Jazz historians and critics credit John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie is as one of the founders of modern jazz—bebop. Despite this important place Dizzy enjoys in jazz history, his 1967 recording “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” is a work that is dismissed by jazz critics as musically shallow. Furthermore, jazz critics typically disregard so much of his work throughout the 1960s that this period is a career slump for the jazz great. This study reframes “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac's” shallow musical expression in terms of Musical Dramatism. Musical Dramatism is a rhetorical approach to the communicative study of music, which takes into account both discursive (verbal) and non-discursive (musical) communication. In relation to Dizzy career slump and the text, this study begins from an historical-critical approach and reexamines the causes of Dizzy's career slump. Next, this study traces three contextual features Dizzy uses in “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac.” They are the Signifying Trickster ethos, African-American Spirituals, and Musical Dramatism. Finally, this study analyzes the 1967 “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” recording, taking the historical context and features as guiding frameworks. From this analysis, “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac” is not merely a shallow text; rather, Dizzy gives a complicated warning to African-Americans regarding forms of continued enslavement.
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