Deep South Bee Bop & Bahai

EXIT OF THE DAY: Hear this here!
I-95 Exit 90 in SC To: US 176, to Cameron, Holly Hill, South Carolina
(Trumpet plays bee bop jazz)


"Why you may ask is there the sound of trumpets introducing this next roadspoke? Well in upcoming Cheraw, South Carolina, back in 1917, famed jazz trumpet player "Dizzy" Gillespie was born .  

Before he found music, Dizzy was a hard drinking kid with a stick on his shoulder and a switchblade in his sock. But then Dizzy picked up both a trumpet -- and a new Faith. You  can hear his music playing here now... "

As for the trumpet… in the 1940s Dizzy Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He mentored many other musicians, including trumpeters Arturo Sandoval and Chuck Mangione.

"Apart from cheeks that blew up like balloons he is most famous for adding layers of rhythm and complexity previously unheard in jazz.  His combination of skill, showmanship, and wit made him a leading evangelist of modern jazz just as his beret,  his scat singing, his bent horn, his pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality provided the soulful stereotype for the Beat Generation's jazz intelligensia.  

Along with other musicians and Beat Writers, like friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Dizzy haunted all the smoke filled hipster bars in New York’s Greenwich Village long before it was trendy.

In other words, Dizzy was Cool, man. Super cool.  So Cool, other than possibly Charlie Bird, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, no one was more famous in the 50’s bebop movement."

What is not as well known was that Dizzy was a member of the Baha'is of the United States Faith. Dizzy was a Bahá'í since about 1970. He was one of the most famous followers of the religion.  One of the reasons was that like Jazz which had always mixed musicians of all races, Bahai believed in the unity of all people.

Said Dizzy to the New York Times in 1975, “When I encountered the Baha’i Faith, it all went along with what I had always believed. I believed in the oneness of mankind. I believed we all come from the same source, that no race of people is inherently superior to any other.”
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Similarly, Dizzy described jazz as a marriage between African rhythm and European harmony. 

​Baha’i helped him make sense of his position in life, his great success, as well as turning his life from knife-carrying gangsta to a global citizen and from alcohol to "soul force".
Bebop and Bahai. Up from Cheraw, South Carolina. Now that is BEYOND cool."

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#DizzyGillespie #Bahai #DizzywasBahai #MilesDavis #CharlieParker #Bebop
#CherawSouthCarolina #BirthofCool