To Be or Not to Bop became a great trumpeter and even the origin of his signature bent trumpet. Various compositions and albums have been named after Gillespie's book title. To Be or Not to Bop To Be or Not to Bop: Memoirs of Dizzy Gillespie is a 1979 book written by jazz musician, composer and band leader Dizzy Gillespie. The book was released in July 1979 by Doubleday. The University of Minnesota Press re-released the book in 2009. He is known for being the father of bebop. This book tells about his life, and what he went through to make this music flourish. The book
Dizzy Gillespie 1947. He and his big bands, with arrangements provided by Tadd Dameron, Gil Fuller, and George Russell, popularized bebop and made him a symbol of the new music. His big bands of the late 1940s also featured Cuban "rumberos" Chano Pozo and Sabu Martinez, sparking interest in Afro-Cuban jazz. He appeared frequently as a soloist with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. In 1948, Gillespie was involved in a traffic accident when the bicycle he was riding was bumped by an automobile. He was slightly injured and found that he could no longer hit the B-flat above high C. He