Customer Reviews

Parker's Mood

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of my favorite albums I have purchased from the BMG music club. This album amazes me every time I play it. The trio is perfectly balanced, the musicians create a very relaxed mood. It feels like they have been playing together for a long time but I suspect they came together only for this album. It is extraordinary how many sounds this trio can produce! There are 16 tracks on this album but none of them are alike. Sometimes a trio can be boring after a while but not this one. I enjoy every second of their music. I love McBride's solos especially when he plays with the bow. I like to play it at night in the dark as there are no drums so I don't bother my neighbors with loud music. The sound quality is perfect, this is a real audiophile recording. I hope there are more albums to come from this trio!

This trio makes a very good attempt in capturing the essence of not only the songs that Parker wrote, but also interpreting the interpretations Parker made using songs by other musicians. This CD made me think of "The Essential Charlie Parker" with reminiscence as it was one of the first CD's in my jazz collection, and whose songs clearly paved the way for younger artists as Hargrove, McBride, and Scott. What would have made this CD a five you ask? If somehow Parker himself could have made a guest appearance.

Charlie Christopher "Yardbird" Parker left us a sad day on 1954, but his musical bequeath still is modern, in spite of the fact fifty two years have elapsed. The way he stamped his phrases, with an accurate blending of sophistication, audacious, sentiment and intelligence made that he went beyond his own age, to fly in the wings of the legend.

Roy Hargrove counted with the genial support of Christian McBride, Bass and Stephen Scott, two hyper talented who decided to concur on April 12-14 1995 to make one of themost expressive ever made on Bird' s memory.

No matter you are not a big fan of Parker's mood. Just listen the first bars of any track and let your imagination flies in this extraordinary and enlivening musical document, that certainly exceeded the limits of the best to become a cult record.

This has become our favorite jazz disc. We bought it because Christian McBride plays on three cuts. (We love his "Gettin' To It.") That turns out to be just one small part of what makes this disc terrific.

Remember when local TV stations used to have their own movie shows that would air after the late news, and would usually feature a local personality doing an introduction to the movies, plus occasional voice-overs? In Columbus, Ohio, there used to be a show called "Night Owl Theater," hosted by a local jazz lover known as "Fritz the Night Owl." For a time, Fritz would play the Supersax version of "Parker's Mood," and every time it came on it just tore me up. Great stuff! Obviously, a drummerless trio (Hargrove on trumpet and flugelhorn, McBride on bass, and Scott on piano) is going to have much different sound than the four-saxophone-led sound of Supersax, but these three young musicians still create a rich tapestry of sound. In fact, each musician has a solo cut on the CD, and there are also duo cuts featuring all three possible pairings. In every case, all 16 cuts, the musicianship is superb, and the CD is very well recorded. This is one to treasure.