Dizzy Gillespie

• DIGIPACK EDITION

Readers with long memories will remember that this edition of Dizzy's group toured Europe on a double bill alongside former Gillespie sideman John Coltrane's quartet .

While bootlegs of the latter's contributions have proliferated, the only documentation of Diz may be these 40 minutes from Stuttgart and nearly half-an-hour in Frankfurt, recorded for radio station SDR. His quintet was a continuation of the basic group for the previous year's Lalo Schifrin-arranged big-band extravaganza Gillespiana, with the second strongest voice being Leo Wright who subsequently settled in Europe. Schifrin seems a bit overstretched on a couple of long solos with distressingly rudimentary left-hand voicings while Mel Lewis, already a valued studio musician, was a more than adequate emergency replacement. Two 15-minute-plus pieces, ‘Kush’ and Ellington's ‘The Mooche’, make an interesting comparison with the versions on An Electrifying Evening With… recorded nine months earlier. But there are also two lengthy versions of ‘Con Alma’, and the whole thing is well worth your time.

PERSONNEL:

• Dizzy Gillespie , trumpet
• Leo Wright, alto sax, flute
• Lalo Schifrin, piano
• Bob Cunningham, bass
• Mel Lewis, drums

Stuttgart, 27 November. 1961 & Frankfurt, 29 November, 1961.

TRACKS:

• 01. The Mooche
• 02. Con Alma
• 03. Willow Weep for Me
• 04. Oops-Shoo-Be-Doo-B
• 05. I Can't Get Started
• 06. Kush
• 07. Con Alma