In 1946, Dizzy Gillespie figured out how to get an elephant to dance on an overturned shot glass. As one of bebop's creators, Gillespie was at heart a big-band man and yearned to lead one. While he initially launched bop as a small-group form, Gillespie wanted to see if it could be leveraged credibly for 15 players or more. He succeeded in June 1946 whe…
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