Jazz is a music almost obsessed with its own history. Sure, rock ‘n’ rollers are sometimes compared to earlier practitioners and classical musicians are required to know voluminous amounts of traditional repertoire, but jazz players usually have to deal with both issues. It is surely intimidating to a young player both to carry on a century-old tradition while competing with the music of their elders. But jazz has always been filled with outsized personalities, arguably none more so than trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (born this month in 1917 and dying 15 years ago). Our Cover this month is given over to reminisces of this legendary figure from those who knew him best, his fellow musicians. October finds several events honoring John Birks Gillespie: the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars at Blue Note, Charli Persip’s Supersound at Dizzy’s Club and a birthday tribute led by Mike Longo, Dizzy’s former pianist, at the NYC Baha’I Center Gillespie Auditorium (his namesake venues). Someone else who knows about history is our Interview, trombonist Benny Powell, who in addition to playing with Diz, had stints in the big bands of Count Basie and Lionel Hampton. And living up to the heady responsibilities of knowing history and then creating one’s own, pianist Jason Moran (Artist Feature) presents an evening of Monk at Harlem Stage.
We also have Steve Grossman, who was an integral part of ‘70s jazz history but has been under the radar for quite a while due to residency in Europe. And on the newer side, this issue features stories on an up-and-coming label promoting a wide array of primarily German jazz (Jazzwerkstatt) and a fresh venue committed to jazz and world music in New York (Drom). And in the final confluence of old and new, check out our Special Feature on Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio, a longtime center for the production of compelling music from a host of seminal musicians, fêted at Symphony Space this month.
Jazz is about the past, the present and the future. It is up to us to respect the first, participate in the second and hope for the health of the third.
