Back in the 1940s, early in his career, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie incorporated the theme from a tune called Be-Bop, or sometimes Dizzy’s Fingers, into a swirling big band arrangement and called the resulting piece Things to Come. It was a wild, gyrating score usually played at breakneck speed (often around 300bpm) that invariably proved a handful to perform. The Things Are Here is the eventual sequel to that composition that the Dizzy Gillespie Reunion Big Band played in the 1960s. Many concert performances of this are very long indeed, but this one (recorded in Berlin in 1968) lasts only about 8 minutes. I have this on vinyl but haven’t get got around to transferring it to digital. Here you hear the stunning power and virtuosity of this thrilling band; there must have been a tough entrance examination to get a place in it!
As you’d expect there’s a lot of solo space in this performance for Gillespie himself, but also room for solos and duets from the other musicians, including James Moody and Paul Jeffrey on tenor saxophone, Sahib Shihab on alto saxophone, Cecil Payne on baritone sax, Curtis Fuller on trombone and, right at the end, Otis Finch brings the house down with a drum solo.
It’s a wild, white-knuckle ride, so strap yourself in!
In the Dark 