Jazz fact or fiction: Dizzy Gillespie's unusually shaped trumpet

One of the most iconic photos in jazz is Dizzy Gillespie blowing his unusually shaped trumpet. It was unusual because the bell of the horn points upwards at a 45-degree angle. No one before had played a trumpet like this. Was it the result of pure genius on the part of Gillespie, or was it the result of an onstage accident, as legend has it?

We’ll tell you what really happened.

Gillespie used to joke around that the concept of an uplifted horn was something that just popped into his head, that he thought it out carefully, went into his basement and voila, created it. Well, the truth is, it was the result of an accident.

He claimed it was in 1953, on a Monday night in January that the event occurred. Gillespie was at a club on 45th Street in Manhattan where a group of friends made up of musicians, singers and entertainers were celebrating his wife Lorraine’s birthday. Various people got up to perform during the evening, including Gillespie. At one point, he had to leave to be interviewed on a radio show and left his trumpet on the bandstand on a horn stand.

When Gillespie returned to the club, he saw that his trumpet had been damaged. The bell was bent in an upward shape. What happened? Apparently the dance comedy team Stump and Stumpy were fooling around onstage and one of them had fallen onto his horn. Stump and Stumpy originally consisted of James “Jimmy” Cross (Stump) and Edward “Eddie” Hartman (Stumpy). Harold Cromer replaced Hartman in the act in the late 1940s.

Here's Stump 'N' Stumpy in action.

Anyway, Gillespie kept his cool and went onstage to play his horn, to continue celebrating his wife’s happy occasion. He noticed right away that the damage made it difficult to play, but on the other hand, the sound was definitely different. He immediately liked the new tone and continued to play it for the rest of the night.

The next day, Gillespie had his trumpet straightened out and after playing it realized that, when it was bent up, the sound was much more immediate to his ear. He gave it some more thought and realized just how much he liked the “improvement.” Gillespie had his wife draw a sketch of what he wanted and asked the Martin Band Instrument Company to make him a trumpet with the bell at a 45-degree angle.

The rest, as they say, is history.

It was reported that Gillespie tried to patent the horn, but found out that, as far back as 1860, a French instrument maker had already designed a similar horn.