Universal Music 20th Century Masters (series)

The Best of Charlie Parker

Product Description:

Personnel include: Charlie Parker (alto saxophone); Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Red Rodney (trumpet); John Lewis, Hank Jones, Al Haig, Thelonious Monk, Walter Bishop Jr. (piano); Curly Russell, Percy Heath, Ray Brown, Teddy Kotick (double bass); Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Shelly Manne, Buddy Rich (drums); Luis Miranda (congas); Jose Mangual (bongos).

Liner Note Author: Bob Porter.

Recording information: 1947 - 1953.

Though saxophonist Charlie Parker's legendary Dial sessions had already laid the blueprint for jazz modernism by the time the recordings collected on here were made, the seeds of his revolution can be heard in luxuriant flower on this MILLENNIUM COLLECTION. Jazz impresario and founder of Verve Records Norman Granz began recording Parker in the late 1940s and early '50s, and the results--while not always as musically intense as the Dial or Savoy sessions--were invariably of a superior sound quality. Thanks to Granz, these crystalline recordings allow us to hear Bird with stunning clarity, and this set is a fine overview of Parker's work from the time.

THE MILLENNIUM COLLECTION features two selections of Parker playing with a full orchestra ("Autumn in New York," "Repetition"), but the artist sounds most at home in the small-group setting. Abetted by fellow innovators Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach, among others, Parker unfurls his dazzling complex harmonic lines on breakneck bop workouts ("She Rote"), Latin-tinged numbers ("My Little Suede Shoes"), and smoky blues ("K.C. Blues"). Parker's re-recordings of tunes he'd cut earlier for Dial and Savoy, "Now's the Time," "Confirmation," and "Loverman," are of particular interest here.