To Be or Not to Bop [Hardcover]

Dizzy Gillespie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1979

You don’t have to know John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie’s songs to feel his influence. The self-taught trumpet player rose from a poor but musically driven upbringing to become a jazz mastermind, founding the bebop movement and giving rise to Afro-Cuban music.

This extensive biography is intertwined with reflections from famous Gillespie associates Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. They provide numerous perspectives of Gillespie’s early start on the road to fame and the spirited times that would follow.

To Be, or Not . . . to Bop is a unique account serves as both a rollicking history lesson in American music and culture and a towering play-by-play of a life not to be forgotten.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

You don’t have to know John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie’s songs to feel his influence. The self-taught trumpet player rose from a poor but musically driven upbringing to become a jazz mastermind, founding the bebop movement and giving rise to Afro-Cuban music.

This extensive biography is intertwined with reflections from famous Gillespie associates Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. They provide numerous perspectives of Gillespie’s early start on the road to fame and the spirited times that would follow.

To Be, or Not . . . to Bop is a unique account serves as both a rollicking history lesson in American music and culture and a towering play-by-play of a life not to be forgotten.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993) was an American jazz trumpet virtuoso as well as a bandleader, singer, and composer.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 552 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (July 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385120524
• ISBN-13: 978-0385120524
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. BeBop himself!, September 15, 2005

By 

EPerry (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Be or Not to Bop (Hardcover)

Jazz has been a lifelong love of mine, and Dizzy is at the top of the heap! Have always loved his music, and in this book, he gives us a generous lesson on jazz from beginning to end. He lets us in on how he got the name "Dizzy", as well as other interesting peeks into his life - always with humour and an upbeat attitude. From Page 1 onward, you can visualize Mr. G.,---- body keeping time to the beat in his head, those rubber cheeks expanded, his admirers ... male and female, musicians and non-musicians... listening and swaying and tapping with admiration and awe.

This book is a lesson in music. I used to wonder why the drummers from America sounded so different from the drummers in other countries, say the Caribbean. Why is it that a certain sound sets American music apart from all the music elsewhere in the world. Well, Dizzy explains all of this in his down-to-earth and charming manner. Reading this book is almost like getting a degree in musicology....except it's a lot more fun. He sugarcoats nothing, and puts everything out there for you to see.

Well written, informative, great fun, and a lot of history too. To repeat myself, I loved it!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To be or not to Bop, March 18, 2004

By 

Jerrold Rosenberg (Providence, RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: To Be or Not to Bop (Hardcover)

What a magnificent book. Dizzy lived the history of Jazz. In this book you learn all about Jazz, it's roots, changes and future. You learn about all the great musicians, their styles and influences. You also discover some lessor named musicians who were instrumental in the development of the "modern music" or "bop". For you musicians, Dizzy spends some time discussing the melody and harmonic changes which created bop. WHile this was over my head it did not bore me. Extremely well writen and edited there are wonderful comments from all the great jazz musicians themselves interspaced throughout Dizzy's own words. It inspired me to go out and find many records from the recording dates he described. To now appreciate the men, events and background of these sessions makes the records even more enjoyable. Thank goodness most libraries have preserved this book. Enjoy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on bebop, November 10, 2009

By 

Beagle (Sydney) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: To Be, or Not . . . to Bop (Paperback)

How wonderful that this book has finally been reissued. Snap it up before it goes out of print again!

This extraordinary book was written by Dizzy Gillespie and Al Frazer about Dizzy's life as one of the creators of bebop. The main text is Dizzy in his own words, but this is interspersed with interviews from other people who were there at the time who provide their own recollections of the same incidents.

This book is a unique picture into the world of jazz by one of its most flamboyant players. This book, along with the Miles Davis Autobiography Miles and Ross Russel's book on Charlie Parker Bird Lives!: The High Life And Hard Times Of Charlie (yardbird) Parker are essentials for any jazz lover.