For many years I've longed to play the original arrangements of Dizzy Gillespie's groups from the 1940's, but they are next to impossible to find. A few big bands here and there have transcriptions, but even fewer seem to have the actual charts. Thanks to the miracle of eBay, I've started to find some of them, namely in the form of these charts published in the late 1940's by J. J. Robbins under the title of "Dizzy Gillespie Series for Small Orchestra". Arranged by the great Gil Fuller (who wrote many of the original classics for Dizzy's big band) for trumpet, trombone, two altos, tenor and rhythm, they are all basically small group versions of the original big band charts, Then I discovered another series from the same era, "Dizzy Gillespie Series for Dance Band," (or "Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra Series" if you go by the back cover - some confusion there on the publisher's side) which are, in fact, the same arrangements on the recordings. I managed to acquire "Minor Walk," a lesser known tune from the book, but having read it with a few bands I can state it is authentic to the recordings. I still have quite a few to track down, so if you've got anything like this, I'd be happy to trade copies for copies. The ones I've scanned here I actually own - six charts from the Small Orchestra series and one from the Dance Orchestra series. Again -- these are tough to come by, even on eBay, so if you would like to get these and have some of the ones I don't, please contact me here via comments. I'd also be willing to trade them for some equally rare and special music, too. Here are the cover scans, plus the master checklist from the back of "Minor Walk":

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