As with all musical genres there are many important artists that each individually shaped it and contributed to it. One of these artists was trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie was born in 1917 in South Carolina, the same year the first Jazz record was released. He was to become one of the leading figures of Jazz. According to Gentry (1991, pp. 70-71), his childhood and adolescence were troubled and involved incidents with knife crime. He was self-taught and played the trombone and the piano besides his main instrument the trumpet. Gillespie started by playing for local bands in South Carolina until his family moved to Philadelphia. After a short stay in Philadelphia he moved to New York where he quickly made a name for himself and became the trumpeter in Teddy Hill’s Orchestra at the age of 19. After a European tour and becoming a regular at the New York jam session scene, Gillespie joins Earl Hines’ band in 1942 at the same time as Charlie Parker. This was a major turning point in his career as it was at that time that he started laying the foundations of bebop together with Charlie Parker. Even though that he still wasn’t able to only play Bebop as he was working as a substitute in Duke Ellington’s orchestra and being part of Billy Eckstein’s band, he took the chance and set up his first own band shortly after in which he could focus on playing this new style. According to Thomas (1995, pp. 28-45) this was in 1940 and is today considered the birth of Bebop. According to Shypton (1999, pp. 179-210) being part of already one revolution of jazz Gillespie decided in the late 40s to incorporate Cuban elements of music into his style. He started the Latin Jazz style and created a band with Cuban musicians especially percussionists. He toured Cuba and many collaborations between him and Cuban musicians such Chano Ponzo and Arturo Sandoval followed. Gillespie went on to play with many of the major Jazz artists of the time such as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clark, Charles Mingus and Max Roach to name but a few. He continued touring and playing with a great variety of musicians even outside the jazz idiom amongst which is the Do I Do record of Stevie Wonder on which Gillespie is featured as a soloist. Gillespie died in 1993 of pancreatic cancer having received fourteen honorary doctorates and a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement.
Another jazz artist who is a lot more recent and still alive who played and still plays a similar role to the shaping of jazz is the guitarist John McLaughlin. He was born in 1942 in South Yorkshire. As a child he learned to play the violin and the piano after which he picked up the guitar, which quickly became his first instrument. During his childhood he was exposed to a lot of different musical styles. Anderson, Mark (2004) provided information about John McLaughlin’s life, his brother exposed him to blues and flamenco while his mother exposed him to classical music and jazz. During his early years as a guitarist he moved to London to work as a session guitarist performing mainly commercial R&B and pop music. McLaughlin, John (2010) provided information about his own influences, this left him somehow unsatisfied and led to a move to New York in 1969 where to become part of Tony Williams’ band Lifetime. He subsequently went on to record with Miles and was featured on several albums amongst which were In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. According to Kirchner (2000, pp. 491-492) the second album mentioned has a tracked named after McLaughlin and is considered today the first jazz-fusion album. During this time he became known as one of the best session guitarist around performing with Wayne Shorter, Carla Bley and even the Rolling Stones.
Judden, Air. (2010) provided information about the Mahavishnu Orchestra, in the 1970s McLaughlin started his own band the Mahavishnu Orchestra which is considered to be one of the most important fusion bands of all times. In the original line up the band only existed for a short time but it was on these recordings that one can first hear McLaughlin experimenting with Indian influences. After the break up of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra McLaughlin went on to collaborate with Santana and Gil Evans before he formed a new Mahavishnu Orchestra with a new line up. This line up did also not survive for very long and the band split up again in 76. After this period McLaughlin followed his interests in Indian music and created the band Shakti which included Indian musicians playing traditional Indian musical instruments along side his electric guitar. After this Indian fusion project, Flamenco became the new style with a guitar trio consisting of Paco de Lucia, Larry Coryell who was replaced lat by Al di Meola and McLaughlin himself. According to Stump (2000, pp. 134-157), following the guitar trio, McLaughlin had several short lived project some of which were more Jazz Fusion based before he came back to his Indian interest with short periods of Flamenco projects in between. In the late 80s he went on to resurrect the Mahavishnu Orchestra for three years with several different line ups. After this short lived resurrection he went back to some of his former projects including the guitar trio and several Indian projects. Himes, Geoffrey (2010) provided information about the impact of McLaughlin in music, up till today McLaughlin is still heavily involved with many different styles amongst which Indian jazz fusion is the most prominent.
It is clear that both Gillespie and McLaughlin both have had a big impact on jazz and music in general. This is however not the only common point that they are sharing. Both these musicians were involved in the creation and definition of new branches of jazz. For Gillespie it was Bebop and Latin Jazz whereas for McLaughlin it was Fusion and Indian influenced World Fusion. Both saw the opportunity to add something new by including music from another part of the world into their playing. With Gillespie it was quite easy to achieve as his playing did not change very much to adapt to the Cuban tradition as it is based on the same harmonic and tonal workings as jazz.
However, with McLaughlin it is a different story, as he had to adapt to a completely new musical system. Unlike Gillespie who achieved his new style mainly through compositional changes and by including Cuban musicians into his band McLaughlin went further. He went to the extend of not only learning the theory behind the music but actually learned to play the Veena a plugged string instrument from south India. Both musician did share an extreme technical ability on their instrument and faced similar problems due to it. Gillespie was considered so far ahead of his time and his soloing was so unusual that nobody was able to copy it. This led to most trumpeters coming after him to copy Miles Davis as he was a lot easier to emulate. Besides this technical issue the audience generally preferred Davis’ softer, more mellow tone to Gillespie’s more aggressive one.
The same can be said for McLaughlin as his technical ability and his angular soloing were never quite as popular as Pat Metheny’s. Also his sound especially on electric guitar is not as audience friendly as Metheny’s smooth tone. Both subsequently suffered from being ahead of their time this can be especially seen with McLaughlin who’s music is still considered avant-garde today. It is also to note that the religious views of both musicians deeply affected their music. Gillespie was a member of the Bahá'í Faith a monotheistic religion based on Islam and believing in the unity, peace and justice on a global scale. Gillespie often refers to his faith as giving him strength and enabling him to be at peace with himself. Very similar to that McLaughlin is a follower of Sri Chinmoy an Indian spiritual teacher basing his beliefs on daily meditation and religious tolerance. McLaughlin devotes his album My Goal’s Beyond to Chinmoy. It is also from Chinmoy that McLaughlin received the name Mahavishnu which literally translated means the Great Creation. It is obvious that Chinmoy was one of the major influences which led McLaughlin to explore Indian music in such depths and incorporate it in his playing.
This clearly shows that despite Gillespie and McLaughlin living at two very different time periods they still had quite a few things in common. Not only did they share a musical genius but they also both found themselves ahead of their times. They both contributed a vital part to the progress of jazz and even though that they were not the most recognized by the public they are often stated by many key musicians as having had a huge and important role in their development.
References:
Bibliography
Books:
Gentry, Tony (1991) Dizzy Gillespie: Performer, Bandleader, and Composer. New York: Chelsea House.
Kirchner, Bill (2000) The Oxford Companian to Jazz. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shypton, Alyn (1999) Groovin’ High: The life of Dizzy Gillespie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stump, Paul (2000) Go Ahead John: The Music of John McLaughlin. London: SAF Publishing ltd.
Thomas, Owens (1995) Bebop: The Music and its Players. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Alexander, Scott (2008) A history of Jazz before 1930: The Red Hot Jazz Archive. [Online] Available at: (Accessed 18.07.2010)
Anderson, Mark (2004) Mahavishnu John McLaughlin: An Inspiration in Music and Spirit. [Online] Available at: (Accessed 18.07.2010)
Brehaut, Tim (2004) HyperMusic, History of Jazz: Bebop. [Online] Available at: (Accessed 18.07.2010)
Himes, Geoffrey (2010) John McLaughlin: Legendary Guitarist on Coltrane, Miles, Mahavishnu and the Search for Infinite Oneness. [Online] Available at: (Accessed 18.07.2010)
Judden, Air. The Mahavishnu Orchestra. [Online] Available at: (Accessed 18.07.2010)
McLaughlin, John. Influences. [Online] Available at: (Accessed 18.07.2010)
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