Bop Till You Drop

Bop Till you DropJohn Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie has said he was playing what came to be called bebop as early as 1936. This is a little like Jelly Roll Morton claiming he personally invented jazz--but as with Morton's boast, there is some truth to Gillespie's claim. Gillespie started as an acolyte of trumpeter Roy Eldridge but kept having new ideas about chords and key changes. Cab Calloway used him as a featured instrumentalist in his big band, but Calloway didn't appreciate some of the...