Charlie Parker - Dean Benedetti Mosaic

[EKE BBB]

I´ve been wondering many times if I should buy this box. I know it includes some of the best solos ever played but, the facts that

-it only includes Bird´s solos and no complete tracks, and

-that sound´s expected to be quite poor,

have made me contain myself from buying this 7 CD box.

Your advice???

Thanks in advance!

[brownie]

The sound is not good. The performances has all kind of cuts. But the music is so damn good!!!

That's one box to get

I have been blessing Mosaic for releasing this.

[jazzbo]

I'm with Brownie on this one.

This is a treasure trove, it's fascinating. The sound IS bad. But Bird comes through, like a concentrated blow torch of imagination and dexterity. Music to burn forever.

This set represented hours and hours and hours of work and you can sense the effort and the pride in the work. One of the very best booklets that Mosaic has ever produced as well.

[Christiern]

Since we have been asked for our opinions on this set, here is a review I wrote in the June, 1991 issue of Stereo Review--I hope you find it useful:

• CHARLIE PARKER:
  The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings
  
  There is no question about it, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker was the pivotal figure of bebop, the “modern” jazz style that challenged tradition in the post-war years. When Parker died, in 1955, he was only 35 years old—that, and the enormous impact his music had already had on jazz, immediately made him a legend, the first such jazz figure since Bix Beiderbecke. Unlike Bix, who died in 1931, “Bird” spent his most productive musical years in an age when technology allowed recording activity to stretch beyond the authorized, planned studio session. Accordingly, he left behind a seemingly inexhaustible legacy of private recordings which, when combined with commercial releases and the inevitable alternate takes, make up a Charlie Parker library so voluminous as to rival the average jazz record collection.
  
  The latest addition to the ever growing library of unofficial Parker documentation is an authorized, first release of the so-called Benedetti recordings. Dean Benedetti was an alto saxophonist and fanatic Parker fan who in the late Forties followed his idol into clubs, armed with recording machine and a determination to leave no Parker note behind. Unfortunately, Benedetti seemed less interested in the work of Bird’s co-musicians, so he was loathe to waste acetate disc space on them; consequently, what we have here is 278 tracks that add up to more than seven highly fragmented hours of bits and pieces—Bird droppings, if you will. Many of these snippets capture engaging streams of improvisation that will prove invaluable to the serious Parker scholar, but there is also great excess here. Most of the longer tracks have neither a beginning nor an end, but they do at least contain a performance worthy of our ears; What mars the release is the inclusion of extraneous material that adds nothing to our understanding of Charlie Parker’s music; this includes a 19-minute collage of Benedetti home recordings (a passing train, rehearsing on his alto, reading a letter to his mother, etc.) and ridiculously brief snatches of Parker, ranging in length from three to thirteen seconds—tiny bits and pieces that clearly have been included solely to satisfy an obsessive craving for completeness. For example, it really makes little sense to include eight seconds of Night and Day five seconds of “Probably” Stardust, six seconds of “Possibly” Stardust (note the variation), a five-second “ending of unidentified tune,” and so forth. That’s like uttering “years ago” and calling it “possibly the Gettysburg Address,” these super short tracks are meaningless snippets from which I defy anyone to derive even a modicum of enlightenment or enjoyment. Thus the set is probably more complete than most listeners would wish it to be, but even so, “The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings Of Charlie Parker” is a misnomer, for portions of the original acetates were too damaged to be included. So why include meaningless scraps? Chalk it up to the producer’s obsession and the label’s established title concept.
  
  Mosaic’s catalog is rife with “Complete” titles, "The Complete Candid Recordings of Charles Mingus,” “The Complete Blue Note George Lewis,” etc. Clearly, the idea was to continue the trend with the Benedetti recordings, but one can easily become a slave of such a concept, and this is an obvious case of the release falling victim to its title. Who cares if every scrap of Benedetti’s random recordings is preserved? Determined to capture every bit of Parker’s solos, breaks and codas, he frequently started his machine in vain, then stopped it, presumably to save precious space on the acetate disc. With his relatively primitive equipment, he was unable to edit such false starts out, so they were unintentionally preserved, but that does not make them worthy of release. Don’t get me wrong, there is a great deal of wonderful music here, a real feast for the serious Parker fan, but a sensible approach would have yielded a more listenable—not to mention, affordable—five-CD set. Price is an important consideration here, because this is not he kind of album one buys for pure listening enjoyment; you don’t slip these discs into your player if you wish to relax with a significant other—it is decidedly a set for musicians, scholars, and the must-have-everything collector. If you wish to acquaint yourself with Charlie Parker’s music and don’t care if he wore red socks to the studio, ate a blueberry muffin for breakfast, or borrowed a chord pattern from Baroness Koenigswarter’s upstairs maid, I suggest you pick up some of his commercial releases.
  
  The compiler of this seven-CD Mosaic set is a local New York college station disc jockey who is known to New York jazz fans for his compulsive preoccupation with trivial details. Whether Parker blew the two notes on one four-second track during the same set as the three barely perceptible notes on another five-second snippet leads to senseless speculation in the producer’s liner notes, which are full of conjectures that have little or no bearing on anything. Equally stupid—and that is putting it mildly—is the system by which the selections are marked. Here, too, trivial details provide stumbling blocks. Some examples: “DBck” after a title indicates that Benedetti placed a check mark on the label or sleeve. Do we know why? No. So why do we need to know? “DBd” means that Benedetti made one or more copies of this particular selection—so what? And “NoHM” after a selection stands for "No audible Howard McGhee.” Can you believe that? Most of the recordings in my sizeable collection fall into that category. In an attempt to recreate the chronology, the 278 tracks are grouped into 64 “sections,” but the accuracy of this rearrangement is highly questionable, as is its importance. I could go on about the negative aspects of the album’s packaging, but I don’t wish to discourage the effort as a whole. As I said, there is plenty of good, listenable music here, fine Parker work extracted—sometimes in a crude, abrupt manner—from group performances that one wished had been preserved from beginning to end. Not everybody will adjust to the inferior technical quality, and the fragmentary nature of these recordings limit the audience to which they will appeal, but Parker’s stature earns these discs a prominent place in the documented history of American music.
  
  The accompanying, illustrated 48-page booklet is not all trivia fluff, parts of it are actually well written and sensibly focused. This includes an informative essay on Benedetti by co-producer Bob Porter and interesting notes on the music by Jim Patrick. Chris Albertson
  

CHARLIE PARKER: The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings. Charlie Parker (alto saxophone); other instrumentalists. 278 tracks containing complete and fragmented Parker solos ranging in length from five seconds to nearly five minutes. MOSAIC D 129 (seven discs) (430 min).

[kh1958]

I would recommend buying the Birds Eyes series on Philology over the Dean Benedetti set.

[Brad]

Is the Phiolology set still available. I don't believe so. Regarding the Benedetti set, it depends on how much of a fan you are. I think it's great but I'm a big Bird fan. If you're not, you may want to stay away. It's somewhat of a controversial box, in that respect.

[EKE BBB]

Thanks for you input, guys

... still in doubt about purchasing it

[PFunkJazz]

If you only buy one box set in your life, make it the Benedetti!

[EKE BBB]

If you only buy one box set in your life, make it the Benedetti!

And once you´ve bought a few dozens... is it worth yet?

[jazzbo]

Well, my opinion obviously differs from that of Chris. I agree strongly with Brad that if you are a real Charlie Parker fanatic, this is a great set to have. Plus, the booklet in this set really sets straight the life of Benedetti, and frees him from some awful trash spoken about him by Ross Russell and a few others. I don't find the presence of the bits and scraps as awful as Chris does. The task for the set was to chronicle and present the contents of the Benedetti collection, and that certainly was done. And there's some amazing music in that collection. I've come back to this set about as often as I have any other Mosaic set that I have.

I guess the big question EKE is how huge a Charlie Parker fantaic and collector you may be.

[EKE BBB]

I´m pretty sure I will finally pick it, Lon.

I´m not the "total Bird freak", but of course I´m very fond of him! I have about 20 CDs (the Savoy and Dial masters, his JATP performances, a few concerts and broadcasts, some of his Verve material...).

Maybe there are more important gaps in my Bird collection (any advice will be very appreciated), but I´ll purchase the Mosaic anyway!

[jazzbo]

Cool. And the wonderful thing about this set is. . .Mosaic OWNS it! You don't have to fear it will not be available one morning when you log on!

[ghost of miles]

Lon has a good point about Mosaic owning it, EKE. It's one you can mull over for awhile... in the meantime, do you already have the live 4-CD Bird Savoy set? If not, I'd definitely make it a priority over the Benedetti. Pardon my rather Clinton-esque moment here ("I agree with the arguments of the minority, but I guess I would have voted with the majority" B) )--while the criticisms of the Benedetti box are valid, if you're a big Parker fan you should pick it up. It's really quite a fascinating document!

[John L]

If you want a taste of the Mosaic set, pick up the Fantasy "Bird on 52nd Street." If you want more and even better where that came from, don't hesitate to buy the set. If that kind of collection of (sometimes incomplete) Bird solos in rather rough sound doesn't do it for you, spend your money on something else.

I bought the set as soon as it came out and have no regrets at all. There is so much Bird on it that, if you pull it down just a few times a year, the freshness and surprise almost makes you feel like you are there. That is in contrast to the more celebrated Dial, Savoy, and Verve material. Those of us who have been listening to it for years can now almost anticipate every note.

[brownie]

And I will have to sing the praise of the liner notes by Phil Schaap who took a blast from one of the posters here. The notes provide a very thorough account of what music is available and gives a lot of reasons on why some sessions sound better than others.

Listening to the box can be frustrating because of the various missing parts. But what has been preserved is worth all the money the set costs.

Above all, praise should go to Dean Benedetti for spending time and money to capture the music. I'm glad there is a musical document on Benedetti's playing even if I have listened to it only a couple of times. I'm glad it's there alongside the Bird music he captured.

[jazzbo]

"Above all, praise should go to Dean Benedetti for spending time and money to capture the music. I'm glad there is a musical document on Benedetti's playing even if I have listened to it only a couple of times. I'm glad it's there alongside the Bird music he captured."

Very well said Mr. Brown.

[Alexander]

I do, however, plan on marking any recording without Howard McGhee on it "NoHM." Jeez, I'd better get started...

[Christiern]

I do, however, plan on marking any recording without Howard McGhee on it "NoHM." Jeez, I'd better get started...

I had a rubber stamp made. It's kinda worn, but one can still make out the NoHM

[Brad]

All snide remarks aside, there is some wonderful music here, especially the gigs at the Three Deuces, which is in pretty good sound, and the Onyx Club. The music from those sessions is not limited to Bird's solos and is pretty darn good.

If you're not a Bird-maniac and have some concerns about the sounds, there's some pretty nice cds from Uptown that are good: Bird in Boston and Bird in Montreal. I really like the Boston one. There is of course, as mentioned, the live Savoy discs, which are very good, esp. Bird's rendition of White Christmas. You've never heard White Christmas until you've heard Bird do it. There's also the Birdland material too.

[king ubu]

There is of course, as mentioned, the live Savoy discs, which are very good, esp. Bird's rendition of White Christmas. You've never heard White Christmas until you've heard Bird do it. There's also the Birdland material too.

The Savoy live discs are pretty essential!

The Birdland material can still be found. There's two 2CD sets on Ember. Amazon lists them for 20$ each. (I got the 4CD version some months ago, OOP now).

ubu

[Christiern]

I have a couple of questions for those who find that the quality of the music outweighs any drawbacks posed by the inclusion trivial material.

If you had a choice of purchasing a less expensive set that included only the musical performances (i.e. no 3-5-second alto blips, no train passing by the window, etc.) would you not opt for that?

If so, don't you find Schaap's obsession with frivolous sounds to be a flaw in this release?

My point was that a more sensibly programmed set would have allowed more affordable pricing, thus making these Parker performances available to more people.

[jazzbo]

I agree that you have a point. But I'm not going to judge on Phil's obsession or the obsession others may have with it.

I'm happy with this set just the way that it is. I'm not certain it would reduce the disc count and price that severely. And I really like the train!

Edited February 13, 2004 by jazzbo

[Dave James]

Chris - I think your review was right on the mark. Part of any reviewer's job is to point out the plusses and minuses of that which is being reviewed thereby affording those who read the review and who may be to a greater or lesser extent influenced by or dependent upon it, a fair and balanced perspective.

Like many others, I had been curious about the Benedetti for years, but I was reluctant to drop $112 on something that was so obviously flawed. Finally, I took an exploratory plunge when I won an auction on e-Bay for CD's 3&4. I was also able to get ahold of Phil Schaap's notes, so having the booklet was less of a reason to buy the complete box. However, after listening to the two CD's, I find myself no closer to a decision than I was before. The recording quality is, in a word, abyssmal. But, the musical documentation itself is fascinating. I guess it would boil down to what others have said...if you're a big fan, it's certainly worth having. If you're not, you'll probably play it once and wonder what you were thinking about when you decided to buy it. My bottom line? I'll probably end up getting it. Just not for awhile.

Up over and out.

Edited February 13, 2004 by Dave James

[Jazzmoose]

I'll be honest: I have no interest in buying this set. Perhaps this is a flaw in my own make up as a jazz fan, but bits and pieces don't appeal to me, and even the poor sound quality scares me off to a degree. I picked up the OJC rerelease of Bird on 52nd Street, and to be honest, have only put it in the player twice. Sounds like this set is more of the same, only worse.

I'm sure this set is right up your alley if you're a Bird collector, and probably a must have if you're a student of either the alto or Parker himself, but for me, I think I can find enough Bird elsewhere. If I'd been listening to jazz for thirty plus years the way some of you have, and already had (and devoured) all the Dial, Savoy, Verve etc. stuff and still wanted more, I suppose I'd be interested in this, but I seriously I'll ever get to the point at which this set is the next Bird item on my list.

[Brad]

I'll be honest: I have no interest in buying this set. Perhaps this is a flaw in my own make up as a jazz fan, but bits and pieces don't appeal to me, and even the poor sound quality scares me off to a degree. I picked up the OJC rerelease of Bird on 52nd Street, and to be honest, have only put it in the player twice. Sounds like this set is more of the same, only worse.

I'm sure this set is right up your alley if you're a Bird collector, and probably a must have if you're a student of either the alto or Parker himself, but for me, I think I can find enough Bird elsewhere. If I'd been listening to jazz for thirty plus years the way some of you have, and already had (and devoured) all the Dial, Savoy, Verve etc. stuff and still wanted more, I suppose I'd be interested in this, but I seriously I'll ever get to the point at which this set is the next Bird item on my list.

I think you have to know going in that the sound quality is not good but I had no trouble getting past that. There's a lot of significant jazz out there that's not good quality. At some point you get past that and let your ears be the filter.

I've only been listening to jazz for six years so to have to be a thirty year listener doesn't make sense although I don't really think you meant that literally. Anyway, this is a must set for me. "Enough Bird?" That's impossible. When you're talking about one of the three most influential figures in our music, you can never have enough Bird.