Dizzy Gillespie Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and singer. Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks, and his light-hearted personality provided some of bebop's most prominent symbols. In the 1940s Gillespie, with Charlie Parker, became
Jazz in Belgium the 'Panopcticum de Monsieur Castan'. Belgium, however, had no recording studios of its own and therefore the spread of pre-jazz music for a long time (until after the First World War) relied on foreign record labels such as "Colombia", "Zonophone" and "Favorite". Another invention which to a large extent contributed to the development of jazz music was Adolphe Sax's new instrument. By 1890 saxophones in the United States were made by the Conn and Buescher companies, and Belgian virtuoso saxophonists such as Jean Moermans of Sousa's Orchestra ensured the growing popularity of the instrument. The saxophone quickly became the symbol