Customer Reviews

The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes

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I just purchased this set, thinking that I was getting the best available compilation of Bird's early work. But, two days after getting it in the mail (and loving it), I discovered that JSP has out a Charlie Parker box set titled "Studio Chronicle 1940-1948," also available here on Amazon, which by all appearances is a far superior purchase. For only $28, you get 5 full discs worth of material, including a wealth of early recordings not included here, as well as a number of recording sessions not led by Parker (notably those under Dizzy Gillespie's name). Apparently some of these rarer recordings are hard to find elsewhere. Everything included on the present set is on that set as well. All in all you get almost twice the number of tracks (125 to 65) for nearly half the price. And, from what I've read, the sound quality on that set is actually marginally better. So, check out the JSP so you don't have to kick yourself like I am right now!

About 25 years ago, I was just a kid of 19 in a funky record store in Carbondale, IL checking out the latest releases on vinyl of some of the usual suspects of that era. I barely had begun to broaden my tastes beyond rock, into folk, reggae, blues with a hint of jazz. The owner of this store, for a reason I can't remember now, told me I could pick out any lp in the house and take it home free. Like a kid in a candy store, I dashed about from bin to bin until a double lp of The Very Best of Bird (on Dial I later learned) jumped out at me. It was put out by WB and had some very informative liner notes by Ross Russell, the producer of some of his greatest works. Well, I won't surprise anyone by saying what a revelation this music was and still is. Now I have just purchased this 3-disc CD with not only the Dial but also the Savoy master takes. The sound is the best I've ever heard of these historic recordings (kudos to the CD remastering team) and the music, well, there are almost no words sufficient to do it justice. This man has to be in my top five of the all-time most influential American musicians and this music makes the case. Thanks to the folks responsible for packaging and rereleasing this miraculous body of work. Almost makes me want to invest in the complete studio sessions...maybe one day. Get this one in the meantime. Be astounded all over. Bird Lives Again!

I've been a Charlie Parker fan, almost since I started playing the alto sax in high school in the early 70's.

Much of Parker's recorded work has been of substandard sound quality or released, then out of print. The Dial recordings, included here, were among those seminal recordings of Bird at his peak, but availability has been limited for years.

This recording puts together in one compilation a number of his best recordings: Cool Blues, Bird's Nest, Ornithology, Parker's Mood, and much, much more. The application of 21st century recording techniques results in a package of sound quality that enhances, rather than detracts from the music.

I recommend this to any fan of Bird, any fan of jazz and any saxophone player.

In a perfect world, this would be one of the 5 best selling jazz albums of all time. Why? Because Bird is one of the most influential and best jazz artist of all time and this collection includes every reason why. For a long time, it was a pain trying to collect these sides; and now, they all are in one place, with great sound in a nice package. It does not get any better than this, 50 years have passed and no one can touch Bird.

I picked this up because I only had 2 Charlie Parker CDs in my collection and I call myself a jazz lover. I had the Best of The Live Sessions on Savoy and an older Best of Bird on Verve. As something of a Miles Davis collector I felt I needed more in order to get the full Miles Davis perspective, so I picked this collection. Anyone who knows jazz knows that the really good stuff by Parker happened during the Savoy years between 1945 and 1948. The Complete Savoy Master Takes gives the collector everything Parker released as a leader plus a Miles Davis session and a Tiny Grimes session. I don't need to hear everything that Bird did so I didn't want to shell out the bucks to get every single note he laid down for Savoy. Again, this is all of the stuff that was picked by the artist and producer for release to his adoring public back in the day and that's plenty for me. If there is one disappointment it is that there are no sessions here that include Milt Jackson. I have Jackson playing with Parker on some Royal Roost recordings. Maybe Jackson never recorded in the studio under Bird's leadership? I dunno. Other than that, it's splendid!

This set is attractively packaged and comes with a nice booklet with the usual liner notes and pictures.

The 20bit remaster is superb but one word of warning, it's impossible to remove all of the crackles from some of this stuff that was pulled from 78rpm acetate. Just keep that in mind when listening.

Buy this if you don't want everything but want more than a "best of" collection.

There is probably no such thing as a "definitive" Charlie Parker
collection, without collecting EVERYTHING, but this comes awfully
close. These master takes of Bird's sessions as a leader for
the Savoy and Dial labels contain rich examples of his genius, and virtually every important title he did not record with Dizzy
Gillespie. Even before we get to the joys of "Billie's Bounce,"
"Warming Up a Riff," "Now's the Time," and "Ko-ko," we are treated to Bird's mastery on "Romance Without Finance." Besides
being one of the most politically INCORRECT songs ever recorded,
"Romance Without Finance" provides an excellent example of Parker's ability to rein in his prodigious abilities in the service of the song. Beyond that, everything here is just pure, unbridled inventive genius! The amazing thing about Bird's
playing is the way every phrase is a complete, perfect, self-contained musical idea, unique and independent to itself. Then,
suddenly in the last four bars of his solo, Bird comes up with something that makes all of it cohere, magically, brilliantly
and LOGICALLY. There's plenty of that kind of playing going on
throughout this entire collection!

Which is the title of Russell's biography of Charlie Parker. The sound is as good as you can expect with material of this vintage. Some tracks sound better than others. They were meant to be played on limited bandwidth 78RPM equipment. How the masters were stored is the main determinant of sound quality. With few exceptions, background noise and distortion doesn't interfere with enjoying the music.

I wrote a review of the mono version of Cream's "Disraeli Gears" and remarked that it had no soundstage. Someone posted a comment to the effect that my remark was absurd because mono CAN'T have a soundstage. Of course mono can't have the wide soundstage of stereo tracks, but when you listen to some of these sides you'll agree there IS a kind of soundstage.

As for the music, Bird was in a league of his own. He didn't really play music, he intuited it from somewhere else. Someone once asked Bob Dylan how he wrote all those great classic songs, and he said they just came to him. Bird woodshedded to get the chops, and he was a technical master of the alto sax, but what he played didn't come from long hours of practice. He was his own influence.

The first thing you'll notice is how modern this music sounds. Even the guitar player and the occasional vocals (for the most part) sound modern.

These tracks may be 60 + years old, but it isn't old-timey nostalgic music, and it isn't music you listen to to learn something. There was nothing camp about Bird. This is the stuff he was putting out in his heyday, that was on the shelves of jazz fans and played for entertainment. Dial and Savoy made money off it. Bird was a commercial artist, not an obscure player supported by a boutique label, known only to a few insiders. I don't think he was ever paid anything close to what he deserved, not even in the Norman Granz days. He left the studio with a wad of greenbacks which were quickly shot into a vein. That's how he chose to live. And how he died.

So play this music not to dissect it for a scholarly treatise, but as something to enjoy, much as Bird must have enjoyed making it.

In 1945, Charlie Parker, along with Dizzy Gillespie got tired of the poppy swing of the early 40's and loosened up. They started playing faster than swing and soloed more. The result: a type of fiery jazz known as Be-Bop. It turned off swing audiences and the boys coming back from WWII, but the other jazz musicians who heard this new sound could understand what Diz and Bird were doing and soon audiences did too. These three discs showcase the legendary Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at their best and a young Miles Davis. When most people think about jazz saxophone, they think John Coltrane. Well if there wasn't a Bird, there would not be a Trane. It's too bad that Bird self destructed in the 50's and died from Heroin related problems in 1955. In the big book on jazz released recently, it said that Bird was laughing, then choked and fell over and died. What a humorous way for a guy who was a jokester and always had a happy, laughing sound in his playing to pass into heaven. This great set documents the first steps of modern jazz...and the legend of Bird.


Charlie Parker
1920-1955