Gillespie (1917 - 1993) began playing the piano at the age of four and continued his autodidactic training as a trombonist and trumpeter. When he heard the trumpeter Roy Eldridge, who after Louis Armstrong had further developed trumpet playing in jazz as the most important swing trumpeter, he wanted to become a jazz musician. Already in 1937 he was allowed to take over its vacant place in the Teddy Hill Orchestra. Further stations were Cab Calloway and finally the Big Band of Earl Hines, in which some of the future Beboppers gathered at the beginning of the 40s, among them Charlie Parker. This band in turn formed the orchestra of singer Billie Eckstine in 1942, which was made up of many young musicians who were to become the most important musicians in bebop: Sonny Stitt, Miles Davis, Fats Navarro, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughn and many more

Gillespie and Parker recorded the most important combo recordings of early bebop for Savoy. In contrast to Parker, however, Gillespie was always interested in big bands and already formed his own orchestra in the 1940s, for example the band in 1948, which even made a guest appearance in Paris. Of all these activities and his predilection for Afro-Cuban rhythms, excellent examples are gathered here that present Gillespie as the greatest trumpet virtuoso of jazz, composer and orchestra leader in all his breadth

Feat: Charlie Parker, Quincy Jones, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, John Lewis, Roy Eldridge, Stan Getz, Jay Jay Johnson, Don Byas, John Coltrane, Sonny Stitt, Oscar Peterson, Benny Golson, Clark Terry, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, Sonny Rollins, Lalo Schifrin.