New Directions

Volume 7 | Issue 4 Article 10

7-1-1980 Book Review: To BE or Not To BOP Memoirs - Dizzy Gillespie Gregory S. Kearse

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Recommended Citation Kearse, Gregory S. (1980) "Book Review: To BE or Not To BOP Memoirs - Dizzy Gillespie," New Directions: Vol. 7: Iss. 4, Article 10. Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol7/iss4/10

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Directions by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. In a 1940 speech, the aristocrat-turned- thrilling, about these three writers is the the only explanation offered in the book communist declared: "Art must be a extent to which, out of the ordinary life of is one by his wife Lorraine (one of the weapon on the front line in the service of the ordinary people of their times in more colorful of this all-star entourage), the people." We will be hearing more of Harlem, in Haiti and in Havana, they who simply states: /IIdon't regret [not] this fascinating figure - a man were able to accomplish just that. 0 having any kids. See, that's why people encompassing many contradictions, don't understand me. I feel like if God between wealth and poverty, the finest Ellen Conroy Kennedy is writer, editor and wanted me to have children, I woulda had French culture and that of the simplest translator. Her credits include translation of works plenty of them." Interesting ontological by French. Caribbean and African writers, among peasant, the pursuits of poetry and them, Albert Camus, Leon Damas and Cbeik]: rambling, even humorously ironic, yet scholarship as well as of social justice- Anta Diop. hardly the intimacy one should expect. tragically dead in 1944 at the early age of Even with the help of AI Fraser, a fairly 37. well-regarded musicologist and teacher at Cheyney State College in Pennsylvania, Roumain's political conversion, in 1932, 29 may well have inspired his most 1b BE or Not 1b BOP one is none the wiser. And Fraser's important work, Masters of the Dew, off-the-cuff conversation and pretentiously which stands alone, a gem. Ebony Wood, Memoirs-Dizzy Gillespie penetrating questions, although the little sheaf of poems with its With Al Fraser well-intended, hardly enlighten the reader. title-metaphor for the slave trade, is yet Doubleday & Co., New York In Memoirs, one gets the notes but not untranslated in its entirety. Ironically, 552 pp., $14.95 the subtlest nuances. One hears the however, its considerable impact in Reviewed by Gregory S. Kearse music, but it frequently comes off dull excerpts is much diminished, this and contrived, as if Dizzy responded to Dizzy Gillespie is innovative. He loves reviewer feels, when read as a whole, scads of form questions and built his life. because of passages which depend too and lives music. He can play. Bebop. around the answers. exclusively on litanies of proleterian Bebop. Like the crazy blue notes created rhetoric. by "Bird's" brain/lips/ax. Like a summer The redeeming quality of this work, with a thousand Julys, Dizzy goes to your however, is that it is strangely saved by Cobb also shows what Faith Berry's Good head. His legendary up-bent horn. Bebop. the many purple passages of Dizzy's Morning Revolution (1973)demonstrated Bebop. Play, man. remembrances and broodings about the about Langston Hughes, that the writings fantastic people he had known, admired To conclude that Dizzy Gillespie is a of all three were deeply influenced by and worked with. radical political ideas during the 1930s musician is sort of like deciding that and 40s. All three were sympathetic to Julius "Dr, J" Erving is a basketball star. Credit must be given to Fraser, despite his Republican Spain during the Civil War, Or like saying that the late Bruce Lee was pesky omnipresence, for overcoming an visiting the coutry as war correspondents. a karate expert. These men transcended obviously Herculean task of editing the And all three wrote poems about this the norm. Each moved beyond the world hundreds of hours of taped interviews 1937 war experience. Hughes alone was of what was normal and delved into the with the greatest names in jazz, from never a party member, skeptical perhaps uncharted, risky realm of the theoretical Dicky Wells to Charlie Parker to Sarah after his Russian experience that any to create something new and dynamic. Vaughan to Roy Eldridge and a host of single political doctrine could remedy the In the case of "Dr. L/Ibasketball became lesser luminaries. The result i an unpolished, yet often exciting oral history social ills he so well perceived and the poetic expression of the spectacular of not only John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, depicted. Hughes was also the only one of dunk shot. In the case of Bruce Lee, the but an important chronicle of jazz music's the three to gradually drop ideological body became the cosmic connection most dramatic evolutionary period. The references from his work. between the soul and the spirit. book is rich with illustrations. It is interesting to recall Hughes' With Dizzy, well ... it became what is well-known manifesto of 1926, the one now called bebop. The year was 1942 and The great Cuban trumpeter Mario Bauza, that begins: /lWeyounger Negro artists he was paying solo trumpet in Earl whom Dizzy met at the Savoy in ew who create now intend to express our "Fatha" Hines' band. He was only 25. York in 1937, says that there were two individual dark-skinned selves without movements (as far as trumpet goes) in fear or shame. If the white folks seem Oddly, one does not really get to know American music in the last 50 years. One pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it Dizzy Gillespie in these memoirs, not was Louis Armstrong and the other was doesn't matter." Among the generations initmately. There are simply too many Dizzy Gillespie. Bandleader V\body of Black intellecturals it later influenced unexplored areas. For example, what was Herman is quoted as saying, "Diz to me were, of course, the French-speaking Leon Dizzy's principle psychological/ was the beginning of an era. And Pops Damas, Aime Cesaire and Leopold Sedar motivational reaction to a merciless (Louis Armstrong) was the beginning of Senghor. But Martha Cobb's research has father who would routinely whip the an era. And during that span from Pops, turned up another, less familiar, literary children "just in case we thought of doing everyone else in-between is not terribly credo of Hughes. /IIdo not write chiefly something bad,"? important." because I'm interested in form - in The only expanation Dizzy offers his Those accolades must be placed into making a sonnet or a rondeau - /I said the readers for his father'S travesties is that perspective, at least within the context in poet in an undated newspaper interview: his father "wanted us all to be tough." which Dizzy developed. /IIam not interested in doing tricks with Later Dizzy claims to have loved (and rhymes. I am interested in reproducing undoubtedly feared) his father and his Certainly, by the middle to late 1930s the human soul. ... /I childhood. jazz, as a legitimate music form, had What is exciting, and occasionally Dizzy never had children of his own. And solidified. White bands began picking up

NEW DIRECTIONS JULY 1980 on the strange, albeit, exotic Memoirs is sprinkled (almost as if by cue) syncopations. And like the blues, it had a with enough gossip and inside structure-a formalized and technical information to encourage the reader to "correctness" to it. Jazz was no longer endure the all too puffy dialogue. precisely thought of as a cacophony of The comments by Billy Mitchell, Cab inspired improvisations by some crazy Calloway, Lalo Schifrin, Ella Fitzgerald, Blacks "blowing their horns." There were Max Roach, Mary Lou Williams and notes to achieve, riffs to be made' and many others, make this book vaguely bridges to be crossed- So by the time attractive. The discography of Dizzy's Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Woody career is significant. His awards and Herman and other white accomplishments are very impressive and bandleaders/arrangers came along, valuable inclusions in the book. However, Thelonious Monk, Roy Eldridge, Bill they read like undisguised egocentric 30 Doggett, King Oliver and the other 52nd droppings. Street crowd had established the comer market on this new musical expression. I would like to see a book by or about Dizzy Gillespie that tells more about his The only thing that remained to be done psychological reactions to racism, was to "discover" the next natural particularly during the 1930s, and its progression or step from this hybrid blues effect upon the creativity of Black artists. form. Indeed, Roy Eldridge was the seed. Dizzy knew Charlie "Bird" Parker well. I His unique style and speed put him at the would like to know what effect Parker's head of the class of honor graduates. He genius and melancholy and drugs had on was Dizzy Gillespie's lifetime idol and Dizzy as a friend and colleague. What informal mentor, informal because while were the strains between them? Dizzy copied initially from Roy, the relationship was a mutual admiration I would like to know (and Dizzy is in a duet. fabulous position to tell it) what contributions Miles Davis, Horace Silver Dizzy had picked up the trumpet and and others make to his music. How are learned to play by ear, but eventually the younger jazz musicians different from forced himself to learn to read music. those that grew up during the 1930s and Interestingly, playing the piano taught 1940s? What was his reaction to white him more about the trumpet. It was musicians gaining the huge commercial constant discovery, experimentation with successes with swing and bebop 1 chords, playing a gig here and there, more discovery and finally mastering (at the age There are too many questions that beg for of 14 or 15) the technical aspects of the answers. All we are offered in this work trumpet. He played locally in the are Dizzy's memoirs ... and that, at least Carolinas and Mississippi and Georgia, to this reviewer, only whets the gaining more knowledge about the limits appetite. D of his instrument. By the time he was 17 he had gained a "grapevine" reputation as The reviewer is an editor with the Howard a proficient trumpet player. University Press. The book, through interviews with various musicians and friends, carefully chronicles Dizzy's move to Philadelphia and New York, with enough color commentary about the racism and poverty to make his story interesting. But during this coming of age among the giants in modem jazz, Dizzy discovered that he played fast, faster than his mentor Roy Eldridge. Not only that, he also found new notes and a new way to bridge these notes while maintaining his speed. Dizzy, therefore, realized a different beat - a new untried accent.

Dizzy Gillespie discovered an exciting emphasis, an emphasis that others would pick up and claim. This new sound was to be later called "bebop" by anxious white fans who wanted to hear him; the word was picked up by the press and it stuck.

NEW DJ.RECTIONS JULY 1980