Search - Charlie Parker :: Bird & Diz

Bird, Diz, and THELONIUS MONK!

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 05/24/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The original 78s released after this 1950 recording-studio session read "CHARLIE PARKER and His Orchestra", clearly a slight to Dizzie Gillespie, which was corrected when the music was re-released on LP in 1956. "Orchestra" might be an odd designation for the quintet heard on the recording -- sax, trumpet, piano, bass, and drums -- but the real oversight was the omission of Thelonius Monk from the title and the cover art. Bird and Diz played each other's socks off in this session, but their performances were less an 'epiphany', to my ears at least, than the expressive originality of Thelonius Monk on piano, both while he's coming the trumpet/sax solo choruses and while he's laying down his own unpredictable chromatically daring riffs. Monk was at the nadir of his career around 1950; there are no other recordings of him from 1949 to 1952. It was Parker who recognized Monk's genius and brought him into this studio session.



It is STUDIO jazz. All the tracks are under four minutes, just long enough for one side on a 78. It's not a club session, not a jam session, not a hyper-energized improv session. Rather it's the 'rehearsed' concentrated classical result of innumerable jam sessions. You can hear just how much of Bebop was 'composed' rather than 'free' by comparing the two "takes" of the Parker pieces here -- two tracks each of "An Oscar for Treadwell", "Mohawk", "My Melancholy Baby", and "Relaxin with Lee", and four (4) tracks of "Leap Frog".



Being studio jazz is not a bad thing, however. The playing by Bird and Diz is taut and clean; if you've ever doubted the sheer physical virtuosity of Gillespie as a trumpeter, or the precise harmonic/melodic genius of Parker as a musician, this CD will set you straight. The sound quality is another very big plus. It's fun to here drinks being sloshed and drunks whooping their approval in the background of club recordings, but it's also fun to hear the rich timbres of Bird's alto sax or Curly Russell's vibrant bass. Don't fret about getting your money's worth from a CD bulked up with repeated takes; given how short and self-contained each take is, the repetition is welcome."