Diggin' Diz

"Diggin' Diz" (also released as "Diggin' For Diz") is a bebop composition by George Handy, written in 1946 for a session organized by producer Ross Russell for his fledgling Dial Records label. The tune is a contrafact based on the chord changes of "Lover," the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart standard, with Handy layering a new bebop melody over that familiar harmonic foundation. Handy composed the piece specifically for a session featuring two of bebop's most important innovators, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, though the recording session on February 5, 1946, proved chaotic and Parker failed to appear. The surviving recording, eventually issued as Dial 1005, features Gillespie on trumpet alongside Arv Garrison on electric guitar, Handy himself on piano, and other ensemble members. The composition stands as one of Handy's most celebrated works, emerging from his peak creative period between 1945 and 1947. Handy drew from an unusually wide palette of sources for a jazz composer of the era, and his distinctive approach to harmony featured chromatic voice leading and frequent use of semitones, minor-ninths, and major-sevenths. "Diggin' Diz" exemplifies this individual harmonic voice while remaining rooted in the bebop idiom. The tune occupies a specialized rather than ubiquitous place in the jazz repertoire, recognized and valued by bebop historians and specialists but not as widely performed as some other early bebop standards.