Dizzy Gillespie

She played for Duke Ellington.

Her best friends were Billy Holiday and Dizzy Gillespie.

Yeah.

And I kid you not, and, uh- So you couldn't get into the class 'cause there'd be 500 people in an auditorium in the orchestra, in the music school, where I spent hours every day-

Bill is one of those rare musicians who didn't just live through an extraordinary stretch of jazz history, he paid attention while it was happening.

As a bassist, he worked with an astonishing range of musicians, Stan Getz, Jerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Marion McPartland, Joe Morello, Clark Terry, Bob Brookmeyer, Dizzy Gillespie, J.J. Johnson, I'm running out of breath, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, Phil Woods, Jimmy Rolls, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and many more.

And at the same time, Bill was there at Birdland in the early 1950s, listening while Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, Lester Young, Miles Davis, Max Roach, and so many others were still simply working musicians around New York.

Birdland was, in a very real sense, part of his education.

If my job is to keep time and time make people dance and they bring people into a culture or a... unit of filling a certain type of thing.

And if we didn't need poles, why is there drums? If we didn't need a pole, why is there a beat? So a lesson that I got while at the New School from the great Charlie Persipp, who played with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he was like, where's your simple beat, man? That's the first time I heard somebody...

He said, where's your simple? Simple beat.

Yeah.

Dizzy.

Is it Dizzy Gillespie? Is it Dizzy? Show me Dizzy Gillespie.

Not Gizzy Gillespie.

Oh, Paige, for the sake of time, we were looking for Ludacris.

You know the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

And Dizzy Gillespie reflected on his time playing with Warnie.

Shane was brilliant.

He enjoyed himself on the field.

We've sold out the Hippodrome before.

And by the way, the venue is super important because if you consider all the different people who've played there, including Lonnie, You know, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles.

I mean, the different people who've played at the Hippodrome are tremendous.

And we're just hoping that people will come, enjoy the music, enjoy the varied talent that we'll have, some of the storytelling, but also that they'll just recognize, like, that Lonnie has been a treasure to the city and one that we want to get the word out about.