Dizzy Gillespie for the Performing Arts. In 2014, Gillespie was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. 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
Jazz guitarist the breaking of all conventions in the name of originality. He belonged to the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the 1970s. Beginning in the 1990s, he formed duos with DJs, Chinese pipa musicians, and Pat Metheny. Jazz guitarist Jazz guitarists are guitarists who play jazz using an approach to chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines which is called jazz guitar playing. The guitar has fulfilled the roles of accompanist (rhythm guitar) and soloist in small and large ensembles and also as an unaccompanied solo instrument. Until the 1930s, jazz bands used banjo because the banjo's metallic twang was easier to hear