Thread by @dean_frey

Remembering Dizzy Gillespie on his birthday 🎂
📷 Ted Williams, 1960
"His improvising was eruptive; suddenly, a line would bolt into the high register, only to come tumbling down."
- Peter Watrous

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie are Horn Players
1982

Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie, in one of the great jazz photographs, by Herman Leonard, New York, 1949
All the Things You Are, from 1945:

Benny Carter & Dizzy Gillespie by Allan Grant, 1948
Today we're celebrating Dizzy's birthday 🎂

More Benny Carter & Dizzy Gillespie by Allan Grant for Life magazine, 1948
- “Eel-ya-da,” which sounds like bebop triplet note
- "Bell man! where have you been"

Danny Barker & Dizzy Gillespie asleep on the train, while on tour with the Cab Calloway orchestra, c. 1940
This is one of my favourite Milt Hinton photographs.

Milt Hinton
Dizzy Gillespie & Charles Mingus in Newport, 1971
Notice that Dizzy has a camera as well, a Rolleiflex, if I'm not mistaken.
Every time you see a Rolleiflex, take a drink. It's a bit early in the morning here, but a drinking game's rules are sacred. 🍸📷

Lalo Schifrin with Dizzy Gillespie in 1961, at the Monterey Jazz Festival. A great photograph by Jim Marshall.
"I've had many mentors in my life," said Schifrin, "but only one master - Dizzy."

I love the Dizzy Gillespie Live at Carnegie Hall album, from 1961, arranged by Lalo Schifrin (he played piano as well).

Time machine: please drop me off at Mary Lou Williams' apartment, 63 Hamilton Terrace, New York, August 1947
Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron, Hank Jones, Mary Lou Williams & Milt Orent by William P. Gottlieb

Dizzy Gillespie by Lisette Model, 1940s
I don't think I've ever seen a photograph by Dizzy; I'll have to do some digging!
Rolleiflex! Drink! 📷🍸

Dizzy Gillespie by Ted Williams, 1960s
"As a creator of the bebop & Afro-Cuban revolutions during the 40s, he twice fundamentally changed the way jazz improvisation was done. It was as if Monet had been in the vanguard of both Impressionism & Cubism."
- D. L. Maggin

Ed van der Elsken's 1950s jazz photos were collected in his book Jazz, published in 1959. The cover features this shot of Dizzy Gillespie from May 1958.
amzn.to/2IAAfTA

Georges Dambier took this photo, captioned "Bee Bop", at a Dizzy Gillespie gig at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, in 1948.

"So if you put me out there with a gun in my hand and tell me to shoot at the enemy, I'm liable to create a case of 'mistaken identity' of who I might shoot." He was classified 4-F.
📷 Dizzy Gillespie by William P. Gottlieb, 1940

Dizzy Gillespie by William P. Gottlieb, 1946
Downbeat: "The Street is Dizzy's Oyster these days. Musicians, chicks (like the one shown with him here), business agents all flock around Dizzy to hear his frantic ideas, to copy his hats, even to learn how he wears his goatee."

Dizzy Gillespie by William P. Gottlieb
New York, May 1947
I think this is my favourite Dizzy portrait

Paul Bacon's design for Dizzy Gillespie, Horn Of Plenty, Blue Note, 1953

Dizzy Gillespie & Gene Lees play chess ♟️
A great shot by Ted Williams.

I believe Gene Lees may have the upper hand in this chess match with Dizzy Gillespie, though I'm no expert ♟️
Photo by Ted Williams

Here's Ted Williams' contact sheet for the big chess match between Gene Lees & Dizzy Gillespie ♟️

Dizzy Gillespie plays "Nobody Knows the Trouble I Feel" at Dr. King's funeral at Ebenezer Baptist Church
📷 Constantine Manos, 1968

Dizzy Gillespie by Marlene Wallace
Los Angeles, 1991
"In some ways, he seemed to sum up all the possibilities of American popular art."
- Peter Watrous