Dizzy Gillespie Watrous describes his performance style: Wynton Marsalis summed up Gillespie as a player and teacher: Gillespie's trademark trumpet featured a bell which bent upward at a 45-degree angle rather than pointing straight ahead as in the conventional design. According to Gillespie's autobiography, this was originally the result of accidental damage caused by the dancers Stump and Stumpy falling onto the instrument while it was on a trumpet stand on stage at Snookie's in Manhattan on January 6, 1953, during a birthday party for Gillespie's wife Lorraine. The constriction caused by the bending altered the tone of the instrument, and Gillespie
Jazz in Belgium The major big bands like "Robert De Kers and his Cabaret Kings" performed regularly in the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts and in the hall of the Antwerp Zoo. After the liberation in 1945 the jazz scene in the United States had changed, and "bop" (or bebop) had become the latest thing. Characterized by its virtuosity, harmonic complexity and tempo changes, bebop brought about a stylistic revolution. The big names were now Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, and Europeans learned about this new style of jazz when American records became available. In Belgium swing music was at its peak. The