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
Frank R. Fisher One of the most famous jazz spots in the Fillmore was Jimbo's Bop City. Many famous jazz artists performed at Bop City, and at the clubs in the Fillmore district. Such artists as; Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Lionel Hampton, Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Stan Getz, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster, Billy Eckstine, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Dinah Washington, Art Tatum, Pony Poindexter, Charlie Parker, Kenny Dorham, Jimmy Heath, Woody Herman, John Handy, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims. Mr. Fisher was a part of the Great Migration (African American)s, to the West Coast in the 40s. The