Customer Reviews

Complete Dial Sessions Master Takes

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These recordings of the Bird belongs to the best part of his career (1944-1948). In that period Charlie Parker recorded for two companies, this little house based in L.A. and for Savoy Records. Both published the best recordings at all of the Bird, so the best solution would be to buy the BOX set which I bought last month (see other review of mine). But if you don't have so much money to INVEST for your ears so you should value this Dial CD, because of the importance and beauty of these recordings. Bird with these songs took a revolution in jazz. It was a storm after IInd World War to come back home in NYC and listen to what this guy was doing with other men in The Street (52nd Street, obviously). "Moose the Mooche" was dedicated to the guy in LA who was able to "deliver" to Bird the daily quantity of heroin. So this is for itself a narration of what kind of musician the Bird was. Ornithology, A Night in Tunisia (the song was however by Dizzy) are other tunes from these recordings, played also by Miles Davis on tp. The session with "Lover Man" and "Max is Making Wax" is one of the most famous recording sessions ever happened in the history of jazz. Bird was down that day, in the studio there was a psychiatre to survey the session. It is tremendous to listen to that tunes... Other must are "Cool Blues" and "Bird's Nest", "Stupendous" all songs where it is possible to hear the extraordinary solo lines of Bird. Many people tried to imitate, noone succeeded. It is still so, after more than 50 years.

The gems of this collection are "Lover Man" and "Bebop" - the notorious takes Bird recorded drugged out of his mind in CA. He tried to have them destroyed but they released them anyway. Hipsters have spent decades getting dusty fingers digging through used record bins to find these. Really raw and heartbreaking stuff.

Definitive records? This sounds like it was burned off of some scratched up LP's, look elsewhere for the Dial recording's on CD.