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
Gillespie Road Gillespie Road Gillespie Road is a road in Highbury, north London, running east-west along the north side of the Arsenal Stadium, previously home of Arsenal Football Club. Arsenal Underground station was originally named "Gillespie Road", before being given its current name in 1932 following pressure from the club. At the time of Arsenal's move to the nearby Emirates Stadium in July 2006, an email was circulated by supporters of rival club Tottenham Hotspur inviting petitions to the Mayor of London, asking him to give the station back its original name which proved unsuccessful. The "Gillespie Road" name, however, is famously