On October 21, 1917, John Birks Gillespie was born. The world did not know it yet but they were meeting one of the great innovators of the jazz and bebop era. Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children. Gillespie's father was a bricklayer during the week and a bandleader/piano player on the weekends. He kept his bands instruments at home for safety. There was a piano, guitar, mandolin, and drums set up in their living room. Gillespie lived in a musical world, without much interest. Four years after his fathers" death, when Gillespie was 14, he began learning the trombone, but soon switched to the trumpet. The young Gillespie was got his musical education from neighbors and at school.
Recognized by the staff at the Laurinberg Institute of North Carolina as a prodigy, he was given a scholarship to be in the band in 1932. Throughout his stay at the Laurinberg Institute, he studied both the trumpet and the piano vigourously. Starting himself along a road that would continuously pave the way for something valuable, new and historic.1 Gillespie did not know that he would become a pioneer in a new style called Bebop, or that he would become a role model for other musicians. .
Like all musicians today, Gillespie studied the works and styles of other performers and composers. Gillespie greatly enjoyed listening to and examining the works of Stravinsky, a virtuoso composer of the classic period. Gillespie also admired Maurice Ravel, another composer, famous for works like "Bolero", a piece that consisted of a phrase repeated over and over, each time getting louder and thicker.2 This is shown in many of Gillespie's songs.
Gillespie's early idol was swing trumpeter Roy Eldridge. In his studies he would transcribe and learn the notes that Eldridge would play during his solos.3 Gillespie took the saxophone style lines of Eldridge and played them faster, with greater ease and with more harmonic daring.
