens who lacked the connections to get inside literally pressed their noses against the glass doors outside the hall.

The Soviet audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy the show. Fans brought flowers onto the stage after nearly every number. The crowd roared its appreciation after solos and when Gillespie took breaks from the trumpet to dance or sing “scat.”

“I never thought I’d see so many flowers at once in my lifetime,” Gillespie said.

The concert was part of a three-show tour that included a stop in Berlin and was to continue in Prague.