AN APPRECIATION : Gillespie . . . Jazz Loses a Beloved Innovator

The passing of Dizzy Gillespie will no doubt be characterized as marking the end of an era. Actually, it’s more than that.

By the time he reached the final decade of his life, Gillespie had become the most honored, the most respected, the most universally praised musician--not merely of the bebop era of which he had long been a symbol, but in the entire history of jazz.

The music world knew him as a nonpareil trumpet virtuoso. The general public saw and heard in him a superb entertainer who played his tilted horn, doubled on Latin percussion, sang and clowned--not simply to make his work more appealing (though it certainly had this effect), but because it was central to his personality.

My own awareness of him began around 1940, when he was a sideman, though a conspicuous and original voice, in the Cab Calloway Orchestra. Then came an interim period when he was a key figure in the bands of Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine and a free-lance arranger for a wide range of orchestras. But during this time, his association with Charlie Parker, though brief (mainly 1945-46), established them as the Damon & Pythias of modern music. Together they created and shared ideas that set the jazz world on its ear, devising new melodic, harmonic and rhythmic concepts.

What many admirers today don’t realize is that like so many innovators in all the arts, Gillespie faced hostility that was downright vicious, not only from critics, but also from many of the more reactionary musicians of that time who accused him of playing wrong notes. Even Louis Armstrong joined the jeering gallery with a recording that poked fun at all the values of bebop. (Years later, Satchmo recanted and the two men even appeared together on a television show.)

During those days, I became closely involved with his career, recording him for RCA and helping to present him three times at Carnegie Hall when the prevailing opinion was that such a venture would prove disastrous. But in 1947, and again in 1948 and 1949, Gillespie triumphed at that bastion of classical music.

The advances spearheaded by Gillespie and Charlie Parker gradually worked their way into the mainstream of jazz. By the mid-’50s, Gillespie was not merely accepted, but promoted at an unprecedented level. In 1956, a specially organized big band under his direction became the first jazz group ever sent overseas on a goodwill mission for the U.S. State Department.

Gillespie was the ideal choice for the venture. He made friends wherever he went, expressing a natural curiosity at everything and everyone he encountered along the way. As had always been his practice, he chose his musicians without regard to race or sex. That band included such artists as Quincy Jones in the trumpet section, Phil Woods on alto sax and Melba Liston on trombone.

Last October, on a cruise celebrating his 75th birthday (which at the last minute the doctors forbade him to attend), an entire concert was devoted to such Gillespie originals as “Con Alma,” “Night in Tunisia,” “Bebop,” “Birks Works,” “Tour de Force,” “Ow!” and “San Sebastian”--this last from a 1990 movie, “The Winter in Lisbon,” for which he wrote the music and in which he played a major acting role.

Gillespie was a giving man, a loving husband, whose marriage lasted 52 years, a loyal friend, a gentle soul and a true genius.

There is a cliche that tells us, “We shall not see his like again.” For John Birks Gillespie, it is the best summation that comes to mind.

Feather is the Times jazz critic.