“Hello, I’m Dizzy Gillespie from Cheeeeee-raw, South Carolina!”

The late great trumpeter, credited with the invention of the “bebop” form of jazz, would often open his concerts with that tribute to his hometown.

On the weekend that marks the 90th anniversary of his birth, Cheraw will honor the memory of John Birks Gillespie (1917-1993) and showcase some of the Southeast’s top jazz talent in the second annual South Carolina Jazz Festival Oct. 19-20.

Gillespie’s trademarks were his bulging cheeks, closed eyes and his bent horn, all of which are commemorated in a bronze statue on Cheraw’s Town Green.

There’s a park on Huger Street on the site of the house where Gillespie was born, and a stainless steel fence there is festooned with the notes of “Salt Peanuts,” one of the trumpeter’s best-known tunes.

Concerts and More
The park will be one of several sites for jazz concerts on festival weekend. Performances will also be at the riverfront park and the Theater on the Green. The Burr Gallery will host a display of Gillespie-related art and memorabilia, including that famous bent horn, on loan from the Smithsonian. Other activities for the weekend include a downtown restaurant crawl with performances by small jazz ensembles, a barbecue and jazz lunch and a jazz education clinic.

But even if you aren’t a jazz buff, there’s still a lot to see in Cheraw. A downtown historic district of antebellum and late 19th-century homes speaks to an eventful past.

Revolutionary Hotbed Cheraw was a hotbed of Revolutionary War activity. Sam Houston courted a Cheraw woman, the sister of a congressman from South Carolina, here before he became one of the founding fathers of Texas. Cheraw was a bustling river port town, and steamboats navigated the waters of the nearby Pee Dee River before and after the Civil War. General Sherman burned parts of Cheraw on his March to the Sea.

Cheraw Country Club’s 18-hole golf course, designed by Donald Ross in 1924, is open to the public year-round. Nearby is Cheraw State Park Golf Course, one of 40 in the nation to earn the Golf Digest “Super Value” designation. Cheraw State Park also makes a good home base for a variety of outdoor activities from bird watching to fishing.

For more information on the Jazz Festival or other attractions and activities in Cheraw, call the Cheraw Visitors Bureau at (843) 537-8425. – Jayne Cannon