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Extra-curricular Bird in less than 10 discs


colinmce

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I'd like to solicit some recommendations for what you all consider to be the best non-label affiliated Charlie Parker discs. That is to say the 5-10 best Charlie Parker CDs or LPs that are not included on the Savoy (studio or live), Dial, Verve, or Mosaic box sets. While I would love to think (and once did) that I would eventually accumulate every available note of Parker there is, now's the time (no pun intended) to get real and admit I won't. (Just as a disclaimer-- not to make this more difficult than need be-- I do own the Washington Concerts, Cafe Society, and live Debut/Prestige/OJC material)

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The Mosaic.

I mean it's a crazy disjointed work of an obsessive, but there's some incredible Bird there, just INCREDIBLE. And a fascinating book.

I've been really tempted to pull the trigger on the Mosaic for a long time... there's something so appealing about it. Some day.

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Here are some recommendations based strictly on the extremely high quality of Bird's playing, not on sound quality or how easy they may be to find:

The 1947 Carnegie Hall Concert with Dizzy Gillespie. Bird and Diz played a 25-minute set before Gillespie's big band took over. John Lewis's piano playing is practically inaudible, but Bird is on fire, as is Gillespie. This session has been issued on various labels, but is probably best heard on a 1997 Blue Note/Roost CD called Diz 'n' Bird at Carnegie Hall, which also contains as much of the big band set as has survived.

Live recordings by Bird's late 1949/early 1950 quintet with Red Rodney show him on an amazing streak, consistently playing at a seemingly superhuman level. It sounds as if you might already have Bird at St. Nick's, which is probably the best choice in terms of sound quality. But there's an equally fine session from four days earlier, with J.J. Johnson added, recorded at Birdland. I have a brutally-edited version on the French EPM label, but I'm sure it's been issued elsewhere. Sound quality is pretty bad, but the music is stunning. And there's a November, 1949 session from the Pershing ballroom in Chicago that's equally fine, issued in most complete form on the Philology CD Bird's Eyes, Vol. 2/3 (which apparently combines two LPs).

I'll let somebody else talk about two 1950 Birdland sessions, one with Fats Navarro and one with Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, but they're not to be missed.

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Live recordings by Bird's late 1949/early 1950 quintet with Red Rodney show him on an amazing streak, consistently playing at a seemingly superhuman level. ..I'll let somebody else talk about two 1950 Birdland sessions, one with Fats Navarro and one with Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, but they're not to be missed.

I have Christmas Eve 1949 Carnegie Hall on an old Alamac LP, and yeah, what you say.

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Alamac LPs - grab 'em when you see 'em. Hear me now and thank me whenever the mood comes down onto it.

As for those Birdland dates, I'll say that if, now that I've heard enough pre-/during-/and post-Bird of both Bird, near-Bird, and non-Bird to have a semi-reliaible sense of what's what no matter what, if I could forcibly reduce it all down to one or two records, those would be them, or, if forced down to just one LP, it would be this one (a combination of Birdland & Royal Roost broadcasts, all superb when heard in their full context, but absolutely stunning when hear collected and sequenced like this.

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Perhaps coincidentally, the first Bird I ever heard, but enough time has passed that I think perhaps not, perhaps I just got lucky.

Hell, if forced to uber-reduce, I'd take it down to just Side One of that LP. But that does seem a bit harsh.

Having said all that, there's a lot of sublimity on the Open Door stuff. A lot.

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1945 Town Hall Concert with Dizzy Gillespie (Uptown)

1947 Carnegie Hall Concert with Dizzy Gillespie (Bebop's Heartbeat)

Christmas 1949 Carnegie Hall Concert

Inglewood Jam (with Chet Baker and Sonny Criss)

Complete Rockland Palace

Bird's Eyes Volume 17 (Metronome All Stars)

Young Miles, volume 1 (Masters of Jazz)

Washington D.C. 1948 (Uptown)

Birth of the Bebop (Stash)

Live Sessions (Black)

Edited by kh1958
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Bird in Sweden from 1950 would be nice.

Maybe also Bird in Paris 1949.

Bird in Paris (the jazz festival recordings) is very nice but fidelity is so-so. (Or has the fidelity improved that immensely on other reissues since CBS released their LP?)

Bird in Sweden is nice - yes, but are there any reissues out by now where the solos of the Swedish jam session participants (at least some of them) have not been clipped away? I have an older Storyville LP and the liner notes that openly admit these splicings are slightly unsettling, to put it mildly.

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hi Big Beat Steve !

Thank you for diggin´into the two albums I mentioned.

Well Bird in Paris really doesn´t have the best sound quality, it´s worse than the Miles-Dameron stuff from the same festival, but sure something that Bird-freaks will like. Anyway, I welcome each live recording with Bird where you also hear a bit of the stuff that his sidemen are doing, like KD and Al Haig, and a rare and nice Tommy Potter solo, and Max of course.

About Bird in Sweden: I still have the Spotlite double LP, I like especially the first half, Rolf Ericson is really nice.

The long jam on Body and Soul IMHO is so-so, somehow I allways had the impression that the participants were not sure where to go, to keep it as a ballad or double timing.....well anyway those are really nice collectors items, but ......

if I could keep only two live recordings with Bird, it would be "One Night at Birdland" with Fats and Bud, and "Summit Meeting at Birdland" with Diz and Bud.....

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Charlie Parker at the Open Door is a must - wild blowing by Bird. I have it on an Ember 2 CD set (though it could have fit on one CD). I'm not sure how it's available these days, but the recordings are definitely worth seeking out.

Jeff has already commented on recordings with Red Rodney in 1949-50. I'll just put forth one specific recommendation from that period - recordings from Birdland in 1950 which were available on Royal Jazz - Charlie Parker: More Unissued Vol. 2. They may have been issued elsewhere as well. Fiery, fiery playing by Bird, Rodney, Kenny Drew, Curly Russell. and Art Blakey - not to be missed.

Charlie Parker: More Unissued Vol. 1 on Royal Jazz has two recordings done with Bird,Lennie Tristano, and Kenny Clarke (playing on a phone book). If you're a Bird fanatic, it's worth getting just for those two cuts. Also available on Philology.

Finally, I'll mention three cuts that have Bird sitting in with the Stan Kenton Orchestra on Bird's Eyes Vol. 8 - Philology W80.2.

Fine stuff, plus that CD also contains an interview done withPaul Desmond and Bird in 1953 or 1954. The interview is perhaps not essential (though I guess it is to me), but it's interesting.

Edited by paul secor
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I have this 22 lp box of live and private recordings. That's obviously more than you ask for. But from previous discussion elsewhere I understand that it was reissued on cd and if you disregard what you probably have in some other form you may end up around 10 disks It contains most of what has been already recommended . trying to find an image I saw that an lp set was sold on the net just two weeks ago for $152.50 only.

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Listening right now to 3 nice cuts with Wardell Grey from Boston 1951. Bird does not sound extraordinary by his standards but I think Grey is in great form.

Edited by uli
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How do the thread participants feel about the Bird - Woody Herman material from Kansas City, 1951?

Love it, and I also have it on Alamac!

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Happened to pop into a newsstand in downtown Dallas one afternoon in the late 70s to buy a paper for some reason, saw that they had a record rack (singular), and then found this in it.

One of the more WTF-ish of all the WTF moments this life has dropped on me, at least as far as records go.

Hearing Bird learn the bridge on "Four Brothers" on the fly was/is a freakin' joy.

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Agreed - had thought of bringing up that one when the Bird w/Stan Kenton tracks were mentioned earlier. I bought this Alamac LP close to 20 years ago at Mole Jazz in London, and while I am no Bird live recordings completist (but love the Herds from that period very much anyway) this combination had struck me as being so unusual (including for the track selection) that I just had to have it. And I haven't regretted it, of course.

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Thanks all. I wonder what KC audiences made of Bird's "return" with this particular band, and how much being home again was a factor in what one hears in Bird's performance from that evening.

I've also seen shared versions of the Bird - Woody stuff online, with claims of pitch correction, for those who care to do some searching...

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