Gerard Presencer Gerard Presencer Gerard Presencer (born 12 September 1972) is an English jazz trumpeter. Presencer showed his first interest in what was to become his chosen instrument, the trumpet, at nine. He attributes his early determination to become a trumpeter to hearing Roy Eldridge's solo from a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert. He has cited Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Wheeler, Woody Shaw, and Clifford Brown as early influences. When he was eleven, he became the youngest trumpeter with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. At the age of 18, he began playing with pianist Stan Tracey, in his big
Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban jazz was successful because it never decreased in popularity and it always attracted people to dance. Gillespie's most famous contributions to Afro-Cuban music are "Manteca" and "Tin Tin Deo" (both co-written with Chano Pozo); he was responsible for commissioning George Russell's "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop", which featured Pozo. In 1977, Gillespie met Arturo Sandoval during a jazz cruise to Havana. Sandoval toured with Gillespie and defected in Rome in 1990 while touring with Gillespie and the United Nations Orchestra. During the 1964 United States presidential campaign the artist, with tongue in cheek, put himself forward as an independent write-in