Dizzy Gillespie
Heinrich Klaffs, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Although the influence of Latin American music could be felt as early as the 1930s in pieces like Duke Ellington’s "Caravan," Latin jazz proper began in 1947 with Dizzy Gillespie. His name at birth was John Birks Gillespie, and his father was a bandleader in South Carolina. Although his father died when he was only ten years old, Gillespie had been immersed in music from a young age and continued developing his skills on the piano and trombone, finally settling on the trumpet as his main instrument. After briefly attending a North Carolina preparatory school on a music scholarship, the family moved to Philadelphia. Gillespie himself moved on to New York and began gigging with various bands in Harlem, performing with Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald and doing arrangements for Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey. In 1940, he met and married a dancer named Lorraine Willis, to whom he would remain married the rest of his life. Despite this, Gillespie did have a reputation for womanzing and engaged in several affairs, at one point fathering a child with singer Connie Bryson.

In Harlem, Gillespie befriended Charlie Parker, performing at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House and becoming one of the co-founders of the bebop style. A key development took place in 1947 when Gillespie brought Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo to his band, creating the genre of "Afro-Cuban" with the release of their co-composed song "Manteca." After this, Latin influence swept across jazz.

In general, Latin Jazz incorporates the standard Big Band instrumentation, syncopation, improvisation, and jazz theory with Latin percussion instruments and a straight eighth-note feel, with syncopation of the bass line being especially important in many sub-genres. Several different Latin percussion styles from different countries became popular. These musical styles, developed in Latin America from a combination of indigenous, African, European, and Islamic influences, now found their way into mainstream music.

In 1953, Gillespie left his trumpet on a stand on stage between sets, and it was knocked over during a comedy act, bending the bell upwards at a 45° angle. Gillespie found he liked the sound and had customized trumpets manufactured with upward-pointing bells, turning it into somewhat of a trademark.

Gillespie's band was sent on a world tour in 1956, becoming known as the "Jazz Ambassadors." Back in the United States, he continued to collaborate with other musicians, performing with pianist Chick Corea in the 1970s and Brazilian drummer Airto Moreira. In 1977, he met a young Cuban trumpet player named Arturo Sandoval, who became a protégé. With Sandoval and Puerto Rican percussionist Tito Puente, Gillespie founded the "United Nations Orchestra" in 1988. During a tour of Rome in 1990, Arturo Sandoval defected from Communist Cuba to the United States. The United Nations Orchestra won a Grammy the following year.

Touring until the last year of his life, Gillespie passed away of pancreatic cancer in 1993, leaving an indelible mark on the history of jazz.