Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blistering, Inspiring, Untouchable: Best Bird/Diz Concert, November 1, 2005
Don't let the recent discovery and hype surrounding the 1945 Gillespie-Parker Town Hall concert discourage you from picking up the 1947 Carnegie Hall concert. The audio quality isn't markedly inferior to either the Town Hall or Massey Hall dates, and the playing by Bird and Diz is not only worlds apart from the 1945 encounter but in some instances is superior to the later, Massey Hall performance.
Listen carefully to Bird's four-bar break on "Night in Tunisia," which Martin Williams analyzed in "The Jazz Tradition." Bird alters the meter and tempo ever so slightly, an aerialist who communicates the sense of being suspended in time and space, yet suddenly becoming reanimated just in time for the first beat of the chorus. It's very likely the most melodically-rhythmically complex four bars of improvised music every recorded, deserving a place right alongside Louis Armstrong's famous cadenza at the start of "West End Blues." You won't hear anything near this level of complexity on the Town Hall session, recorded two years earlier, let alone on any non-Parker performance. (Side-by-side comparisons of Bird's break with that of numerous other "name" saxophone players at the same juncture on the same tune inevitably is a disservice to the "pretenders." Listen, for example, to Lou Donaldson with Clifford Brown on "Art Blakey at Birdland, Vol. 1." Embarrassingly awful jive--merely meaningless motion.)
The remainder of the recording gives ample evidence of the heat and mastery of Bird as well as Diz (their unison ensembles defy credibility even today). And even though Bird gets more playing time in the small-group setting, there's enough heard from Diz to bolster the case of any listener who wishes to maintain that he was superior to Parker as an improviser (an argument I still have with some musicians).
Ignore the reviews that complain about the sound quality or the limited number of tunes featuring Bird. This contains some of the most exciting and significant Bird and Diz on record--if your ears are up to the challenge.
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26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Classic Jazz CD, January 9, 2001
This is an awesome sounding CD for a live concert that was recorded almost fifty years ago (considering the studio technology back in 1947). Besides the fact that the CD sounds good, it also "sounds" good. Charlie Parker is, as always, awesome, and Dizzy is spectacular as well. While these men had their ups and downs between one another, they sure sound great together. Moreover, Bird and Diz also play well off of one another in a live performance, and this performance demonstrates this quite well. For instance, on track 2 "Dizzy Atmosphere" both players ping pong off of one another with great speed and brilliance. Track (#2) is in my opinion, the best on the CD. Overall, the music is moving, fast, heart felt, and wonderful. This is a great CD to add to your Jazz collection.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
only five tracks you say, March 7, 2002
By A Customer
Yes this only has five tracks, but come on people it's Bird. These five tracks are golden. The solo on A Night in Tunisia is by far my favorite of all the others I've ever heard. I own the Complete Dean Benedetti recording and that has some solos on this song and this bypasses all of those. If you heard the recording he made with Miles and Lucky Thompson on Dial you are all ready familiar with "the break". On this recording he plays the same break as on the dial recording, but screams at the end of it with a million times the energy. That's just one of the tracks! He plays KoKo and Dizzy Atmosphere at break neck speed. And he sails through Grovin' High. Its one of my favorite live materials ever. Get it!
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is one of Charlie Parker's 
