Dizzy Gillespie: You Stole My Wife, You Horsethief

"Every generation of blacks since slavery," asserted Dizzy Gillespie, "has had to develop its own way of Tomming, of accommodating itself to a basically unjust situation." No white person would dare claim that all blacks since slavery have been Tomming, but perhaps Diz meant by this signifyin'a thinly veiled Afro-American put-on. Through such expedient, it's arguable that Tomming is an adaptation whereby wily blacks outsmart the Man through subversive playacting. Even so, this out-of-tune farce replete with whinnying trumpet makes us side with Miles Davis: "I love Dizzy, but I hated that clowning shit he did for white folks."