Two New Dizzy Gillespie Discs

A couple of new Dizzy Gillespie discs came in the JT mailbag last week. One is a collection of previously unreleased 1981 concert material, the other is an unreleased, Dizzy-penned soundtrack to an unreleased film.

The first, titled Salt Peanuts, was released at the end of August and collects eight tracks culled from more than four hours of material from Gillespie’s 1981 engagement at the Montreal nightspot the Rising Sun. Gillespie’s band throughout the recording is comprised of guitarist Ed Cherry, electric bassist Michael Howell, drummer Tommy Campbell and Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr on flute and tenor.

Released via Justin Time’s Just a Memory imprint, the recording has been remastered and de-noised and contains liner notes by jazz historian Len Dobbin.

Here’s a track list:

1Barcelona2Blues Theme3Salt Peanuts4Swing Low Sweet Cadillac5Night in Tunisia6Land of Milk and Honey7The Girl from Ipanema8Tin Tin Deo

The second Dizzy disc, The Winter in Lisbon, came out October 5 on Milan Records and is the last studio album Gillespie recorded. The 1990 recording was meant to be the soundtrack for a film of the same name that was never released in the U.S. Gillespie also had a starring role in the movie, playing a famous jazz musician. What a stretch.

Gillespie employed 15 musicians to carry out his cinema score. The rhythm section consists of jazz stalwarts Danilo Perez on piano, George Mraz on bass and drummer Grady Tate. The rest of the personnel includes Wint Garvey, Sandra Billingslea (violins); Richard Spencer (viola); Akua Dixon (cello); Jerry Peel, Bob Carlisle, Robby Routch, Russ Rizner (French horn); Tony Kadleck (trumpet); Mario Rivera (soprano sax, flute); and Leola Jiles (vocals).

Here’s the track list for The Winter in Lisbon:

1 Opening theme

2 San Sebastian

3 Lucretia’s Theme

4 Magic Summer

5 Isthmus

6 Magic Summer

7 Lisbon

8 Magic Summer

9 Burma

10 Bill’s Song

11 Final Theme

Originally Published October 21, 2004