Tribute to the Talents of Dizzy

The quartet that brings “All-Star Tribute: Dizzy--The Man and the Music” to the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa on Friday and Saturday plays largely from experience. Three of its members were closely associated with Dizzy Gillespie during the last several years of the great trumpeter’s life.

Drummer Ignacio Berroa played with Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra during the ‘80s. John Lee was Gillespie’s touring bassist from 1982 until Gillespie’s death in 1993. Trumpeter Jon Faddis, now director of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, was 15 the first time he played with Gillespie and has emerged as the heir apparent to the Gillespie legacy.

(Brilliant young pianist Cyrus Chestnut rounds out the foursome.)

Speaking by phone from his New York City home, Lee, the tribute’s director, said the Gillespie legacy “will always lie with the fact that he was the co-founder of the bebop movement along with Charlie Parker.

“But there’s also his Afro-Cuban contributions. Sometimes, because the bebop period tends to overshadow everything else, we tend to overlook his role in bringing together jazz and Latin rhythms. But [Gillespie] is responsible for bringing [percussionist] Chano Pozo in from Cuba and integrating his rhythms into jazz.

“Actually, Dizzy was instrumental in bringing a number of Latin musicians into jazz. [Pianist and composer of the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme] Lalo Schifrin came from Argentina to play with Dizzy in the ‘50s. Then there are musicians like [Cuban bandleader] Machito and, more recently, [saxophonist] Paquito D’Rivera, [trumpeter] Arturo Sandoval, [pianist] Danilo Perez, [percussionist] Giovanni Hidalgo and all the different musicians in the United Nations Orchestra. That band was a melange of different south-of-the-border influences.”

Lee said the All-Star Tribute ensemble is ever-changing in its personnel and purposes.

“We started out in 1994, intending to do educational programs and clinics at universities and colleges,” he explained. “[Instruction] is really part of the Gillespie legacy. He had a way of simplifying music theory and had his own ideas of how to teach jazz to kids. And he had an amazing way of teaching rhythmic concepts.”

The group has evolved to include performances such as the one at OCPAC, sending out different band formations, depending on the venue and who’s available. Trumpeters Randy Brecker and Wallace Roney have played with the band, as has Claudio Roditi, who was in the United Nations Orchestra, Lee said.

But it is Faddis who most often represents Gillespie’s instrument. The 43-year-old trumpeter solidified a close association with Gillespie in the mid-’70s and was the musical director of the United Nations Orchestra during Gillespie’s last years. His robust style is often compared to Gillespie’s--unfairly, according to Lee.

“To me, Jon is totally different. It’s because of his early associations with Dizzy that he gets those comparisons. But Jon has his own voice; he’s the most brilliant trumpet player alive. I could pick his sound out of a thousand trumpet players. Like Dizzy, Jon is the only guy that can do it all: play those high, explosive notes, then turn around and do a warm ballad.

“The younger trumpeters may be getting all the press, but Jon is just phenomenal.”

* What: “All-Star Tribute: Dizzy--The Man and the Music.”

* When: 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

* Where: Jazz Club at the Center, Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

* Whereabouts: Exit the San Diego (405) Freeway at Bristol Avenue and go north. Turn right onto Town Center Drive.

* Wherewithal: $30.

* Where to call: (714) 556-2787.