Dizzy Gillespie (and Adrian Ernesto Cepeda)

Tonight I'd like to welcome the L.A. writer Adrian Ernesto Cepeda to The Song Is....  I'm quite pleased to see that Dizzy Gillespie is now represented among our musicians in the fall/winter contests!

The Sound of Surprise

When those cheeks expand and he exhales

his breath within notes, as his horn blows

I almost explode, dizzy with enlightenment.

There something about the rhythm, the air

of his playing, speaking with his mouth

and expressing such beauty on his canvas

of air, gripping his golden trumpet,

and all of the treasures he gifts us, even

when the vinyl is crackling back to the

Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac eyes closed

ears open, feeling the wind alone as Gillespie

takes us, each slight return so adventurous,

while reaching inside his melody lingers

resounding this cheeky giant from his

distance, sonically appearing even as

the needle uplifts us, we feel closer to home.    

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda

2015

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is an LA Poet who is currently enrolled in the MFA Graduate program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold. His poetry has been featured in The Yellow Chair Review, Thick With Conviction, Silver Birch Press and one of his poems was named Cultured Vultures’ Top 3 Poems of the Week. You can connect with Adrian on his website: http://www.adrianernestocepeda.com/

Let's listen to some Dizzy Gillespie!

This version of "Salt Peanuts" is from 1947: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOmA8LOw258

This version of "Night in Tunisia" was recorded in Havana.  Arturo Sandoval also appears here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xncznvkB7S8

Here Dizzy plays with Louis Armstrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO1uMjz3n3w

"Groovin High" features Dizzy with Charlie Parker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oslMFOeFoLI

I want to add a version of "Birks Works" from 1981: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwBq1rxuP-w

Enjoy!  Perhaps this music will inspire you to write.  :)  Or to buy a t-shirt.  I think that this is the t-shirt my husband used to have back in the day.