[Dixielandjazz] Dizzy Gillespie for president: Note Mention of Turk Murphy

[Robert Ringwald]

Dizzy Gillespie for president: When politics was a groovier thing | Al Jazeera
America
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/22/dizzy-gillespie-forpresident.html
CULTURE
DIZZY GILLESPIE FOR PRESIDENT: WHEN POLITICS WAS A GROOVIER THING
GILLES PETARD / GETTY IMAGES
April 22, 2014 5:00AM ET
by
Tom Maxwell
@universalshow
There are many reasons to remember Dizzy Gillespie. His look, for one thing: the
horn-rimmed glasses, pouched-out frog cheeks, and that trumpet, bent up at a 45-degree
angle. The ground floor inventor of bebop, he had an unforgettable sound, a mastery
of harmonic invention and implied chords, firing off fusillades of rhythmic phrasing.
Gillespie was smart. He was funny. He played with Charlie Parker and influenced Miles
Davis. Fifty years ago, he also ran for president.
It started as a joke, as so many serious things do. His booking agency had some “Dizzy
Gillespie for president” buttons made around 1960, because, you see, it’s funny.
Somebody even asked Gillespie why a black jazzman — a permanent member of the underclass
if there ever was one — would even think of trying for the job. “Because we need
one,” he said.
“Anybody coulda made a better President than the ones we had in those times, dillydallying
about protecting blacks in the exercise of their civil and human rights and carrying
on secret wars against people around the world,” Gillespie wrote in his autobiography
“To Be, or Not ... to Bop.” “I was the only choice for a thinking man.” He went on
to offer a little doggerel on the subject:
I never thought the time would come when
I’d vote for Lyndon B.
But I’d rather burn in hell than vote for
Barry G.
The campaign was conceived by Jean Gleason — wife of Ralph Gleason, a music critic
and founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine — and Ramona Crowell, a devoted fan.
A rally was held in Chicago in the summer of 1963, and “Dizzy for president” buttons
were soon sold to raise money for CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality.
The campaign got its official theme song in September at the Monterey Jazz Festival.
As Gillespie’s band played one of his signature songs, “Salt Peanuts,” vocalist Jon
Hendricks delivered a reworked lyric at blinding speed:
Your politics ought to be a groovier thing
Vote Dizzy! Vote Dizzy!
So get a good president who’s willing to swing
Vote Dizzy! Vote Dizzy!
Hear the music:
·
Dizzy Gillespie: ‘Vote Dizzy’
·
Dizzy Gillespie: ‘Groovin’ High’
·
Louis Armstrong and his band: ‘Remember Who You Are’
·
Miles Davis: ‘So What’
·
Max Roach: ‘Freedom Day’
·
Gil Scott Heron: ‘Whitey’s on the Moon’
·
Charles Mingus: ‘Original Faubus Fables’
·
James Brown: ‘Funky President’
·
Parliament: ‘Chocolate City’
·
Eric B. & Rakim: ‘Eric B. Is President’
Hendricks understood the seriousness behind the campaign. “It shone a light on the
whole thing,” he remembered. “Like, what about a black person running for president?
It had never happened before ... It was to give both political parties, all those
poseurs and jive talkers, a kick in the butt.”
“I had a real reason for running,” Gillespie wrote in his autobiography, “because
the proceeds from the sale of buttons went to CORE, SCLC [the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference] and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I could threaten Democrats
with a loss of votes and swing them to a more reasonable position on civil rights.”
In 1964, Gillespie fans formed the John Birks Society (that being Gillespie’s real
first and middle names, and a convenient swipe at the ultraconservative John Birch
crowd) and tried, unsuccessfully, to get him on the ballot in California. Ultimately,
the John Birks Society would have chapters in 25 states.
In the meantime, Gillespie perfected his stump speech. Many of his campaign promises,
like changing the name of the White House to the Blues House, were humorous, but
that was only sugarcoating the medicine.
“All U.S. attorneys and judges in the South will be our people so we can get some
redress,” Gillespie said on the stump. “‘One man, one vote’ — that’s our motto. We
might even disenfranchise women [sic] and let them run the country. They’ll do it
anyhow.”
I had a real reason for running, because I could threaten Democrats with a loss of
votes and swing them to a more reasonable position on civil rights.
Dizzy Gillespie
Members of a cabinet were named, not as secretaries but as “the more appropriately
dignified ‘minister.’” Drummer Max Roach apparently volunteered as minister of war,
“but since we’re not going to have any,” as Gillespie said, Roach was given another
role. Miles Davis was tapped as head of the CIA. Malcolm X, “one cat we definitely
want to have on our side,” would serve as attorney general.
Trumpet legend Louis Armstrong was slated to head the Ministry of Agriculture. This
must have been an inside joke if not an olive branch. In earlier years, bop musicians
were dismissive of
Armstrong, who hated their new style
, calling him an Uncle Tom. Gillespie went so far as to refer to his “plantation
image,” which is likely what inspired his pick for the agriculture job. (By the end
of the 1960s,
that hard line had softened
. “If it hadn’t been for [Louis Armstrong], there wouldn’t have been none of us,”
Gillespie was quoted as saying during the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival. “I want to
thank Louis Armstrong for my livelihood.”)
More plans were laid out for a Gillespie administration. The National Labor Relations
Board would require people applying for jobs “to wear sheets over their heads so
bosses won’t know what they are until after they’ve been hired. The sheets, of course,
will all be colored!” A black astronaut would be sent to the moon; Gillespie volunteered
if no one else could be found.
Barry Goldwater offered a lame response to the Gillespie campaign by citing white
Dixieland trombonist Turk Murphy as his favorite jazz musician. “All I can say is
I don’t blame Turk for that,” Gillespie retorted. “I’m glad he didn’t pick me.”
Of course, Gillespie never had a chance. He campaigned into early 1964 and then,
as Ramona Crowell said, “it sort of fizzled out.” Gillespie declared again in 1972,
but withdrew when he found out that running for political office was against the
principles of his newfound Baha’i faith.
“I liked the idea of running for president, and it would’ve been nice to be elected,”
he wrote in his autobiography, and then revealed the tremendous heart behind an apparent
joke:
“I’d have fought for a disarmament program and the establishment of a world government,
somewhere ... I would see that everyone had enough to eat and some clothes and a
decent place to stay. Everybody, every citizen, is entitled to that. Education would
be beautiful, free, subsidized by the government. All of it. Anytime you wanted to
learn something, I’d pay you to do it. Hospitalization would also be free.
“The only bona fide politician who paid any serious attention to my political ideas,”
Gillespie’s autobiography continued, “was a woman.” Barbara Jordan, a representative
from Texas, wore a “Dizzy Gillespie for president” button on the floor of the House.
In recalling this, Gillespie lamented that Jordan had not been nominated for a major
post in Jimmy Carter’s administration, adding, “That would’ve been great, wouldn’t
it?”
-30


-Bob Ringwald K6YBV
www.ringwald.com
916/ 806-9551

Friendship is like peeing your pants, everyone can see it, but only you can feel the true warmth.