Dizzy's Club Coca -Cola

[clefpalate]

Ten million dollars for "Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola". Wow! What makes this especially ironic is the fact that the location of Dizzy's grave, and that of his mother, Lottie Gillespie, are unmarked. Many other jazz luminaries, including Louis Armstrong, are interred in Flushing Cemetery. Presumably no one has toppled their headstones or disturbed their remains. Keeping the family grave sites secret is the final and most enduring insult to the daughter and grandson Dizzy left behind. And, I might add, to Dizzy himself.



Connie Bryson

[3pointdeli]

this club makes me ashamed to be from atlanta (the birthplace of coke.)

crass commercialism at its worst.

[jazzypaul]

I think I might have missed something somewhere. What are you all talking about?

[3pointdeli]

coca cola donated $10 million to "jazz at lincoln center", which is ok. part of the deal is that there will be a jazz club called "dizzy's club coca cola." i think that part of it is lame. jazz does not deserve to be associated with commercial products.


i don't know anything about gravesites.

[bombastic]

More Cheesy American Disneyland Crap- Just what we need- don't associate this with the real meaning of jazz- American Commercialism has a way of turning somthing respectable into a kind of visual assault pornography. it's a matter of aesthetics. show some class.

[jazzypaul]

Granted, a "Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola" would be anathema to all jazz stands for. But we need to MARKET this music, not stand back and say "that's not hip enough for jazz..." If someone's willing to dump $10 Million into jazz, say thank you. If someone is willing to open a jazz club as part of the deal, and they have the real music on that stage, I don't care if K-Mart does it in cahoots with Wal-Mart, the Mormons and the pakistani owners of Dunkin Donuts, INC. Get the music out there, let people hear it.

[3pointdeli]

i'm scared of how powerful wynton marsalis is going to become. people may get a big dose of jazz, but it's going to be wynton's version of it.

now back to my lunch break, brought to you by texaco, star of the american road.

[Pharaohrock]

i agree with paul, and love him or hate him, only wynton could have gotten this to happen.

the downside i see is that through this, Dizzy becomes another dumbed-down icon of American culture, his content dilluted in favor of a caricature on the side of the building with puffed-out cheeks.

[bombastic]

donate the money, and don't ask for some crass display of your product, we're not talking about britney spears here, this guy was a real musician.

[Pharaohrock]

that said, i'm glad it's Dizzy's club coca cola and not MONK's
club coca cola. Because of his vocals and humor, Dizzy at least can be conceived of more as the populist entertainer-type, but to tag this on MOnk would be WRONG....

[3pointdeli]

i wonder if wynton came up with that name.

[Pharaohrock]

based on the Ken Burns fiasco, where Wynton was treated like a walking encylopedia of jazz, Coca Cola was probably similarly deferent.....

[champjams]

hey guys.....Dizzy really liked Coca Cola. And so did Duke Ellington....and so did alot of other guys. What's wrong with Coke? A little American Commercialism never hurt anybody. All Coke stands for is good times and fun stuff. It's about as apple pie as you can get. And so is Jazz. They should go well together.

[Pharaohrock]

Champ, I agree that we sometimes take commercialism too seriously, but liking a product and wanting to have your name attached to it forever are two vastly different things. I wouldn't go out on a limb for Dizzy quite that far.

[Pharaohrock]

- I almost forgot about this:

All Coke stands for is good times and fun stuff.


Oh, really?

[jazzypaul]

Miles thought that Coke stood for good times and fun stuff...oh, wait, that was the other coke...

[bombastic]

Oh, you mean miles liked "Classic Coke"! So did Sigmund Freud. How about a "Club Siggy". The original coca-cola did have cocaine in it when it first came out. Things did go better with Coke in those days!

[3pointdeli]

the problem with this is that most folks who stop by the club out of curiosity, or tourism, are more likely to remember the coca cola aspects of the place and not the fact that it's a jazz club. this club will have nothing more to do with jazz than the hard rock cafe has to do with rock and roll.

[bombastic]

all that stuff is crass tourist crap. it has nothing to do with what rock n roll was all about, which was rebellion against places like the places that are now supposedly a tribute to them. they just want to sell hamburgers to fatass tourists. i couldn't care less about elvis' underpants on display in a glass case. who is it that is interested in that junk? in the case of jazz,you could have a tasteful display of instruments or something like that, like a museum, but don't open another one of these cheesy cafes in the name of a classy music like Jazz, with some garish corporate logo on it. Show some respect for the art form of Jazz. Leave it to the american pop culture to cheapen the quality of something to gain profit.

[Pharaohrock]

Amen to that bombastic. I think the ulterior motive here though is that Wynton is hoping to have a showcase for some of those loud suits he wore in the 80s.....check the band pic on Citi Movement....damn. yellow suits and shit.

[Saundra Hummer]

It would be nice to have a club built with the right sized bandstand, an intimate place that could showcase any number of jazz artists, even have a screen in the back to show any number of films on the jazz greats, during the week, or during the musicians breaks,

It would be great to have the bucks to build a place that has been designed with the best accoustics available. To be able to pay the artists a salary worthy of their talents would also be a good thing.

I just don't like to watch a sporting event with advertisers logo's plastered everywhere, stadiums named after corporations, iceskaters gracefully twirling past a Tylenol sign, or any other blatent advertisement adorning the attraction themselves, or on the walls of the event. It, instead of making me want to purchase their product, builds up a resentment, why can't they just do it out of a sincere wish to be helpful, without trying to line their own pockets. The same with Jazz. It loses it's flavor when it is being so blatently commercialized. Please, no signs with their logo on it anywhere in the place, and this from a consumer who has always favored Coka-Cola (with a little lime please) as my favorite soft drink.

How about a name that Dizzy might have wanted, or just his name on the building, but put bronze plaques in and on the building saying they sponsored the building, and why, perhaps it is because they really do love the music and the mans accomplishments, but keep it low key, people would appreciate it a lot more, especially we Dizzy fans.

[Saundra Hummer]

I find it hard to believe that his grave doesn't have a marker!

Was there ever one? I see vandalism mentioned. I don't understand why some sort of marker was never put up. Maybe he didn't want one, maybe he didn't believe in them, but more that likely it is just an oversite!

Me, I don't want a marker, would prefer to be in the ocean; graves, not something most people want to think about, so maybe that is it, An oversite? It sure isn't that we have forgotten him, how could we?

[Fran]

Originally posted by 3pointdeli
i'm scared of how powerful wynton marsalis is going to become. people may get a big dose of jazz, but it's going to be wynton's version of it.


Well why not ?
If I understand it correctly Wynton did actually invent Jazz. Oh, there were others around before him who played a type of improvised music, but it wasn't until Wynton that anyone put a recognizable form to it and clearly enunciated the varied aspects of the music.
Duke Ellington obviously couldn't describe it, and had to lamely state something to the effect that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got something.....He couldn't grasp what however.
Wynton grasped it all, and was able to take the indistiguishable "Hi-De-Hi Hi-Di-Ho" of Cab Calloway and the "Oop Bop Sh-Bam a Kook a Mop" of Dizzie Gillespie and translate them into remarkably simple terms everyone could understand....."dit dit bam bam dit and so forth" on a flatulent fifth.

Apologies to Jelly Roll Morton who also invented Jazz.

[Saundra Hummer]

Shall we all contribute for a beautiful marker? Why not?

Well, only if they'll print our names as large as his!

[Valerie]

Originally posted by Saundra Hummer
Shall we all contribute for a beautiful marker? Why not?

Well, only if they'll print our names as large as his!

I'm more than certain that if Dizzy's grave is unmarked, it is with his widow's blessing.

[Saundra Hummer]

Originally posted by Valerie
I'm more than certain that if Dizzy's grave is unmarked, it is with his widow's blessing.

This is what I thought in the first place, that perhaps this is the way they would prefer it. I can understand that way of thinking, as that is how I would want things myself, better yet, like I said the sea. No need for a marker.

[makpjazz57]

Fats Navarro's grave remained unmarked until recently.

Marla

[Saundra Hummer]

Was it Dizzy's wife who didn't want his grave disturbed by tourists gawking? It seems that I remember someones wife feeling that way, and I can respect that.

[Valerie]

Originally posted by Chris A
What makes you think that, Valerie? Unmarked graves of great jazz people are nothing new, and the reason is not always compliance with family wishes.

Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday come to mind. In both cases, money was raised and pocketed by the widower--they were long gone themselves before the situation was corrected.

All I'm voicing, Chris, is that it must have been either Dizzy's wishes and/or Lorraine's. It sounds more like Lorraine to me though. She certainly was the "private" one in the relationship. And a very strong woman, to say the least!

[Valerie]

well, i'm sorry that i really don't have anything enlightening to add to this thread but i just happened to be perusing the different topics on this website and realized that this particular thread was the only one that just "stopped dead" with my last post over a month ago. can't contribute to reviving it but i guess my ego just made me write this!!!

at the very least: long live dizzy. and thank goodness moody (as well as probably others) are carrying on his spirit!! moody is unbelievably playing and communicating better than ever and a total devotee to dizzy's legend and spirit, as well as continuing to doing his "own thing".