Dizzy for President

Dizzy for President

ASIN: B00004SZCD

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Along with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was an important architect of the bebop revolution of the mid-1940s. Gillespie's ability to relate that complex musical style to the masses made him a well-loved worldwide figure. This live date from the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1963 offers ample aural evidence of prowess and popularity. Backed by his longtime partner, tenor/alto saxophonist and flutist James Moody, drummer Rudy Collins, bassist Chris White, and a young Kenny Barron on piano, Gillespie's upturned trumpet unleashes his patented stratospheric solos on old standards like "Dizzy Atmosphere" and "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Been Good to You." Moody reprises his famous sax solo on "I'm in the Mood for Love"; "The Cup Bearers," by Tom McIntosh, is a pleasing neo-bop number; and "Desafinado" and "No More Blues"--two popular bossa novas by Antonio Carlos Jobim--swing with a lovely Latin lilt. The high points of this set are Gillespie's comedic references to black pride and Malcolm X on Luiz Bonfa's "Morning of the Carnival" and Jon Hendricks's lyrics to Gillespie's bop classic, "Vote Dizzy (Salt Peanuts)," the official theme song of Dizzy Gillespie's 1964 "Presidential campaign." --Eugene Holley Jr.

Tracks:

Dizzy Atmosphere
Morning Of The Carnival
The Cup Bearers
I'm In The Mood For Love
Desafinado
Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good To You?
No More Blues
Vote Dizzy (Salt Peanuts)

Amazon.com

Along with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was an important architect of the bebop revolution of the mid-1940s. Gillespie's ability to relate that complex musical style to the masses made him a well-loved worldwide figure. This live date from the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1963 offers ample aural evidence of prowess and popularity. Backed by his longtime partner, tenor/alto saxophonist and flutist James Moody, drummer Rudy Collins, bassist Chris White, and a young Kenny Barron on piano, Gillespie's upturned trumpet unleashes his patented stratospheric solos on old standards like "Dizzy Atmosphere" and "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Been Good to You." Moody reprises his famous sax solo on "I'm in the Mood for Love"; "The Cup Bearers," by Tom McIntosh, is a pleasing neo-bop number; and "Desafinado" and "No More Blues"--two popular bossa novas by Antonio Carlos Jobim--swing with a lovely Latin lilt. The high points of this set are Gillespie's comedic references to black pride and Malcolm X on Luiz Bonfa's "Morning of the Carnival" and Jon Hendricks's lyrics to Gillespie's bop classic, "Vote Dizzy (Salt Peanuts)," the official theme song of Dizzy Gillespie's 1964 "Presidential campaign." --Eugene Holley Jr.

Customer Reviews:

Fast, Fearless and Fun .......2006-01-09

This recording truly captures the spirit of Dizzy in concert at the height of his powers. It's fast, fearless and fun. In between some amazing tunes, there's some comedy ("Yeah, Malcolm told me," "Orpheus De Negro" and his intro to "I'm In The Mood for Love" crack me up every time.) You can't help but feel good when listening to this.

Diz does some great work with standards such as "Dizzy Atmosphere" and "Salt Peanuts." And I challenge anyone to sit still when they listen to his wonderful (and alas too short) version of "Desifinado."

And as Dizzy said himself, Mr. James Moody was in rare form in this performance with some great solos. He works very well with Diz and the rest of the group here. And he hits it out of the park with his "I'm In The Mood for Love," of course.

The title of this CD refers to Dizzy's half-hearted, semi-serious gonzo run for the White House in the 1960s. Had he won, I don't know if he would have been a good president. But I do know we would have had a hell of a lot of fun. This CD captures that fun nicely.

Fantastic 1963 concert.......2001-11-21

The band from the SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW album is documented here at the '63 Newport Festival. Diz works in a couple old favorites (a smoking "Dizzy Atmosphere," James Moody's feature "I'm in the Mood for Love," and "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You?"), Tom McIntosh's new "The Cup Bearers" from the album mentioned, some Brazilian tunes that reflect the pop taste of the moment, and a "Salt Peanuts" which Jon Hendricks reworks into a Presidential campaign song for Diz.

Everyone is in a great spirits, and you can hear Diz cut up between a few numbers for the audience's amusement. There's a particularly funny exchange between Diz and Moody about whether he can say "BLACK Orpheus" on stage. "Excuse the expression," Dizzy teases. Moody chides him: "You can say BLACK! It's OK--Malcolm told me!" Diz shoots back, "Everything must be COOOL, if Malcolm says it's OK!"

The high spirits carry over into the performances, so the music all sounds wonderful as well. The sound fidelity is exceptionally good for an informal live recording from '63. Kudos to Douglas Music for the fine HDCD remastering work.

I look forward to Verve reissuing more of Dizzy's work from this period, like NEW WAVE, THE NEW CONTINENT, and DIZZY ON THE FRENCH RIVIERA. Until that happens, this concert is an especially valuable document of this band in action. Get it while you still can.

Dizzy for President
Average customer rating:

Fantastic 1963 concert

Dizzy for President
Dizzy Gillespie
Manufacturer: Knitting Factory
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Bebop General | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music
General | Jazz | Styles | Music
Bebop | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00004DS3I
Release Date: 2000-01-06

Tracks:

Dizzy Atmosphere
Morning of the Carnival
Cup Bearers
I'm in the Mood for Love
Desafinado
Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You?
No More Blues
Vote Dizzy (Salt Peanuts)

Album Description

Recorded at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival. One of the grand architects of Be Bop, the master Dizzy Gillespie is here captured in a brilliant live set at the legendary festival. His enormous talent reached well beyond the jazz stageas he acted as an ambassador of jazz bringing America's only original art form to the World and had aspirations at home for the Presidency. Dizzy vowed, if elected, he would change the color of the White House and have Duke Ellington serve as his Secretary of State. Judging by the rousing round of applause at the end of this great performance I am certain he left with several thousand votes in his pocket!

Band members are... Dizzy Gillespie-Trumpet James Moody-Tenor & Alto Saxophone / Flute Kenny Barron-Piano Chris White - Bass Rudy Collins - Drums John Hendricks-Vocal on "Vote Dizzy" Sleepy Matsumoto-Tenor Sax on "Vote Dizzy"

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic 1963 concert.......2001-11-19

I look forward to Verve reissuing more of Dizzy's work from this period, like NEW WAVE, THE NEW CONTINENT, and DIZZY ON THE FRENCH RIVIERA. Until that happens, this concert is an especially valuable document of this band in action. Get it while you still can.

Dizzy for President
Average customer rating:

I'd vote Diz all my life

Dizzy for President
Dizzy Gillespie
Manufacturer: Douglas Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Bebop General | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music
General | Jazz | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000019BQ
Release Date: 1997-10-07

Tracks:

Dizzy Atmosphere
Morning Of The Carnival
The Cup Bearers
I'm In The Mood For Love
Desafinado
Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good To You?
No More Blues
Vote Dizzy (Salt Peanuts)

Customer Reviews:

I'd vote Diz all my life.......2005-12-25

Ehy guys wouldn't you vote Diz for president when he was with us? I'd did for real! The first time we could be sure a true genius would seat on a political chair. VOTE DIZZY! Anyway! Amazon lacks a lot of informations about this Dizzy's album, in this Christmas morning I'll fill this gap. I did buy in these days a lot of cds to keep me well entertained in these lazy holydays and this is among them. What a better Christmas than one spent on your sofà in front of your hiend system with a bunch of good Jazz cds? To begin this review I'd say it's a live album (really LIVE, a lot of words between Diz and the audience) recorded at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival. My rating is four stars. Diz is great and the combo is very good. The material interesting enough, the recording not the best (too much live yeowling and clapping). You can find better Diz date, but this is anyway very good. Four stars, not the best but high quality. My cd sports a different cover. It has Dizzy's on his back blowing the trumpet, the main colour of the cover is black (but it's absolutly the same album). Dizzy played in Monterey that year with a small combo composed by James Moody at tenor (presented by an ilarious Diz "an alto saxophone virtuoso"), alto and flute, Kenny Barron at the piano, Chris White double bass, Rudy Collins drums. The program is pure gillespie-o-rama from the sixties (serious bebop, classic Diz compositions, some bossa novas, some curios uncommon tunes taken with the usual Diz sense of humor). Tunes are not that long, a lot of them falls around the 3 or 4 minutes each, which for a live date are not that much (the only exceptions are Jobim's No more blues and the closing number Vote Dizzy, a Salt Peanuts contrafact both around 13 minutes). The progam opens with a short, fast version of Dizzy Atmosphere (there are some technical audio problems on this first tune, but after that the music continues very well recorded). Then follows a very nice rendition of Manha de Carnaval, then Cup bearers a swinger by Tom McIntosh. Here you can hear James Moody blowing his ass off. Then will come "I'm in the mood for love" the wonderful solo from Moody that has become a vehicle for Jazz vocalese singers like George Benson, Moody himself, Manhattan Transfer etc. The program continues with a Jobim standard, Desafinado taken up tempo. I point out that Diz is in splendid shape as he has always been by the way especially in the sixties. Gee baby is taken as a ballad. The seventh tune is another one by Jobim, No more blues precedeed by a lot of laughters from the band and the audience. The last tune is the most curious here. It is a tune based on Salt Peanuts changes. It is sung by Jon Hendricks (who wrote the lyrics too) the title is simply VOTE DIZZY. Hendricks and Diz did some very good bebop scatting here and the tune is highly entertaining! It was written for the presidential campaign on which Diz was more or less candidated by popular acclaim. It was a sad and confused period that one. Kennedy was shot two months after this recording. So ... you know how history went on.

Jazz Music:

Jazz Music

Jazz Music