DIZZY GILESSPIE'S MANTECA IS A FACTOR IN THE EVOLUTION OF ROCK 'N ROLL

In the late 1940s, Dizzy Gillespie, in a large way due to his association with the Cuban percussionist, Chano Pozo,

was instrumental in the  Afro-Cuban music movement. Afro-Latin American music and elements garnered greater prominence in jazz and  pop music as  a result of  this movement, Afro-Cuban jazz is based on traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms.




Dizzy Gillespie was introduced to Chano Pozo in 1947 by Mario Bauza, a Latin jazz trumpet player. Pozo became Gillespie's conga drummer. Dizzy Gilespie also worked with Mario Bauza in New York jazz clubs on 52nd street and several famous dance clubs such as Palladium and the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They played together in the Chick Webb band and Cab Calloway's band, where Gillespie and Bauza became life-long friends. In the process, Dizzy helped develop and mature the Afro-Cuban jazz style.

Afro-Cuban jazz was considered bebop-oriented, and some musicians classified it as a modern style. Afro-Cuban jazz was successful because it never decreased in popularity and it always attracted people to dance to its unique rhythms.

MANTECA is Dizzy’s signature Afro-Cuban influenced masterpiece. Co-written with Chano Pozo in the late 1940s, it has endured the ages...