Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

• It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

  Dizzy Gillespie

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Now, our music is universal. It shares the rhythmic content of African music, music of the Western Hemisphere and various lands of the East, and has merged this rhythm with European harmonies, the soul of the slaves, the blues, and the spirituals to create jazz.

  Dizzy Gillespie

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When I first heard Charlie Parker, I said, ‘That’s how our music should be played.’… After we got it together, yeah, I knew we were making something new. It was magic. Nobody on the planet was playing like that but us.

  Dizzy Gillespie

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds.

  Dizzy Gillespie

  Topics in Uncategorized

• They’re not particular about whether you’re playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.

  Dizzy Gillespie

• Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.

  Dizzy Gillespie

• I’d like to play for you one of my compositions, my only composition.

  Dizzy Gillespie

• I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It’s time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It’s time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is.

  Dizzy Gillespie

• How do I know why Miles walks off the stage? Why don’t you ask him? And besides, maybe we’d all like to be like Miles, and just haven’t got the guts.

  Dizzy Gillespie

• I always try to teach by example and not force my ideas on a young musician. One of the reasons we’re here is to be a part of this process of exchange.

  Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie (10)

Birth:	21st October, 1917
Death:	6th January, 1993
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Composer, Singer

About

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and occasional singer. Allmusic's Scott Yanow wrote, "Dizzy Gillespie's contributions to jazz were huge.

Related Authors

• Lyle Lovett
• Miles Davis
• Klaus Schulze
• Al Jardine
• Nadia Boulanger
• Bill Dixon
• William Bolcom
• Sigmund Romberg
• Samuel Wesley
• Ornette Coleman

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 22nd January

Births

• 1949 - Stephen Ray Perry
• 1852 - Joshua Willis Alexander
• 1959 - Linda Blair
• 1930 - Derek Walcott
• 1937 - Joseph Wambaugh

Deaths

• 1903 - Augustus Hare
• 1798 - Lewis Morris
• 2005 - Rose Mary Woods
• 1995 - Rose Kennedy
• 1994 - Telly Savalas