The Modern Jazz Sextet did not take too much insight to realize that putting trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and altoist Sonny Stitt together with a strong rhythm section would result in some explosive music. ...Bebop at its best". The Modern Jazz Sextet The Modern Jazz Sextet is a jazz album featuring the combined talents of Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, John Lewis, Percy Heath, Skeeter Best and Charlie Persip. The album was conceived by producer Norman Granz for his own label, Norgran Records. Although no single album artist is credited as a bandleader for this album, Verve Records - which owns the Norgran catalogue - files
Dizzy Gillespie Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received the Kennedy Center Honors Award and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers "Duke Ellington Award" for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader. In 1993 he received the Polar Music Prize in Sweden. In 2002, Gillespie was posthumously inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame for his contributions to Afro-Cuban music. He was honored on December 31, 2006 in A Jazz New Year's Eve: Freddy Cole & the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band at The John F. Kennedy Center