Didn't think there were any more good Bird albums out there;
Daniel Berger | Atlanta, GA USA | 11/17/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"One day in my youth, I became a Bird fan and a jazz fan all at once. On my way to my college dorm room, I passed a door with this wonderful music pouring out. I went in - I knew the girls who lived there - and was told it was Charlie Parker, the Massey Hall concert, playing "All the Things You Are." I love pop music standards and loved the juxtaposition of this sweet, melodic tune with Bird's bebop treatment.
I bought a lot of Parker albums for the next few years, listened to them a lot for a few more after that, and then moved on to other things. I invested in the Mosaic box set of the Dean Benedetti tapes, but it's really hard to listen to, something you want to own just to own it. I thought his catalogue held no more surprises for me, but I was delightfully wrong. Don't know how I stumbled across this CD - birthday present from someone, maybe? - but it just knocked my socks off.
Parker's recorded legacy has remained misty. They say he played better live, but because he lost his cabaret license, he couldn't play New York's clubs by the time he was well enough known for many of his dates to have been recorded and recorded properly. His studio stuff is good, but you can't always hear what made him unique, other than his playing real fast.
Here, you can hear it. This wasn't actually a concert; it was a dance,a benefit for a local Communist facing criminal charges. There's background noise; the recording isn't perfect; but Bird picks up on the crowd's energy and you can hear it. (You wonder how much better a lot of musicians' live recordings would be if they played more to hundreds of peopel, rather than thousands.) His music just glitters more. It's faster, lighter, and more inventive. Check it out.
According to the liner notes, this recording was patched together from two different sets of tapes that between them, captured the whole concert, and for one song where they were both usable, allowed a stereo version of a Bird song to be created, the only one known to exist. Parker died in 1955, before the stereo era took off. The recording quality isn't great, particularly by current standards, but Parker fans are used to that, and it's good enough."
