Dizzy Gillespie wore a beret, puffed his cheeks into balloons, and played with his trumpet bell bent skyward. The showmanship made people laugh. The music behind it was the most advanced jazz anyone had heard, and it changed American music permanently.

This episode covers Gillespie’s rise from small-town South Carolina to the New York clubs where he and Charlie Parker invented bebop.

• He and Charlie Parker co-invented bebop, transforming jazz from dance music into an art form
• His bent trumpet was created by accident when someone fell on it at a party
• He ran for President in 1964 on a satirical platform
• He pioneered Afro-Cuban jazz by integrating Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo into his big band