Search - Dizzy Gillespie :: Things to Come

Still Relevant

Colley Wilkes | Philadelphia, PA | 06/16/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"These days its easy to forget what an absolutely orignal and visionary artist Dizzy Gillespie was, especially in his heyday in the mid 1940's-50's. Its difficult sometimes for modern ears how breath takingly radical and audacious modern jazz sounded to a society used elegantly swinging big bands and smooth crooners.For many the effect was jarring and it split jazz right down the middle....there are people who to this very day think that bebop was the death of jazz.Gillespie was at the heart of this revolution, but he's often overlooked as a moving force partly because of the long shadow cast by the moody, harrowing legend of his partner in crime Charlie Parker, and partly because he had the good luck and common sense to avoid the pit- fall of the cliched self-destructive,tragic genius jazz musician done in by his or her own appetites.....the role which Parker adopted or was trapped in depending on who you ask, and which the saxophonist played to the hilt.Gillespie was every bit the self-willed, iconclastic genius that Parker was, but was also blessed with the eqilibrium and self-discpline that makes for long life and mental health and creativity, if not for the lurid headlines and yellow journalism that creates the 'tragic jazz' aura so beloved by pop culture.In effect he was often penalized for not have destroyed himself.but if he did not burn out neither did he fade away.....In his way, Dizzy, and the rest of the boppers, where just as radical any of the the later day f*** you heroes who have come to dominate the media landscape and had much to do with laying the groundwork for the whole lineage, from the Beats to Hendrix to the Clash to Hip Hop. Anyway, It had been a while since I listened to this particular album.In general I tend to like Dizzy's small group stuff better, preferably in an all-star setting, like Jazz at Massey Hall, or the hard to find live stuff, bootlegs from the 40's, at small clubs or after hours spots when the musicians tended to stretch more than on studio dates.Still, this is a good, hard swinging album, almost manic at times.'Things to Come' and 'Manteca' stand out....also 'N'bani' which is a bit more subtle, but still punchy.All in all a good set, which I'd recommend as a good place to start with Dizzy and modern jazz in general, with the additional advice that you might find it rewarding to seek out that secret, hard to find, challenging smoky backroom jazz that the Beboppers where putting down after hours.... still as edgy and provactive in its own way as anything to come along since."

WOW

Ronald A Clark | Alma, MI United States | 04/15/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the difinitive Dizzy Gillespie Big Band album! It starts off with one of the best versions of Things to Come I have ever heard. This song should be nearly impossible to play in a big band, but they are the tightest you could be playing this insanely fast. The version of Manteca is superb also. Dizzy has been known to go into different songs in the middle of this, and he keeps true to it with St. Thomas. N'Bani is way ahead of it's time on this album. It starts off with a "rock-style" beat. This is a sweet album, and it's CHEAP! Buy it!"