Five-Star Collection... Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker Memorial • Vol.1

CHARLIE PARKER was born in Kansas City, August 29, 1920. He played baritone saxophone in his school band and accumulated his experience with the orchestras of Lawrence Keyes and Harlan Leonard. In 1937 he joined Jay McShann with whom he came to New York in 1942. "BIRD" left McShann to work with Kenny Clarke and Thelonious Monk at Minton's and Clark's Uptown House. Soon after he blew with Noble Sissle for about a year and then he joined the Earl Hines Orchestra which featured Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Harris and Billy Eckstine. In 1944 he joined the fine Billy Eckstine Band and, at this time, he cut his first session which, we are proud to say, is on Savoy records.

One of the greatest chapters in Jazz came to a close on Saturday, March 12, 1955 when CHARLIE PARKER passed away, stricken with bronchial pneumonia and a greater blow to Jazz was never dealt. We in Jazz will never forget the "BIRD" and because we feel that you, the Jazz audience, may not have had the opportunity to know the "BIRD" as well as you would have liked to, we are releasing all of his unreleased versions of his most famous compositions.

Along with these new versions and short takes, we include some of the original masters to try to give you a more complete musical description of CHARLIE PARKER's recording sessions and also to give you a greater insight of his work. Also heard herein is some conversation between CHARLIE PARKER and the other musicians on the dates, which is added because we are sure you will find it as interesting as we do. *Ozzie Cadena (from the liner notes)*

This is the first of the Savoy 12" Memorial LPs. Included are several previously unreleased takes, as well as several (often more than one to a number) short takes. The comparisons are illuminating insights into the processes of improvised creation. Ozzie Cadena has clearly listed the nature of each take as well as complete personnel. Rudy Van Gelder has done a first-rate remastering job, and while this is not a hi-fi recording, as the envelope states, it's often a considerable improvement over the originals and the sound is quite clear.

Among the musicians present are Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter, Max Roach, John Lewis, Curly Russell, and Bud Powell. These are taken from Bird's 1944-1948 sessions for the label, a period that saw Bird's influence on modern jazz begin to take hold firmly throughout the country and world. These records were some of the vital messengers of the new era, and they rank in musical and historical importance with the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives 20 years before.

*Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, June 1, 1955 [5 stars])*

1 - Another Hair Do (short take 1)

2 - Another Hair Do (short take 2)

3 - Another Hair Do (original take 3)

4 - Bluebird (new take 1)

5 - Bird Gets The Worm (new take 1)

6 - Barbados (new take 1)

7 - Constellation (short take 2)

8 - Constellation (new take 1)

9 - Parker's Mood (new take 1)

10 - Ah Leu Cha (short take 1)

11 - Ah Leu Cha (original take 2)

12 - Perhaps (short take 4)

13 - Perhaps (new take 5)

14 - Perhaps (original take 6)

15 - Marmaduke (short take 1)

16 - Marmaduke (new take 2)

17 - Steeplechase (original take 1)

18 - Merry Go Round (new take 1)

19 - Buzzy (short take 4)

20 - Buzzy (original take 5)

(All compositions by Charlie Parker)

Charlie Parker (alto sax) with:

#1 to #5:

Miles Davis (trumpet), Duke Jordan (piano), Tommy Potter (bass), Max Roach (drums).

Recorded at United Sound Studios, Detroit, Michigan, December 21, 1947

#6 to #18:

Miles Davis (trumpet), John Lewis (piano), Curly Russell (bass), Max Roach (drums).

Recorded at Harry Smith Studios, New York City,

September 18 (#6 to #11) and September 24 (#12 to #18), 1948

#19 and #20:

Miles Davis (trumpet), Bud Powell (piano), Tommy Potter (bass), Max Roach (drums).

Recorded at Harry Smith Studios, New York City, May 8, 1947

Five-Star Collection... Kenny Drew

The Kenny Drew Trio
New Faces • New Sounds

Blue Note has presented a number of inspired and inspiring modern jazz piano artists in recent years, several of whom were virtually discovered and launched in the record field by this label. Among them are Bud Powell, Wynton Kelly, Thelonious Monk, and Horace Silver. This is no less true of Kenny Drew, a native New Yorker who was playing around town for quite some time, more or less ignored by the name musicians, until Howard McGhee used him on a Blue Note session in January 1950.

(...)

After his disc debut with McGhee and consequent acceptance by the big-timers, he was heard in clubs or on records with everyone from Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, and Lester Young to Milt Jackson, Sonny Stitt, and Buddy DeFranco. It was with Buddy’s quartet, touring the country and recording frequently in 1952 and '53, that most jazz fans became familiar with his name and style.

(...)

Kenny's solo debut in this set is notable for the colorful variety of the performances, ranging from the brilliant elaboration of Jerome Kern's Yesterdays to the swinging simplicity of his own Drew's Blues. Particularly impressive is his unusual choice of tempos, exemplified by the jump treatments of It Might As Well Be Spring and Be My Love — the latter might aptly be described as the answer to Lanza!

(...)

Kenny’s work is cast in the modernist mold, but it seems to owe allegiance to no one model; on the contrary, a careful hearing of these sides will reveal that Kenny has already developed his own personality at the keyboard. He is a proud addition to the growing ranks of the modern jazz piano family. *Leonard Feather (from the liner notes)*

Often praised on this page for his many excellent solos with DeFranco, 25-year-old Kenny wins his solo colors here with a set of six standards, a blues, and a pretty original.

On occasion he can be simple as all get out (Everything); then he can turn around and be as complex as you like, in the overlong but never dull Yesterdays. At the uptempos, as when he swingingly delanzafies Be My Love, he's in the Bud Powell class.

Art Blakey and Curly Russell, as you'd expect, are responsible for at least two-thirds of the success of the trio, with Art soloing, not too long or too flashily, in a couple of spots.

(Down Beat, Chicago, September 23, 1953 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Yesterdays

(Kern, Harbach)

2 - Stella By Starlight

(Young, Washington) 

3 - Gloria

(Kenny Drew)

4 - Be My Love

(Cahn, Brodszky)

Side 2

5 - Lover Come Back To Me

(Romberg, Hammerstein)

6 - Everything Happens To Me

(Adair)

7 - It Might As Well Be Spring

(Rodgers, Hammerstein)

8 - Drew's Blues

(Kenny Drew)

Kenny Drew (piano), Curly Russell (bass), Art Blakey (drums).

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey, April 16, 1953

Leonard Feather Presents… ★1957★

There’s a Curious irony in the fact that of the thousands of jazz albums now flooding the record stores, this is the first LP to be released with bop as its main theme. The wheel has come full circle. Bop became an epithet by the end of the decade, the victim of keyhole columnists who identified it not with music but with eccentricities of clothes, personality and personal habits. Today we can examine the scene in truer perpective and observe that Bop is simply the way most people play jazz in 1959, including the "new star" awards winners in the Down Beat critics' poll.

Among the neglected elements in Bop were not people but tunes — some of the original and exciting compositions that emerged with the first of bop creativity. They were tunes you heard played along 52nd Street; tunes that spoke with a crisp, biting accent expressed in long, unison lines, leaving the harmonic moorings to the rhythm section. All the tunes you'll hear in this LP were products of the men and groups of that day, 'though only Ornithology has become a jazz standard. The others have rarely been re-recorded and a couple have been in oblivion for years.

The music on these sides evokes the atmosphere of a typical set at one of the old 52nd Street clubs, even to the fast two-chorus treatment of the "52nd Street Theme" that invariably ended every set.

To those for whom these performances represent long-overdues revivals, the music on this LP is bound to fill a gap in your collection. If your interest is minly in the instrumentalists, these sides represent an introduction to themes that belong in every jazz library. Either way they should provide a cogent reminder that the music we used to call bop, wich today is an important part of the whole jazz, endowed us with a wealth of material, of ideation and new creation that has a lasting place in the story of jazz. *Leonard Feather (liner notes)*

Leonard Feather Presents Bop 

[a.k.a. Leonard Feather Presents 52nd Street]

This pair of 1957 studio sessions features two separate groups, with alto saxophonist Phil Woods, pianist George Wallington, and bassist Curly Russell involved in both dates, with most of the music drawn from the works of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Trumpeter Idrees Sulieman and drummer Denzil Best join them on the first five selections. Wallington and Woods share the solo spotlight following the scatted group introduction to the pianist's "Lemon Drop" (one of many bop variations of "I Got Rhythm"), while Sulieman also gets a taste. Woods and Sulieman re-create the magic of Parker and Gillespie in a snappy take of "Ornithology". Sulieman switches to muted trumpet for an equally enjoyable take of "Anthropology". The quintet changes for the last five tracks, with Thad Jones on trumpet and Art Taylor on drums. It is not clear who contributed the little-boy vocal to "Salt Peanuts", but it does not distract from this potent arrangement. Taylor's effective drumming powers the cooking version of "Shaw 'Nuff". The next to last track is incorrectly listed as "Billie's Bounce"; it is actually "Now's the Time". Nothing groundbreaking takes place during these bop sessions, but the playing is at a consistently high level. This Mode LP has been reissued by VSOP and the Japanese CD label Tofrec, sometimes under the title Leonard Feather Presents Bop. *Ken Dryden*

1 - Little Benny

(Benny Harris)

2 - Be Bop

(Dizzy Gillespie)

3 - Lemon Drop

(George Wallington)

4 - Ornithology

(Charlie Parker, Benny Harris)

5 - Anthropology

(Charlie Parker)

6 - Salt Peanuts

(Dizzy Gillespie)

7 - Groovin' High

(Dizzy Gillespie)

8 - Shaw' Nuff

(Dizzy Gillespie)

9 - Billie's Bounce

(Charlie Parker)

10 - Hot House / 52nd Street Theme

(Tadd Dameron / Thelonious Monk)

Idrees Sulieman [#1 to #5], Thad Jones [#6 to #10] (trumpets);

Phil Woods (alto sax); George Wallington (piano); Curly Russell (bass);

Denzil Best [#1 to #5], Art Taylor  [#6 to #10] (drums).

Recorded in New York City, August 1957

Kai Winding Sextet & Red Rodney Quintet - Broadway

Broadway is the name of many streets but there is one Broadway, if you know what I mean. 

Broadway is also the name of a tune which is dedicated to the street that I mean. 

Broadway in the late '40s was the stamping ground —or, more accurately, the stomping ground— for the young modernists who had learned from Lester Young and the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie axis. They chipped in to rent rehearsal studios in the Broadway area where they could jam if they were not working. When they did work, it was at the Three Deuces —the last holdout to feature modern jazz on 52nd Street— or on Broadway at the Roost and its successor, Bop City. 

Broadway was played quite often at the studio sessions like the ones held at Don Jose’s in the summer of 1949. 

Gerry Mulligan, Brew Moore, George Wallington, and Red Rodney were frequent participants. Anytime Mulligan is involved, there is a good chance that Broadway will be played in one form or another. His Gold Rush is based on Broadway. Broadway and/or Gold Rush have shown up in groups in which he has been a sideman, and in the various combos and orchestras he has led. 

Broadway is an example of these musicians' link to the Count Basie-Lester Young tradition. Count recorded it in 1940 with Pres as the featured soloist, and it captured the imagination of a generation of players.

This is the music they were playing on and around Broadway in the late '40s and early '50s. Broadway has changed and so has the music. Broadway has also endured. So has Broadway.

*Ira Gitler (liner notes)*

Kai Winding Sextet & Red Rodney Quintet

Broadway

Side 1

1 - A Night On Bop Mountain

(Winding)

2 - Waterworks

(Mulligan)

3 - Broadway

(McRay, Rayven)

4 - Sid's Bounce

(Kaminsky)

5 - Red Wig

(Rodney)

Side 2

6 - The Baron

(Rodney)

7 - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

(Kern, T. B. Harms)

8 - Coogan's Bluff

(Rodney)

9 - This Time The Dream's On Me

(Arlen, Mercer, Remick)

10 - If You Are But A Dream

(Jaffe, Fulton, Bronx)

11 - Mark

(Rodney)

#1 to #4:

(Originally as part of "Modern Jazz Trombones" [Prestige PRLP 109])

Kai Winding (trombone), Brew Moore (tenor sax), Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax), George Wallington (piano), Curly Russell (bass), Roy Haynes (drums).

Recorded in New York, August 23, 1949.

#5 to #11:

(Originally "The New Sounds" [Prestige PRLP 122])

Red Rodney (trumpet), Jim Ford (alto sax), Phil Raphael (piano), Phil Leshin (bass), Phil Brown (drums).

Recorded in New York, September 27, 1951. 

Kai Winding - Kai Winding All Stars

It is particularly fitting that this Kai Winding album should appear at this time. Now that bop, as we knew it, has foundered — has drawn what seems to be its last fresh line, it has become necessary to be extra selective in our listening. From this fresh vantage point, it is now evident that only a handful of individuals contributed freshness and vitality to the most violent revolution which jazz has ever been through. And several of those individuals are herein present.

Kai Winding was one of the first of the young modern musicians to take the trouble and the trombone through the experimental stages that the other horns and instruments were exploring. He lent an enviable technique to jazz, best proof of which existed and exists in the fact that his work on valve or slide trombone is nearly interchangeable to even the trained ear.

But technique and speed are only two facets of the Winding talent. As a balladier or a bellower he is equally effective, most distinctive in the latter because of a strident, snarling, rather than growling, sound.

And Kai is surrounded here, happily, with some outstanding talent. The records which include Gerry Mulligan are Mulligan arrangements, early proof, if any is needed, of the Mulligan sounds and skills, and advance notices of similar ideas applied to the Miles Davis group. Brew Moore lends his tenor to all eight sides. Composer-pianist George Wallington gives distinction to the first four sides, pianist Lou Stein to the last four. Curley Russell and Max Roach swing as well on the first four as Jack Lesberg and Don Lamond do on the last. Instrumentally, then, this is practically an all-star group — the tunes and performances do justice to the roll-call of stars.

Throughout these eight sides is much of the best that modern music had or has to offer. Admirably performed, it’s all for the listener's long playing. *Bill Coss (liner notes)*

Side 1

1 - Wallington's Godchild

(Wallington)

2 - Bop City

(Winding)

3 - Sleepy Bop

(Winding)

4 - Crossing The Channel

(Mulligan)

Side 2

5 - Honey

(Gillespie, Simons, Whiting)

6 - Someone To Watch Over Me

(G. & I. Gershwin)

7 - Harem Buffet

(Winding)

8 - Cheek To Cheek

(Irving Berlin)

#1 to #4:

Kai Winding (trombone), Brew Moore (tenor sax), Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax), George Wallington (piano), Curly Russell (bass), Max Roach (drums).

Recorded in New York City, April 10, 1949.

#5 to #8:

Kai Winding (trombone), Brew Moore (tenor sax), Lou Stein (piano), Jack Lesberg (bass), Don Lamond (drums).

Recorded in New York City, July 13, 1951.