Dizzy Gillespie

A Great Day in Harlem

And what a day it was: nearly 60 jazz musicians, gathered on a Harlem street one morning in 1958 for what photographer Art Kane rightly, if immodestly, calls "the greatest picture of that era of musicians ever taken" (incredibly, it was also Kane's first professional shoot). Like Ken Burns's Jazz, this 60-minute documentary, an Oscar nominee in 1995, is a mixed-media affair: still photographs and 8 millimeter color footage (shot by bassist Milt Hinton and his wife) of the day itself are combined with interviews, background music, and performance clips of some of the players involved (from legends like Lester Young, Count Basie, Charles Mingus, and Thelonious Monk to lesser-knowns like Maxine Sullivan, Red Allen, and Vic Dickenson) to tell the story. There are anecdotes about 35-cent dinners, all-night jams, and film loaded upside down; about pianist Horace Silver's vegetarian diet and trumpeter Roy Eldridge's high notes; about old friends reuniting and what Hinton calls "just sheer happiness." Looking at the photo years later, Dizzy Gillespie sums it up simply: "There's a whole lotta people I like on there!"

And speaking of Diz, the DVD also includes "The Spitball Story" (produced, like the Great Day documentary, by Jean Bach), an entertaining if slight tale about the trumpeter's days with bandleader Cab Calloway. Seems Gillespie, a renowned practical joker, delighted in launching spitballs at his fellow musicians. Calloway wasn't amused--especially when one particular projectile landed onstage near him. Although Gillespie for once was not the culprit, the two had a nasty confrontation, resulting in Dizzy's firing from the band. It was, he recalls, "the best move I ever made in music." --Sam Graham

In August of 1958, in front of a Harlem brownstone, first-time photographer Art Kane assembled 57 of the greatest jazz stars of all time and snapped a picture that would live forever. Narrated by Quincy Jones, this "irresistible" (Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times), Academy Award-nominated documentary examines the fascinating lives of the musicians who showed up that day to make history. Through remarkable interviews with nearly 30 jazz greats (including Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey), home movies shot by Milt and Mona Hinton, and rare, archival performance footage, A Great Day in Harlem tells the story behind a legendary photograph that is still alive and kicking - and jammin'!

Hours of New Special Features! "Art Kane" Featurette "Bill Charlap and Kenny Washington" Featurette "Copycat Photos" Featurette "Stories from the Making of A Great Day in Harlem" Featurette PLUS: Bonus 2nd Disc Includes Over Two Hours of New Video Profiles of the 59 Musicians involved in the photograph!

A Night in Havana - Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba

Part travelogue, part concert film, A Night in Havana is an enjoyable tour through the origins of Afro-Cuban jazz and one of its earliest purveyors, Dizzy Gillespie. Throughout the documentary, Dizzy tours various Cuban festivals of music and dance, smokes cigars with Fidel Castro, and waxes philosophic on his role in introducing Cuban rhythms to bebop, how his horn got turned up the way it is, and, of course, his cheeks. Featuring great renditions of Afro-Cuban jazz classics "A Night in Tunisia" and "Manteca" and guest appearances by Arturo Sandoval and a very young Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba is a breezy trip to our forbidden neighbors down south. --Kristian St. Clair

The indisputable founding father of "bebop," Dizzy Gillespie remains one of the most recognizable and popular figures in jazz history. During his heyday in the 1940s, Dizzy was one of the first American jazz musicians to incorporate the electrifying sound of Afro-Cuban rhythms into a big-band setting. Forty years later, the legendary jazz trumpeter was invited to Cuba, the wellspring of his inspiration, to headline the Fifth International Jazz Festival in Havana. The journey, as documented in this star-studded film, was a spiritual and triumphal homecoming for the musical genius.

Roots of Rhythm

Latin music has always been a fixture in American popular culture, but its history reflects centuries of change and complexity from diverse sources. Roots of Rhythm, an incredible three-hour film originally shown on PBS in 1997, traces the development of this exciting musical genre, going back 500 years across three continents. Hosted by the famed Caribbean American entertainer Harry Belafonte, the film begins in West Africa, in the villages that ring with the ancestral anthems of sacred Yoruba beats and bata drums. The focus shifts to Spain, where modern-day troubadours sing their haunting, Moorish-tinged ballads and Gypsies dance their heated flamenco dances. Those musical influences are brought together by the transatlantic slave trade in the island of Cuba, where enslaved Africans and Spanish immigrants mixed and melded each others' music into a myriad of new, hybrid creations like the rumba, tumba francesa, danzon, and mambo. Belafonte quotes a poet who said, "Cuban music is a love affair between the African drum and the Spanish guitar."

In America, this love affair bloomed in New York, where Cuban and African American jazz musicians like Machito, Mario Bauza, and Dizzy Gillespie melded mambo rhythms to bebop, creating Latin jazz. Belafonte then brings us to the dazzling timbales master Tito Puente and vocalist Celia Cruz, who reigned as the king and queen of salsa, the stateside version of Cuban dance music that emerged in the '60s. The film offers revealing interviews and music clips with many Latin music stars, including Gloria Estefan of Miami Sound Machine and Panamanian Rubén Blades. The rare archival footage features Dizzy Gillespie's 1948 number "Manteca," bandleader Xavier Cugat's "Gypsy Mambo," and a cartoon clip of Donald Duck doing "Tico Tico." After watching this engaging and encyclopedic film, you'll never dance to Latin music the same way again. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Long before World Music became a record store staple, Americans were singing along to the sweet sounds of Celia Cruz and dancing to the rhythmic beats of Tito Puente.

Harry Belafonte hosts this globe-trotting, star-studded celebration tracing the history of the popular sounds we call Latin music, from tribal celebrations in African jungles to Cuba's wild carnivals and New York City's hottest nightspots.

This critically acclaimed production highlights an incredible array of dancing and musical performances from world-renowned stars including Gloria Estefan, Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie, Desi Arnaz, Celia Cruz, Ruben Blades, Isaac Oviedo, King Sunny Ade and many more.Don't miss this celebration of the explosive sound that has the whole world dancing.

DVD Features: Interactive Menus; Scene Selection

Dizzy Gillespie - Live in '58 and '70 (Jazz Icons)

Two very distinct sides of Dizzy Gillespie are on display in Live in '58 and '70, and it's a measure of the trumpeter's versatility that neither has a whole lot to do with his most famous contribution to the jazz artform--that being his "invention" (with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and others) of bebop. Recorded in Belgium, the '58 gig finds Diz leading a quintet that also includes the redoubtable bassist Ray Brown, saxophonist Sonny Stitt, and pianist Lou Levy. The repertoire is utterly hip, with a swinging version of Benny Golson's "Blues After Dark," Clifford Brown's burning "Blues Walk," the big band standard "Cocktails for Two" (played as a ballad and sounding not a bit like the more familiar Spike Jones arrangement), and the haunting "Lover Man," most closely associated with Billie Holiday (and a feature for Stitt, who spins out the speedy, fluid lines that often resulted in his being labeled a Parker clone); there's also "On the Sunny Side of the Street," in which Gillespie, always an amusing performer, substitutes his own lyrics as he and Stitt share vocal duties ("Life could be so fine/Fine as Manishewitz wine…"). A dozen years later, Dizzy's in Denmark, fronting a big band led by French pianist Francy Boland and drummer Kenny Clarke. Here we get a taste of the Afro-Cuban sounds that Gillespie first explored in the 1940s and '50s, including two of his own compositions, the lovely "Con Alma" and the classic "Manteca"; there's also the deep gospel-soul of bassist Jimmy Woode's "Now Hear My Meanin'" and the absolutely smoking "Things Are Here," performed at a pace that suggests big band bebop. And then there's Diz the emcee; whether thanking the bemused audience for their "profound ebullience" or picking up a noisy infant and gently admonishing him to shut up (a move that would probably earn him a child abuse citation nowadays but causes nary a ripple here), the guy knew he was there to entertain, not just play. Quite simply, there is nothing on this 85-minute disc--and that includes the astonishingly crisp sound a clear visuals, a hallmark of the Jazz Icons series--not to like. --Sam Graham

Jazz Icons: Dizzy Gillespie features two historic concerts from one of the founding fathers of bebop. Filmed 12 years apart, the 1958 concert features Dizzy working eloquently within the small combo structure of a quintet including such infl uential musicians as sax player Sonny Stitt and bassist Ray Brown. The second show focuses on a completely different side of Dizzy, fronting the legendary Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band. With a 16-piece big band to conduct, including two drummers, his Latin infl uences are revealed on Â"Con AlmaÂ" and Â"Manteca.Â"

Norman Granz Jazz in Montreux Presents Dizzy Gillespie Sextet '77

Set List:
Girl Of My Dreams
Get Happy
Once In A While
But Beautiful
Here's That Rainy Day
The Champ
Here 'Tis

Personell:
Benny Carter
Clark Terry
Roy Eldridge
Zoot Sims
Tommy Flanagan
Joe Pass
Keeter Betts
Bobby Durham

Dizzy Gillespie - Live at the Royal Festival Hall, London

Dizzy Gillespie was an undisputed musical genius. As a player his reputation was legendary. As a leader his ability to inspire musicians helped produce some of the most influential music of the century.

Performing with Dizzy in this sublime celebration of jazz music are such stars as Slide Hampton (who wrote most of the arrangements), Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D'Rivera, Mario Rivera and the Afro-Cuban queen herself - Flora Purim. A selection of musicians whom in their own right create truly beautiful music, but combined together, with Dizzy at the helm (and a magical orchestra in support) take the artform to some very serious places. This film, recorded live at London¹s Royal Festival Hall, is a must for every music lover who recognizes Dizzy Gillespie¹s importance as a major figure in music of the last century.

Play Your Own Thing - A Story of Jazz in Europe

The music documentary Play Your Own Thing provides a comprehensive history of European Jazz. It explores the origins of the US-influenced Jazz clubs after the Second World War, the first steps independent of American jazz and the various changes of direction that have repeatedly occurred in European jazz in the search for that "own voice" that European jazz musicians have helped to form. Featuring the great masters of European jazz such as Chris Barber, Jan Garbarek, Juliette Gréco, Stefano Bollani and Till Brönner, to name but a few, the film provides a wealth of styles in Jazz. For his third documentary on jazz, film-maker Julian Benedikt travelled to a wide variety of European countries in search of an all-embracing documentation of European jazz music. His story telling is neither too sophisticated nor does he simply reproduce the known clichés, rather the movie engages its audience with very personal impressions of European jazz, past and present. Accompanied by rarely seen archival footage featuring such influencing American jazz legends as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, this unique document offers a collection of sparkling musical gems from both sides of the Atlantic. A great music film!

Swing Era, Stan Kenton

One of the most controversial musicians in jazz during his lifetime, bandleader Stan Kenton (1911-1979) has become something of a cult figure, and is now justly considered as one of the men who renovated the big-band idiom during the forties and fifties.T

Founding Fathers of Be Bop

Jazz Casual DVD (Count Basie, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie)

Count Basie
A telling moment in this terrific Jazz Casual program occurs very early on, when host Ralph J. Gleason asks Count Basie the name of the first piece that the pianist-bandleader and his small group played. "I don't know," says Basie with a laugh. He's not being flip. "I Don't Know," as it eventually became known, is, like most of the other music Basie and company play here, nothing more or less than a blues jam, improvised on the spot. The "casual" label has never been more appropriate, as this 1968 performance finds Basie at his most relaxed. He smokes a lot. He talks a lot: about the influence of Duke Ellington and such legendary pianists as Fats Waller, Pete Johnson, and Meade Lux Lewis; about the genesis of "One O'Clock Jump," the Basie band's signature tune; and about his own playing style, which he self-effacingly calls "dated." And, best of all, he plays a lot, accompanied by the superb rhythm section of Sonny Payne on drums, Norman Keenan on bass, and the redoubtable Freddie Green on guitar. "I never get tired of playing the blues," Basie tells Gleason, and in the hands of these pros, you'll never get tired of listening to it. Basie's blues are inimitable: effortlessly swinging, completely cool, at once laconic and driving, danceable, humorous, just unmistakably right, with the rhythm players always on the beat and Basie himself the master of what not to play. This is great stuff, and highly recommended. --Sam Graham

Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie--trumpeter, bandleader, entertainer--was 43 and still at the peak of his powers when he appeared with his quintet on Ralph J. Gleason's performance-interview TV program, Jazz Casual, in early 1961. And while his style had become somewhat cooler since the days when he and Charlie Parker led jazz's bebop revolution, this four-song set is as identifiably Dizzy as his trademark up-tilted horn and ballooning cheeks. The tunes, from Benny Golson's mid-tempo "Blues After Dark" to Dizzy's own "Lorraine" (with an exotic, sinuous melody reminiscent of his more famous "Night in Tunisia"), are invariably swinging, with fine solo turns by Gillespie, saxophonist-flutist Leo Wright, and a pianist named Lalo Schifrin. That's the same Lalo Schifrin who within a few short years would achieve pop music immortality by composing the Mission: Impossible theme. --Sam Graham

John Coltrane
It might not seem like much: 30 minutes, three tunes, four musicians on a bare- bones soundstage. But this is John Coltrane, and any opportunity to see the legendary saxophonist at work is something to be savored. That's especially true with this January 1964 television performance. Some five years after his membership in Miles Davis's immortal Kind of Blue group, he was well past playing the usual standards and ballads; at the same time, he had yet to explore the outer reaches of the avant-garde. Joined here by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones--the classic Coltrane quartet, and undoubtedly one of the most important and influential groups in jazz history--he works his way through three numbers that were familiar components of the Coltrane repertoire: Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue," which finds Trane on soprano sax and features a typically dynamic Tyner solo; "Alabama," a Coltrane original with a brooding, droning intro and conclusion sandwiched around the middle section's slow, swinging groove; and "Impressions," the modal touchstone, which at nearly 14 minutes long gives all four musicians plenty of room to stretch out.

Playing the tenor horn here, Coltrane is typically restless and searching, volcanic and commanding. It's not necessarily pretty, especially when he is backed only by Jones's angry, explosive polyrhythms, but the power is undeniable. The fact that Coltrane says nothing (all other Jazz Casual guests were interviewed by host Ralph J. Gleason) is immaterial; what could he say with his voice that he hadn't already said with his horn? --Sam Graham