John Birks Gillespie, popularly known as Dizzy Gillespie, was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, singer and bandleader regarded as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time. Unusually gifted from childhood, he learned to play the piano from the age of four, taught himself trombone and trumpet at the age of twelve and began his career in music at the age of seventeen. Soon his radically fresh style of trumpet playing caught the attention of Mario Bauza, the Godfather of Afro-Cuban jazz, and through him he met many other musicians with whom he developed the Afro-Cuban music. However, he is best known as one of the proponents of bebop, a modern form of jazz music, which he developed with Charlie Parker and others. In the later part of his career, he toured extensively, sharing his knowledge with younger artists, helping them to overcome their shortcomings and develop their own styles. Today, he is remembered as the greatest trumpeter that the 20th century had ever produced.