Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy Gillespie centennial celebration kicks off this week.
Dizzy’s music will take over JALC for a four-day weekend of shows starting Thursday, Jan. 26. Trombonist Vincent Gardner is leading the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra through various arrangements in Rose Theater.
“We’re going to incorporate a lot of the music from those earlier eras of bebop. Right when he was breaking out of the swing era, those years after World War II, and how you started to hear the change in the way that people were phrasing music and little things that were being added to big band repertoire’s in the early bebop era,” Gardner said.
He adds that the main stage set will include rare arrangements.
“One of them I know has never been played since 1949. Another one I doubt has been played since the 1950’s. Because the music was lost when Jerry Mulligan’s basement apartment flooded in the early 50’s.”
Bassist Carlos Henriquez is showing audiences the Latin side of Dizzy in The Appel Room.
“Sometimes I get to the point where, Dizzy did what he did but it will never be the same. So what I try to do, with the cats that I got together, to show them our view on the traditions that we know that Dizzy dealt with when he was merging the music with Chano Pozo and his big band,” Henriquez said.
Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola is hosting a trio of different performances during the festival. Expect free food tastings and live music at the Ertegun Atrium beginning at 6pm on Friday and Saturday.