| "Groovin' High" | |
|---|---|
| Song byDizzy Gillespie | |
| from the albumDizzy Gillespie and His All-Stars | |
| Released | March 1947 |
| Recorded | February 9, 1945 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 2:38 |
| Label | Musicraft |
| Songwriter | Dizzy Gillespie |
"Groovin' High" is a 1945jazz song by trumpeter and composerDizzy Gillespie. The song was abebop mainstay that became ajazz standard,[1] one of Gillespie's best known hits,[2] and according toBebop: The Music and Its Players author Thomas Owens, it was "the first famous bebop recording".[3]
It is a complex musical arrangement based on thechord structure of a 1920 standard originally recorded byPaul Whiteman, "Whispering", composed byVincent Rose with lyrics by John Schonberger andRichard Coburn.[2] The biographyDizzy characterizes the song as "a pleasant medium-tempo tune" that "demonstrates ... [Gillespie's] skill in fashioning interesting textures using only six instruments".[2]
It has been used to title many compilation albums and also the 2001 biographyGroovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie.[4]
The song appeared on the debut 1947 album,Dizzy Gillespie and His All Stars and is one of eight tracks on that album that, according to jazz criticScott Yanow, "shocked" Gillespie's contemporaries, contributing to the album "permanently [changing] ... jazz and (indirectly) the entire music world".[5] InJazz: A Regional Exploration, Yanow explained that at the time, such songs "were unprecedented ... displaying a radically different language" from contemporaryswing.[6] Although fans and fellow musicians found the material "very strange and difficult",The Sax & Brass Book notes that they were quickly adopted as classics.[7] According to Yanow, "[Charlie] Parker and Gillespie's solos seemed to have little relation to the melody, but they were connected. It was a giant step forward for jazz."[6]
Thomas Owens highlighted the innovative use of source material, pointing out that while it was not uncommon for jazz musicians to utilize existing chord structures in their compositions in 1945, Gillespie's "melodiccontrafact was the most complex jazz melody superimposed on a pre-existing chordal scheme" and "atypically elaborate".[3]
First performed on February 9, 1945,Gillespie reworked the arrangement for a February 28 performance to allow animprovisation by guitaristRemo Palmier,[8] and it is this reworking that became so well known.[3]
In the bookYardbird Suite, music historian Lawrence O. Koch sets forth in detail the structure of the song as performed on December 29, 1945, and preserved byArmed Forces Radio Service, from the two-bar unison figure by Gillespie andCharlie Parker that opens the song to the Gillespiecoda at the end.[9] Not having to conform to78 rpm technology, Gillespie and his band were able to add several minutes to the song during that performance.[10] Koch praised the "lovely, logical, melodic construction" of Parker's 16-bar solo as well as singling out performances by Gillespie,Slam Stewart, and Palmieri, as commendable.[9] Noting that the coda "has become a jazz cliché, both in its melody and the chord pattern from which the melody was derived", he also drew attention to Gillespie's "prima donna breath control" on the final E-flat, with only a "slight loss in intonation" in spite of the difficulty of the phrase.[11] The bookCharlie Parker: His Music and Life describes this performance, along with the three other songs played in that session, as capturing "much of the vitality of the early Gillespie-Parker partnership".[12]
Other notable performances of the song took place on September 29, 1947, when Parker and Gillespie reunited in concert atCarnegie Hall[13] and during a 1956 tour sponsored by theUS State Department. Owens describes the 1947 recording as among the finest of Parker's career.[14] During the 1956 tour, Gillespie simultaneously performed "Groovin' High" and "Whispering" to demonstrate the way jazz musicians build on the bones of earlier compositions.[15]
According to the bookVisions of Jazz: The First Century by criticGary Giddins, Gillespie once recounted that he believed the song had been inspired by afilm serial he saw at a matinée as a child that used the song "Whispering" as its theme.[16] Gillespie offered no details about the serial, except that he believed it might have starred stuntman and rodeo riderYakima Canutt.[16]
There are at least 11 different albums in the Gillespie discography alone namedGroovin' High, compilations that include the song along with other notable tracks that Gillespie performed. In addition, several compilations have been released under this title in Parker's name.
