Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band CD Release

The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band will release I'm BeBoppin' Too (Half Note) on June 30th. The group, which features Roy Hargrove (pictured), James Moody, Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, Antonio Hart, and many others, has been at Manhattan's Blue Note all week. I caught the first set of their last night of the engagement.

Although Moody, Hampton, and Hart were taking the night off, Jimmy Heath, 82, and one of the few remaining living jazz legends, played with the vitality of someone decades younger. Cyrus Chestnut tore it up on piano, and Hargrove conjured up the spirit of Dizzy Gillespie. Dressed in a checkered suit and Nikes, Hargrove conducted the band, sang, danced, joked, and played some astounding solos.

Seeing Heath and Hargrove, now a veritable jazz statesman, alongside a band filled with younger musicians, playing fun, exciting, accessible music that's true to its bebop roots filled me with the rare feeling that traditional jazz is alive and well. With the crumbling of Jazztimes, the end of the New York JVC Jazz Festival, and a general sense of confusion about where jazz is headed, it's easy to start worrying about the fate of the music.

Image © Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images