The Complete RCA Victor Recordings 1937-1949

Product Description:

Personnel includes: Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet); Russell Procope, Howard Johnson, Ernie Henry (alto saxophone); Chu Berry, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Yusef Lateef (tenor saxophone); Cecil Payne (baritone saxophone); Dicky Wells, Taswell Baird, William Shepherd (trombone); Clyde Hart, John Lewis, Sam Allen, Al Haig (piano); John Smith, John Collins, Charlie Christian, Bill DeArango (guitar); Richard Fullbright, Al McKibbon (bass); Bill Beason, Teddy Stewart, Kenny Clarke, Joe Harris, J.C. Heard (drums).

Recorded in New York from 1937-1949. Includes liner notes by Ira Gitler.

Digitally remastered by James Nichols (BMG Studios, New York).

THE COMPLETE RCA VICTOR RECORDINGS gathers under one roof all the seminal big-band recordings and small-group sessions Dizzy cut for the label during his great initial burst of creativity following World War II. Some rare Gillespie performances act as historical bookends to this set. There's his early work as a sideman with Teddy Hill and Lionel Hampton, when he was still under the sway of Roy Eldridge. And for the last word, there is the legendary 1949 Metronome All-Star date, featuring Charlie Parker and some of Dizzy's chief acolytes. Trumpeters Fats Navarro and Miles Davis pay tribute to Dizzy's stylistic dominance by engaging the master in an astonishing round-robin dialogue on the long version of "Overtime."

If Charlie Parker was the prophet of bebop, Gillespie was its high priest. Together they changed everyone's phrasing. As a soloist, Gillespie completely transformed his instrument, extending its range while adding layers of rhythmic and harmonic complexity. On solos such as "Two Bass Hit," "Algo Bueno (Woody 'N You)," and "St. Louis Blues," he routinely skydives from the horn's highest reaches. Yet his ballad "Dizzier And Dizzier" illustrates uncommon harmonic mastery and lyric restraint. And by including Afro-Cuban polyrhythms on his most famous tunes, "Manteca" and "Night In Tunisia," Dizzy altered the jazz groove forever, from straight fours to a free melodic pulse, paving the way for modern jazz and salsa.