Billboard : 12/01/1956
Score of 81

This is the band Gillespie took to the Near East and to South America, with such stars as Phil Woods, Melba Liston, etc. Set is a sort of modern jazz edition of Ambassador Satch, with a similarly inspired cover. It’s good big band music, but misses most of the excitement the band conveyed in person. Gillespie is in top trumpeting form, but Joe Gordon practically steals the show with his trumpeting on Night in Tunisia. Can be sold in view of the heavy publicity the band has received.

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Audio
John S. Wilson : January, 1957

This is the band with which Gillespie made his tour of the Middle East under the auspices of the State Department. It is solidly in the tradition of the great ones among the big jazz bands of the past — powerful, flexible, capable of rich sonorities and subtle delicacy, a band that has both a variety of solo stars and strong group feeling. Most of the selections are rooted in a rocking, swinging beat, but occasionally there is a shift to a legato rhythm — I Can’t Get Started, on which the band creates a rich, smooth sauce for Gillespie’s tart trumpet, and My Reverie, a showcase for Melba Liston’s surprisingly masculine, slightly Kentonish trombone. Gillespie’s playing, often dazzling but never exhibitionistic, is a soundly conceived but highly imaginative extension of whatever basic material is being dealt with. Touched as it is by Gillespie’s piquant personality, this is a band that is reminiscent of no other big band, a band which is carving out its own directions instead of poking around in the dead wood of the past.

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Jazz Monthly
Paul Rossiter : 05/1957

This is the band with which Gillespie had his successful tour of various Middle East countries. Comparisons have been made with Basie and Ellington, but these are somewhat optimistic evaluations in view of the rawness of the ensemble playing at times and the lack of any major soloist outside of Gillespie. However, this record shows that the group was a good one and the general approach is spirited.

Dizzy’s Business was composed and presumably arranged by Ernie Wilkins. The theme is stated by the sax section against high register brass which is followed by fluent solos from Gillespie and Woods. The dynamics in the final ensemble are good. Jessica’s was written by Quincy Jones and is taken at medium-slow tempo. After an ensemble introduction a small group states the theme, to be followed by solos from Mitchell (poor), Gillespie (good), Woods (reasonable) and Davis (anonymous). The small group return at the close. Tour was written and arranged by Gillespie and has a dynamic solo from him and some good interplay between the sections. I Can’t, a Quincy Jones arrangement, is a feature for Gillespie on which he plays very well with a nice sense of light and shade. Doodlin’, a Horace Silver composition, has good contributions from Boyd and Gillespie and powerful ensemble work. Night has the expected Gillespie coda, but the main solo is by Joe Gordon who plays with a full tone and good ideas. Boyd is once more impressive and Woods has a fleet solo. Stella, an arrangement of great charm by Melba Liston, has more fine Gillespie and shows the band off to very good effect, particularly in the use of well conceived dynamics. Champ is a flag-waver which ends with several choruses of Persip’s showman drumming. Reverie is a forthright feature for Melba Liston, whose tone and phrasing are really first rate. Dizzy’s Blues, despite a good Gillespie solo, is something of an anti-climax. However, the LP as a whole is excellent and can be recommended.

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Metronome
Bill Coss : 08/1957

10 tracks, one-half of the regular concert which Dizzy presented in his Middle East tour last year. In many ways, this big band was superior to what Diz is now leading — more enthusiastic, more swinging and, especially regarding the brass section, more in tune. As such, it is an excellent example of most of the best scores in the Gillespie book, including Dizzy’s Business, Jessica’s Day (written for Nat Hentoff’s daughter), Tour de Force and I Can’t Get Started. The best solos are by trumpeters Gillespie and Joe Gordon with asides to Billy Mitchell (if you are taken by that sound) and Phil Woods, who is now playing better than he does on this recording. Naturally enough, you’ll notice that it all could have been better — more discipline in all the sections would have clarified all the performances. Nevertheless, it’s fine present-day Gillespie and orchestra.

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Miami Herald (Miami, FL)
Fred Sherman : January 27, 1957

News picture that made most of the papers last year showed Dizzy Gillespie clowning with a snake charmer in Karachi. The trumpet man headed a group of 16 American jazz men, touring Southern Europe and the Near East. It was one of the State Department’s better efforts of 1956. To preserve the spirit of the undertaking, Norman Granz recorded 90 minutes of music. First half of it is out in a Norgran album called Dizzy Gillespie: World Statesman (MGN-1084). Big sounds with a variety of bite and mellowness. First-rate arrangements.

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San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA)
Ralph J. Gleason : December 4, 1956

A Great New Album by Dizzy Gillespie

Sometimes, when jazz fans are talking about this young trumpet player or that, I suspect Dizzy Gillespie is suffering from being too good.

It’s almost as if everybody automatically says, “Oh, well, Dizzy’s so far out in front, let’s talk about the other guys.”

Because it IS true that Gillespie, like Armstrong in his generation, is such a masterful performer in his style that there has been no one close to him. True, there are a lot of good trumpet players (there were lots in Louis’ day, too) and some of the younger ones have promise, but when Dizzy puts that trumpet to his lips it doesn’t take more than a couple of bars to separate the men from the boys.

Dizzy has a new album out, a 12-inch LP on Norgran called Dizzy Gillespie, World Statesman. The music consists of part of the program he played on his trip earlier this year to the Middle East and South America. The band is the group he took overseas with him and which has been creating a sensation in the East this fall. It’s a big band, a really good big band and, since the album is mercifully well recorded, you can hear what all the shouting’s about. The masterful way Diz blows is a perfect demonstration of why he is considered so superior.

Gillespie’s big band has the great blues feel of the Basie band, the same sort of ever-flowing rhythm and the same sense of one-ness. In addition, it has Dizzy Gillespie, and that’s quite a difference. To hear Diz soaring magnificently over and out from a roaring big band is just about as exciting an experience as you can get from modern jazz. To hear the band play Stella by Starlight, in a crack arrangement by Melba Liston (she plays excellent trombone, too) is to hear the use of color and texture in chords, plus dynamics and control (understatement instead of screaming) that is what the Kenton band should sound like.

There are ten selections in the LP. They include I Can’t Get Started, Night in Tunisia, Dizzy’s Blues and The Champ, a wild, almost pagan version of that number. This is really one of the great bands and this album is one of the best of the year, the kind of thing that makes you anxious to hear the next one (there’s a second volume due eventually.)

Many modern jazz fans feel they cannot enjoy a big band. Dizzy, once before, had a big band to change their minds. Then, it suffered from a shortage of loot and the personnel was never what he wanted. This one is different. It’s good from top to bottom and you can tell the difference. If you want to know the reason the Greeks and the Turks and the Yugoslavs stood and screamed when Dizzy played for them, go out and buy this album. You won’t be disappointed.

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San Luis Obispo Tribune (San Luis Obispo, CA)
[United Press] : January 11, 1957

Dizzy Can’t Play in City Auditorium

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 11 (U.P.) — Dizzy Gillespie, jazz trumpeter and goodwill artist from the United States abroad, has been denied use of the city’s veteran auditorium because his music might lead to riot.

William B. Dorsett, general manager of the American Legion war memorial, turned down a request to rent the auditorium to Gillespie on Jan. 26.

Gillespie recently completed a Carnegie Hall engagement and a widely acclaimed tour of the Middle East demonstrating America’s jazz heritage.

“Who’s Gillespie?” asked Lawrence Mana, an assistant city attorney who is chairman of the war memorial commission.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : December 8, 1956

A somewhat patchy but nevertheless representative recording of the sixteen-piece band which Gillespie took to the Middle East last spring. The personnel includes, among others, J. Gordon, Q. Jones, Melba Liston, F. Rehak, P. Woods, C. Persip, E. Wilkins, M. Flax, and B. Mitchell. The six originals and four standards have been arranged by Jones, Wilkins, Gillespie, Miss Liston, and A.K. Salim, and they range from an uptempo explosion called The Champ, to a couple of undistinguished ballads. The nub of the record, however, is built around some easy blues where the soloists, who include Gordon, Woods, Walter Davis, and Gillespie, shine. Probably the most persuasive big jazz band to have come along since some of the later editions of the Herman Herd. Recommended.

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Down Beat : 12/26/1956
Nat Hentoff : 4.0 stars

Dizzy Gillespie: World Statesman is Vol. 1 of two sets made by the big band in a nonstop, 90-minute session shortly after its return from Greece. The unit, initially formed for the first U.S. state department-sponsored jazz tour in history, has since traveled through South America, disbanded while Gillespie was on JATP, and now has re-formed into what most of us hope will be a permanent addition to the so small number of large bands.

At this point in its career, the band’s book was limited, but the men knew what scores there were intimately, which is why the session went off so quickly and smoothly. Writing is by Quincy Jones, Ernie Wilkins, Dizzy, A. K. Salim, and Melba Liston. The two weaker charts are Melba’s — a rather ponderous Stella and an innocuous Reverie in which the chief solo instrument is Melba’s capable but hardly distinguished trombone.

The rest are funky swingers with the band blowing a collective storm that largely makes up in heat for occasional lack of subtle precision. But the main asset is Gillespie, whose horn is masterly. Listen, for one, to Started. There are good solos by Phil Woods, the blunt Billy Mitchell, and contributions by Walter Davis, Nelson Boyd, and Charlie Persip. The latter three are fused into a cooking rhythm section primarily by Persip. A notable brief solo appearance is made by Joe Gordon (Tunisia), and dig Gillespie’s Leo Watson-like introduction to The Champ, which is otherwise too much drum solo.

Very good notes by Marshall Stearns, who accompanied the band for much of the first trip. First side is the better. Recording quality could be better.

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Liner Notes by Marshall W. Stearns

This is the music that made warm friends for the United States in the Middle East. John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie and his Orchestra, on the first State Department tour in jazz history, visited the Pakistans, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Greece. And swinging in the foreign service, the band scored a sparkling success. (Dizzy Gillespie 100% said the newspaper in Beirut.)

The audiences’ knowledge of jazz varied but the response was immediate and overwhelming. In some cities, where little live jazz had ever been heard, the band ignited the crowd in a matter of minutes. In other cities, where jazz was new but seriously considered, the band’s modern style converted conservatory-trained composers on the spot. By the end of the concert, a quick encore of the current country’s national anthem was necessary to restore order. “This music,” concluded Ambassador Heath, who plays fine piano himself, “made our job much easier.”

What was it like? Well, in Dacca, where there are few radios and fewer jukeboxes, the audience was puzzled and polite — at first. To them, these were truly new sounds. Then, as they felt the contagious enthusiasm of the band and, especially, watched the Chaplin-esque pantomime of conductor Gillespie, they caught on with a roar, clapped on the right beat, and disported themselves like a mob of rock-and-roll addicts at the Brooklyn Paramount. In Athens, on the other hand, they were neither polite nor puzzled — they took off their clothes and threw them at the ceiling. (Greek Students Lay Down Rocks and Roll with Gillespie.)

Meanwhile, back at the hotel as they say, the band was carrying its jazz portfolio lightly and earning its diplomatic stripes. Touring in countries which were somewhat doubtful about the United States, the musicians were asked searching questions. Dizzy the diplomat set the tone. He made no speeches but pointed to the band — eight colored and four white musicians — commanding: “Watch them work together.” That was enough. As the aristocratic dowager in Zagreb decided: “One concrete example is worth a million words.” And the musicians continued to fraternize with everybody.

Statesmanship, that is, where it counted. In Karachi, Gillespie persuaded a doubtful snake-charmer to play a duet in his room. To the flustered management he countered: “The man’s a musician, isn’t he?” You could hear the native bellboys hissing the news. In Ankara (Turks Dig Birks), Dizzy declined to play at a lawn party unless the urchins crowding outside the walls were admitted. “I came here to play for all the people,” he murmured. And everywhere, trombonist Melba Liston was quietly sensational. In countries where the veil is still worn by many women, she walked shyly to the front of the band in a shimmering evening gown — and blew up a storm. (Horns Across the Sea.)

The simple fact is that these audiences — even before they heard it — wanted to love jazz. They associate this music with the relaxed and generous side of American life, and the informal vitality of the performance clinched the conviction. “Let the good will roll,” announced Gillespie, and in Communist Yugoslavia the band made a solid point without trying. “You’re all so unorganized,” wondered a local observer, “until you begin to play.” A mob of unregimented musicians swinging with such team-spirit spelled out a new kind of freedom. Maybe that is why jazz is America’s best-loved cultural export.

This Album furnishes a sampling — volume two is yet to come — of the first half of a concert, with Gillespie at his all-time best. Dizzy’s Business, arranged by Ernie Wilkins, sets the opening tone with swinging reeds before Dizzy’s horn explodes into improvised arabesques. Jessica’s Day, composed by Quincy Jones and dedicated to the daughter of Down Beat’s Nat Hentoff, sets up Billy Mitchell, Phil Woods, and Walter Davis solos and frames them with the Gillespie trumpet over a small band ensemble.

Tour de Force, arranged by Dizzy in Athens, is a rhythmic romp, reeds punctuated by brass, followed by Gillespie blowing hot and cool, hard and soft, as the subtle dynamics dictate. As a change of pace, I Can’t Get Started, arranged for big band by Quincy Jones, showcases the lyric invention of Dizzy’s improvisations over the traditional counterpoint of the reeds. It was this performance which bowled over the sophisticates. Doodlin’, arranged by Wilkins, is the 12-bar blues in modern dress, flowing on the powerful stream of Nelson Boyd’s bass and Charlie Persip’s drums.

Gillespie’s tune, Night in Tunisia, features the nimble trumpet of Joe “Little Diz” Gordon who, after the six passing chords, takes off on a Middle Eastern tour of his own. Solos by Phil Woods and Nelson Boyd follow until Dizzy wraps it up with his famous coda. (He added phrases from Ochi Chornia one night in Athens when the Russian Folk Ballet attended the concert.) Stella by Starlight, arranged by Melba Liston, shows what the band can do for a lovely, slow-rocking ballad with spread harmonies and new sonorities and voicing. And The Champ, written by Gillespie and arranged by Jones, turns on the ever-rolling drums of Charlie Persip in a flag-waver which consistently left the hall a shambles.

Two encores are included here. Debussy’s My Reverie is an arrangement of, by, and for Melba’s elegant trombone. As the brass figures build behind her, she tops the surge and fades back into a coda quoting Time on My Hands with entire taste. The last number, A.K. Salim’s arrangement of Dizzy’s Blues, rides on a call-and-response riff, reeds answering brass, with a musical send-off for each soloist. Then Dizzy blows the band home. So ends the first Album and the first half of the concert.

The personnel: Dizzy Gillespie, Emmett Berry, Carl Warwick, Quincy Jones, Joe Gordon, trumpets; Melba Liston, Frank Rehak, Rod Levitt, trombones; Phil Woods, Jimmy Powell, alto saxophones; Ernie Wilkins, Billy Mitchell, tenor saxophones; Marty Flax, baritone saxophone; Walter Davis, piano; Nelson Boyd, string bass; Charlie Persip, drums.