Dizzy

I was listening to the news in my car the other day, and they ran a cut from one of the anti-health care speakers at the big Washington rally last week. The guy said something like, "No, you are NOT your brother's keeper," which was followed, of course, by a huge cheer from the assembled multitude. It's the old "Let 'em pick themselves up by their own bootstraps like MY people did" gambit. Never mind that that defies the laws of gravity. I had assumed that many Christians must be among that cheering crowd in Washington -- but wasn't it the BAD guy in the bible who said he wasn't his brother's keeper? Cain, maybe? Do those Christians simply not get the point of the story?

The whole issue reminded me, oddly enough, of an amazing and inspiring meeting I had with the incomparable Dizzy Gillespie back in 1973. I was working for Mercury Records as an A&R man (sort of like a talent scout) at the time, and Irwin Steinberg, the president of the company, had heard an album that Dizzy had recorded live several years earlier. Irwin loved the record and wanted Mercury to pick it up for U.S. release. So he had a contract prepared for Dizzy and, knowing I was a trumpet player, gave me orders to go to D.C. to get Dizzy to sign. I guess he assumed Dizzy and I would have something in common from the get-go, so I was the right Mercury guy for the job.

That was good thinking on his part even though it didn't work out the way he wanted. As for me, I couldn't believe my good fortune. Dizzy Gillespie was an idol for virtually everyone who was or aspired to be a jazz trumpet player. He was recognized, along with Charlie Parker, as the inventor of be-bop, a jazz form that redefined the idiom and demanded immense creativity and intelligence, sometimes almost as much on the part of the listener as the performer. It's almost impossible to even define Gillespie's greatness. His improvisational skill was intensely, almost absurdly, advanced and disciplined yet wildly creative. I couldn't understand a thing he did, really, and was certainly not capable of even attempting to imitate him. On top of all that, he was a monster just as a trumpet player -- technique, tone, endurance -- he had no real weaknesses.
And now I was going to meet him, to get him on "my" label.

I flew to D.C. and registered at the Watergate, a gorgeous hotel at the time, by the way. I had the phone number at Dizzy's hotel, so I called him immediately. He answered, I explained why I was there, and he very graciously said, "C'mon over." I got to his hotel right away -- a run-down, seedy, dusty place. The sofa he was sitting on had holes all over it. He said, "Why don't we just talk for a while before we get down to business?" That was sure okay with me. He asked me all about myself -- my personal history, how I got this job. He made me feel very much at home in that ratty old room. And I noticed his speech was completely devoid of jazz lingo. No "man" punctuating every direct address, no "cool," no "outa' sight," nothing like that. Anywhere. He reminded me most of a kindly, smiling old college professor happy to impart his wisdom to a first-year grad student. This was, to say the least, not the Dizzy Gillespie I had expected. Then he started talking about HIS aspirations and as-yet-unfulfilled dreams. He wanted, he said, to spread the joy of his music to countries all over the world, particularly to our perceived enemies and more particularly to China, the Red Menace of all Red Menaces. He felt that if only the Chinese people, including government officials, could hear and feel the power and love of his music, all of us could make a start toward mutual understanding. Maybe that sounds corny now, like some kind of naive idealism, but it didn't sound corny at all coming directly from Dizzy. It was deeply moving.

After that exchange of personal histories and ambitions, we got down to the business of the contract, which was filled with typical gobbledygook incomprehensible (I thought) legalese. Dizzy proceeded to take it apart clause-by-clause, word-by-word, and then he explained to me in stunning detail why he could never sign a contract filled with so much one-sided interest. Finally, he invited me to his gig that night and saved an up-front seat for me. His generosity, obviously, had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was a record executive offering him a contract. But even more amazing to me was his spectacular demonstration of academic brilliance -- IQ, if you will. It struck me that his IQ must be about 200.

But here's the real point. As a kid, Dizzy Gillespie was a wild man. His temper and unpredictability were legendary. As legend (history?) has it, he was playing in Cab Calloway's band, and when Calloway expressed his disdain for Dizzy's weird-sounding improvisations, Dizzy went after him with a pocket knife he always carried. I guess somebody pulled him off the bandleader before anyone got hurt. That Dizzy Gillespie was, of course, not the same man I met all those years later in Washington. What had changed him? Just time and experience? Impossible. Nope -- someone, somewhere along the way pulled Dizzy up by the bootstraps. Somebody who saw what this kid could become, namely America's most brilliant musical ambassador to the world, somehow positively influenced that wild kid -- through example? through prodding? through teaching? -- who knows. But somebody did it. As unique and smart as Dizzy was, nobody could have accomplished what he did alone.

Some anonymous but profoundly important person was his brother Dizzy's keeper; we are all infinitely richer for it. And none of us can even begin to imagine how many more potential Dizzy Gillespies are out there just waiting for that lift -- to say nothing of all those potential doctors and architects and business owners and lawyers and Sonia Sotomayors and Barack Obamas and Walter Paytons and Thurgood Marshalls -- all of whom we so desperately need. If we can just recognize the absolute necessity of helping them to lift themselves up, just think of the dizzying heights to which THEY can ultimately take the rest of US.