Complete Live Performances on Savoy: Sept. 29, 1947-Oct. 25, 1950 [Live]

Charlie Parker | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 5, 1999)
• Original Release Date: October 6, 1998
• Number of Discs: 4
• Format: Live
• Label: Savoy Jazz
• ASIN: B00000DC2I
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,059 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

For years, the audio quality of many of the performances gathered on these four CDs prevented a full-on embrace, what with all the other available Charlie Parker out there. But this collection restores these sessions to notoriety. They're mostly from New York's Royal Roost, 1948 to 1950, but with a 1947 Carnegie Hall supergroup concert and a 1950 Chicago pickup date that boasts some unknowns--and undersung guitarist George Freeman--with Parker. First, the single drawback: emcee and radio host "Symphony Sid" Torin's sometimes obsequious, faux-hipster shtick that bookends several of the tunes. Rest assured, though, Torin makes only brief intros and outros. Beyond that, these are all stellar works. The quintet on three of the CDs (the Royal Roost sessions) features Parker with Miles Davis on much of CD 1, highlighting the clipped fire of bebop's architecture being tunneled under by Davis's mellow-tone brass. Even when Kenny Dorham takes over on trumpet, the alchemy is built on contrast, Parker's raspy, fast wit and Dorham's wry (but often likemindedly fast) ripostes. Pianists Tadd Dameron and Al Haig make great showings, as does Max Roach, pushing the energy with a loose attack that defies the fact that the majority of these performances were for radio. The more-famed quintet fronted by Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and pianist John Lewis (famed cofounder of the Modern Jazz Quartet) closes the collection with five tunes from a 1947 Carnegie Hall concert. Parker seems more restrained, Gillespie gleeful, and Lewis characteristically spare. But the playing is first-rate, whether at light-speed (as on "Dizzy Atmosphere") or at the loping clip of "Groovin' High." --Andrew Bartlett

Product Description

Given that most jazz historians consider Bird's early Savoy recordings to be his best, this 4-CD set occupies some rarefied air in the world of jazz reissues. The first three CDs consist of his Royal Roost broadcasts from September 1948 through March 1949; this material has been reissued before, but never with such good sound and judicious editing (emcee Symphony Sid is not as ubiquitous or as annoying). And disc four includes a rare 1947 concert in New York with Diz and John Lewis among others, plus a Chicago date with two members of the Windy City's first family of jazz, the Freemans. Together, it's the complete performance recordings of Charlie Parker's early years, assembled for the first time and absolutely essential. Salt Peanuts; Ornithology; Groovin' High the birth of bebop!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recomended., January 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Complete Live Performances on Savoy: Sept. 29, 1947-Oct. 25, 1950 (Audio CD)

These performances have been issued many times before in various fashions, but Savoy does fans a service by bringing all the Royal Roost broadcasts (along with a fine Carnegie Hall concert with Dizzy and an interesting recording in Chicago with a pick-up band) together into one definitive package. In general Bird is heard at his peak throughout, with a particular highlight coming when Bird takes a request (on Christmas) for "White Christmas" and gives it an absolutely brilliant reworking. The music benifits from the new, cleaner sound and there is a good track by track analysis from Loren Schoenberg. This package represents some of the most consistently inspired and rewarding recordings in Bird's career and should not be missed by those unfamiliar them.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Supremely recommended, March 23, 2003

By 

J. Freijser (2355 BG HOOGMADE, Z-Holland Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Complete Live Performances on Savoy: Sept. 29, 1947-Oct. 25, 1950 (Audio CD)

Anyone who wants to hear Charlie Parker, please start here, with these Savoy recordings. There is a unique coherence and consistency of place and time - bringing the performer-audience electricity of 50 years ago straight into your living room. You experience CP's invention of that music all over again. This is Bird, pure, straight, no chaser, not shaken, not stirred.
Over the last 30 years I have spent many hours listening to Charlie Parker, and his tunes are etched in my mind like musical sculptures, but these recordings have a lot to add to what I had already learnt. This is the best Bird I have heard.
I also have the highest regard for the beautifully informative and intelligent comments by Orrin Keepnews, Paul Bacon, and Loren Schoenberg.

50 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A broad interpretation of the word "complete.", June 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Complete Live Performances on Savoy: Sept. 29, 1947-Oct. 25, 1950 (Audio CD)

Looks good, doesn't it? All the Roosts on four CDs. Looks mighty good. Then there's even more - recordings from Carnegie Hall in 1947 and Chicago in 1950. Still on four CDs. And you know the Roosts alone came out on four a few years back. Anyway...it looks good. And Orrin Keepnews, that dear leech, says "less is more," congratulating himself (again) on giving Symphony Sid the axe. What he doesn't mention, of course, is that an entire date from 1950 with Fats Navarro and Bud Powell has been similarly excised. It should not even surprise, after all these years of being shafted by record companies, much less shock, and no-one will bat an eyelid when this stuff comes out again, even more complete(!), in a couple of years. But it's dishonest, it's self-serving, and particularly when Keepnews so tenaciously holds to painting himself into the picture of those who cared about jazz, it's disgraceful. Bird can have all the stars in the sky. Orrin gets none.