The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (55 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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paired with Sidney Bechet; Bird is inaudible, if he's even present. Rounding out the disc is some more 1954 material from Boston's Hi-Hat club that is good but not equal to the stuff on
The Bird You Never Heard
.
Bird and Diz Revisited
Parker and Gillespie were reunited many times over the years, almost always with thrilling results. Their last studio meeting took place on June 6, 1950; available as
Bird and Diz
(Verve 831 133-2), it is the only time Bird recorded in a studio with pianist Thelonious Monk.
The program consists of new material as well as a reading of the unlikely "My Melancholy Baby." The blues "Bloomdido" is still a popular line among musicians. "Mohawk'' is also an excellent blues, at a slower tempo. The most exciting cut is "Leap Frog," a themeless, up-tempo ride through the chords of "I Got Rhythm," on which Bird and Gillespie each take one chorus, then spend the rest of the track trading four-bar phrases at lightning speed and high intensity. The Verve box contains eleven takes of "Leap Frog," six of which are breakdowns complete with conversation and expressions of consternation; they provide a fascinating insight into the way things come together (or don't) in the studio.
Even more satisfying musically, although recorded without the benefit of studio conditions, is
Jazz at Massey Hall
(Debut/OJC-044), on which Parker and Gillespie are heard in a 1953 Toronto concert in front of a rhythm section of Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach. In this case, the music is every bit as good as the personnel might indicate. The days when bebop was a novelty were over; it had become a classic language, and its four principal architects (and Mingus, one of its principal descendants and codifiers) play at length on the music's classic repertoire - "A Night in Tunisia," "Hot House," "Salt Peanuts," and others. The combination of relaxation and intensity makes this one of the idiom's most fulfilled statements, a definitive performance.
More for the confirmed fan because of spotty sound quality is the hard-to-find LP collection
Charlie Parker Volume 2: Bird Meets Birks
(ZuZazz ZZ1003), in which Bird and Gillespie are glimpsed together in a number of unusual and high-voltage settings. The best cuts are "A Night in Tunisia" and "52nd Street Theme," recorded at Carnegie Hall in November 1952; Parker was really "on" that night, as he had been at the same place five years earlier (see
Bebop's Heartbeat
, discussed earlier). The most interesting track is probably "The Bluest Blues," recorded at a 1953 Gillespie gig at Birdland, when Parker dropped in accompanied by Miles Davis; they both solo on this novelty number.
 
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Fast Company
Bird was often thrown into all-star playing situations in which he was placed among other giants, often from earlier generations. One of the best known of these set-ups was producer Norman Granz's Jazz At The Philharmonic (JATP) concert series. The idea behind JATP was to tour an all-star lineup, having them play in a jam session-type format in a loosely organized structure. This string-of-solos approach wears thin very quickly on record, although the concerts were, on the evidence of the audible audience response, very exciting. Often the stuff that excited the audience the most is the most difficult to listen to now.
Nonetheless, when JATP presented great soloists, it gave them room to stretch out, and Bird made some fabulous recordings with JATP. All of them are available on the Verve box and, as of this writing, in otherwise shifting form on Verve. The 1946 concerts have a number of high spots, the highest of which is "Oh, Lady Be Good," on which Bird's solo is a masterpiece of development. Versions of "JATP Blues" and "I Got Rhythm'' (recorded at a concert in which Bird shared the stage with Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins) are both excellent, but on "Blues for Norman," "Sweet Georgia Brown," and "After You've Gone" Bird sounds nervous and his intonation is a little off. It was a period of tremendous strain for him; later in the year he would have a breakdown that would land him in a sanitarium.
A 1949 concert presents Bird with Lester Young and Roy Eldridge on a program including "Lester Leaps In" and a gorgeous "Embraceable You." It's a great example of Bird at close to his most flexible and songlike, without the tension of the 1946 concerts. The most exciting moment is probably in "The Closer," an up-tempo blues. The performance seemingly ends after a screaming trumpet solo by Eldridge, with the crowd going crazy. Buddy Rich closes things out with a big thump on the drums, but there has been no Bird solo. After a moment's pause, Rich starts the beat up again, waiting for the crowd to settle down. After a few more moments of just Rich's drums, Bird starts a solo with a short opening phrase, then a long, cascading run that sounds like the cavalry's reinforcements coming over the hill.
Granz also put together a series of studio jam sessions along the same lines as the JATP concerts. Bird was on hand for one of these dates, available as
Jam Session
(Verve 833 564-2). The 1952 Los Angeles session also includes alto giants Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges, both idols of Bird's, and the great tenor player Ben Webster. Even though it was 1952 and Bird had to be considered part of the jazz mainstream along with the others, his freshness and
 
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inventiveness still stand out with bracing clarity. Benny Carter even shows that he had been listening to Bird, especially on "What Is This Thing Called Love?" On the up-tempo tunes - a blues and "What Is This Thing Called Love?" - Bird outswings everyone and has the most logical sense of how to organize a chorus of anyone in the room. On the slow "Funky Blues," however, he gets some serious competition from Hodges, one of the best blues players who ever lived. Still, when Bird comes in, right on Hodges's heels, well ... you be the judge. Later in the same cut, Ben Webster follows his imitator Flip Phillips and takes solo honors for the whole track, probably even cutting Bird.
A satisfying example of Bird at the peak of his powers in an all-star setting in 1949 can be found on
The Metronome All-Star Bands
(RCA/Bluebird 7636-2-RB). Two tunes, "Overtime" and "Victory Ball," were recorded in long and short versions by a big band assembled under the auspices of
Metronome
magazine, which had been doing this kind of thing for years. In 1949 the modernists held the turf. Aside from Parker's brilliant playing, the sides are most notable for a trumpet section consisting of Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and Miles Davis, all of whom engage in a three-way chase chorus at the end of "Overtime." It is worth buying this disc for these sides alone, although there is excellent earlier material on it as well.
One essential confrontation between Bird and a younger giant occurred in January 1953, when Bird encountered Sonny Rollins at a Miles Davis date for Prestige. Available on
Collectors' Items
(Prestige/OJC-071), the four tunes are rare examples of Bird playing tenor saxophone. The session is analyzed in some detail in the discussion of Miles Davis. Creative sparks fly throughout between Parker and Rollins, who had certainly absorbed and assimilated Parker's language as well as anybody had before or since and who had made something of his own out of it, young as he was. Bird, then only thirty-two, must already have felt the hot breath of time on his neck. He would be dead in just over two years.
Coda
Because there is so much Bird available, in such overlapping and sometimes confusing form, it may be worthwhile to have some suggestions as to where to begin. My picks would be
Now's the Time
(Verve 825 671-2),
The Legendary Dial Masters, Volume 1
(Stash ST-CD-23),
Original Bird - The Best of Bird on Savoy
(Savoy ZDS 1208, which includes "Ko Ko," "Parker's Mood," and other classics),
Bird at St. Nick's
(Jazz Workshop/OJC-041, bad sound notwithstanding), and
Jazz at Massey Hall
(Debut/OJC-044, with Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach). But wherever you start, you will end up sitting in front of your speakers marveling at one of jazz's greatest geniuses.
 
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Ornithologists
Charlie Parker's effect on the musicians of his era was similar to Louis Armstrong's on those of two decades earlier: suddenly musicians everywhere were struggling to master Bird's additions to the jazz language. Alto saxophonists, especially, were hit hard; most of the prominent altoists who arrived in the 1950s were devoted ornithologists, dedicated to the study of Bird lore. Almost all found something of their own to take away from Bird's work. Some were influenced by Bird's melodic inventiveness, some by his approach to scales and chords, some by his blues feeling, some by his romantic way with ballads on the "Bird with Strings" sessions.
Lou Donaldson was, and is, certainly one of the bluesiest Parker disciples. Perhaps his best single album is the quartet-plus-conga-drum date
Blues Walk
(Blue Note 46525), which includes his lilting, medium-tempo jukebox favorite, "The Masquerade Is Over," along with a galloping ride on the bop standard "Move" and the mysterioso title cut. His
Quartet/Quintet/Sextet
(Blue Note 81537) features the altoist in 1952 and 1954 dates with rhythm sections including pianists Horace Silver and Elmo Hope and drummers Art Taylor and Art Blakey, as well as with trumpeters Blue Mitchell and Kenny Dorham. The blues "Down Home" really shows Donaldson's Parker roots. The 1967
Alligator Boogaloo
(Blue Note 84263) is set in a definite grits-and-gravy, organ-combo groove, with several vamp-based and rock-flavored tunes, as well as a shuffle-beat blues ("The Thang"), a ballad ("I Want a Little Girl''), and an up-tempo gospel-type tune called "Rev. Moses," on which Donaldson shows why he is an uptown favorite to this day. George Benson plays guitar on this set. Donaldson has stellar guest shots on
Milt Jackson
(Blue Note 81509), Jimmy Smith's twenty-minute-long blues jam "The Sermon" from
The Sermon
(Blue Note 46097), and the immortal Art Blakey albums
A Night at Birdland, Volume 1
(Blue Note 46519) and
Volume 2
(Blue Note 46520), on which he shares the front line with trumpeter Clifford Brown.
Gigi Gryce was a highly regarded altoist active in the 1950s very much in the Parker mode and a composer who always brought something interesting to a session. His
The Rat Race Blues
(Prestige/OJC-081) is a fine quintet record with trumpeter Richard Williams; the up-tempo title track finds the pianist soloing in A
;, Williams soloing in F, and Gryce soloing in B
, an example of Gryce's constant attempt to make the small-group bebop setting more interesting than a mere procession of solos. The record as a whole has a great variety of moods and musical grooves. The same can be said of
The Art Farmer Quintet Featuring Gigi Gryce
(Prestige/OJC-241), an excellent album on which all but one of the six compositions are by Gryce. This is a very satisfying, well-programmed
 
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set of mid-1950s jazz, with an unusual rhythm section of Duke Jordan (of Charlie Parker's 1947 quintet), Addison Farmer, and Philly Joe Jones, as well as the fine trumpeting of the leader. Gryce was the leader, originally, on a quartet session available under Thelonious Monk's name (
Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols
[Savoy ZDS 1166]). The four tunes, recorded in 1955 (Gryce's "Nica's Tempo," and Monk's seldom-played originals "Brake's Sake," "Shuffle Boil," and "Gallop's Gallop''), are a good showcase for the altoist's singing tone and melodic imagination. Gryce can also be heard on
Monk's Music
(Riverside/OJC-084), in the saxophone section next to Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane.
Phil Woods was a large presence in the late 1950s; his sound was penetrating and intense, and he recorded a good amount. The 1955
Woodlore
(Prestige/OJC-052) features him in a quartet setting playing standards like "Get Happy" and "Slow Boat to China," along with bop-inflected originals.
Bird Feathers
(New Jazz/OJC-1735) is a collection of 1957 odds and ends by various ornithologists, with Woods and his alto soul brother Gene Quill featured on two 1950s jazz standards, "Solar" and "Airegin." Woods also takes an excellent solo on "Little Rootie Tootie" on The
Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall
(Riverside/OJC-135). His 1974
Musique Du Bois
(Muse MCD 5037) is an adventuresome quartet outing full of shifting tempos, dynamics, and instrumental densities, on which Woods is abetted by the extremely flexible and responsive rhythm section of Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, and Alan Dawson. The repertoire includes Sonny Rollins's "Airegin" again, as well as Wayne Shorter's "Nefertiti" and other tunes that lend themselves to stylistically eclectic treatment. Woods's tone here is marvelous, strong and expressive in all registers; a very satisfying set.
Ernie Henry was a short-lived and little-known player who came up in the late 1940s, playing with Tadd Dameron and Dizzy Gillespie. He made several albums for Riverside in the mid-1950s that show a strongly Bird-influenced sound and imagination with a keening tone.
Presenting Ernie Henry
(Riverside/OJC-102) is a solid 1956 set which also features trumpeter Kenny Dorham in a quintet setting, playing mainly Henry originals in a bop vein, as well as two standards ("Gone with the Wind" and "I Should Care"). Henry's
Seven Standards and a Blues
(Riverside/OJC-1722), recorded the next year, is in the same groove; Henry, backed by the great rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Wilbur Ware, and Philly Joe Jones, plays straight-ahead, Parker-style alto on tunes like "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Like Someone in Love," and "Lover Man." Both albums will make bebop fans happy. Henry can also be heard at some length on Thelonious Monk's
Brilliant Corners
(Riverside/OJC-026).
Charles McPherson, a somewhat younger player than those listed previ-

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