Live At The Royal Festival Hall, London

 Jazz giant Dizzy Gillespie's final recorded performance, filmed live at London's Royal Festival Hall in 1989 with the United Nations Orchestra  Musicians featured include Slide Hampton, Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D'Rivera, Mario Rivera and Flora Purim  This CD/DVD digipack includes a booklet with detailed liner notes of the concert The United Nations Orchestra was created by Dizzy Gillespie to "showcase the varied influences that he considered valuable to the development of jazz". The 15 member ensemble on Live at Royal Festival Hall, London, was a true all-star orchestra, 10 of it's members being bandleaders in their own right. On this recording, the orchestra was on it's last date of a European tour and it pulled out all the stops in a fiery big-band blowout. This is extroverted, aggressively confident big band music, meant to dazzle and delight. The driving rhythm section was given centre stage on Gillespie's "Tanga" whereby a lengthy section of solos by drummer Ignacio Berroa, master percussionist Airto Moreira and ace conga man Giovanni Hidalgo brought the house down once again. Dizzy Gillespie was an undisputed musical genius. As a player his reputation was legendary. As a leader his ability to inspire musicians helped produce some of the most influential music of this century. Performing with Dizzy in the sublime celebration of jazz music are such stars as Slide Hampton (who wrote most of the arrangements), Arturo Sandloval, Paquito D'Rivera, Mario Rivera and the Afro-Cuban queen herself, Flora Purim. A selection of musicians whom in their own right create truly beautiful music, but combined together, with Dizzy at the helm (and a magical orchestra in support) take the artform to some very serious places.