Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" album cover

Dizzy Gillespie in 1947

Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

Mar 2 - TRUMPETER MILES DAVIS records "Kind of Blue", the best selling jazz album of all time (at the time!), 1959

Miles Davis was one of the greatest visionaries and most important figures in jazz history. He was born in a well-to-do family in East St. Louis. He became a local phenom and toured locally with Billy Eckstine's band while he was in high school. He moved to New York under the guise of attending the Julliard School of Music. However, his real intentions were to hook up with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He quickly climbed up the ranks while learning from Bird and Diz and became the trumpet player for Charlie Parker's group for nearly 3 years.

For more, see "History Page" MILES DAVIS article!

Mar 4 - TRUMPETER DIZZIE GILLESPIE'S Big Band records Carnegie Hall Concert, 1961.

With his great ballooning cheeks and trademark trumpet's bell upturned at a 45-degree angle, Dizzy Gillespie easily has the most recognizable face in jazz. And just how did Gillespie end up with that bizarre, trademark trumpet of his? The bent-bell trumpet got its start in 1953 when someone fell on his trumpet stand backstage; Gillespie liked the sound of the altered instrument so much that his trumpets were specially made from then on. To read more, see "History Page" DIZZY GILLESPIE article.

Mar 5 - TRUMPETER LOUIS ARMSTRONG records "Knockin’ A Jug" with trombonist Jack Teagarden, 1929.

Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music's history. As a trumpet virtuoso, his playing, beginning with the 1920s studio recordings made with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, charted a future for jazz in highly imaginative, emotionally charged improvisation. For this, he is revered by jazz fans. But Armstrong also became an enduring figure in popular music, due to his distinctively phrased bass singing and engaging personality, which were on display in a series of vocal recordings and film roles. Armstrong had a difficult childhood. William Armstrong, his father, was a factory worker who abandoned the family soon after the boy's birth. To read more, see "History Page" LOUIS ARMSTRONG article.

See: www.smithsonianjazz.org for complete calendar on "This Day in History"!