RSSThe Quintet [Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie/Bud Powell/Charles Mingus/Max Roach] [extended]
- The Giant [Prestige, 1973] B+
- Three or Four Shades of Blue [Atlantic, 1977] A-
- Cumbia and Jazz Fusion [Atlantic, 1978] B+
- Now's the Time [Verve, 1990] A+
- Jazz at Massey Hall [Original Jazz Classics, 1991] A
- Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker Collection [Rhino, 1996] A
- The Legendary Dial Masters [Jazz Classics, 1996] A+
- In a Soulful Mood [Music Club, 1996] A
- Eight Classic Albums [Real Gone Jazz, 2011] A-
- Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings [Craft, 2023] A
See Also:
Consumer Guide Reviews:
Dizzy Gillespie: The Giant [Prestige, 1973]
It's gratifying to hear how little the performing vitality of one of the creators of bebop has diminished over three decades; he's still making satisfying records. Personally, I prefer this twofer (a 1973 Paris session that features Johnny Griffin, Kenny Drew and Kenny Clarke) to the more recent Dizzy Gillespie Big 4 (done for Pablo Records with Joe Pass, Ray Brown, and Mickey Roker) because it stresses raunch and rhythm. But both albums are survivor's music: loose and quick-witted, almost untouched by the fierce inward turning that drove so many beboppers into one dead end or another. And that's probably just the reason that both lack the sense of conceptual urgency that hooked me on bebop. B+
Charles Mingus: Three or Four Shades of Blue [Atlantic, 1977]
Mingus's elitist aesthetic theories have always put me off his music, so when I'm told that the oldies on side one have been recorded with more fire in the past, I can only respond that now I'll want to hear them for myself. Side two is the best composed bebop I've come across all year; Larry Coryell and Sonny Fortune contribute their sharpest performances since fusion became commercial, and that's the least of it. A-
Charles Mingus: Cumbia and Jazz Fusion [Atlantic, 1978]
I know I'm not supposed to say this, but I've never bought Mingus as Great Jazz Genius--Important Jazz Eccentric is more like it, I'd say, especially in his more ambitious compositions. The 27-minute title fantasia is rich, lively, irreverent, and enjoyable, but it's marred by overly atmospheric Hollywood-at-the-carnival moments, while the kitschy assumed seriousness of "Music for 'Todo Modo'" almost ruins its fresh big-band colors. B+
Charlie Parker: Now's the Time [Verve, 1990]
Discographically, Bird on Verve is a mess, primarily but not exclusively due to the strings, orchestras, and choruses Norman Granz employed to market his prize--with the prize's enthusiastic cooperation, absolutely, but that does nothing to undercut the grandiose guff that gums up the Confirmation: Best of the Verve Years twofer. The 1950 Bird and Diz, which features a muffled Monk and isn't as badly damaged as might be by Buddy Rich's bombs, is a pricey import-only. And it isn't nearly as miraculous as this lucky yoking of two quartet sessions: the first 12/30/52 with Hank Jones-Teddy Kotick-Max Roach and the second 8/4/53 with Al Haig-Percy Heath-Max Roach. The recording strategy is pretty consistent: Parker states the theme with minimal help and plays till about 1:50, after which the other guys jam their choruses in before the three-minute mark. Of these, Roach's are generally the most musical, with Jones's fuller and solider than Haig's and the single solo Kotick gets room for higher in content than any of Heath's walks, which do saunter some as his half proceeds. But the core is 25 minutes of unimpeded Bird. The two "Cosmic Rays" should be one at most, and four takes of the midtempo blues "Chi-Chi" is one too many, although the CD-only add-on is welcome because it's where Parker drops the virtuoso boilerplate and sticks to what may be blues boilerplate but who cares. Everything else is superb: two standards, Parker's "Laird Baird" sounding like a standard itself, the non-rote virtuosity of two lightning-quick "I Got Rhythm"-based "Kim"s, the only studio version of his oft-covered "Confirmation," and the definitive rendition of the title original, which in 1949 provided r&b journeyman Paul Williams the materials for a dance smash called "The Hucklebuck" that isn't the first rock and roll record but deserves a nomination. A+
Jazz at Massey Hall [Original Jazz Classics, 1991]
Date: 5/15/53. Length: 47 minutes. Place: Toronto, Ontario. Band: Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charlie Mingus, Max Roach, and clandestine alto saxophonist Charlie "Chan." Never mind the apparently similar Diz N Bird at Carnegie Hall (24 minutes of a quintet that adds John Lewis, Al McKibbon, and Joe Harris to the two horns before turning into a big band record) or the hosannahed Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (38 Bird-Diz-Roach minutes substituting Parker's studio-favored Al Haig-Curly Russell piano-bass combo). Without question, this is live Bird numero uno even though the setlist belongs to Dizzy, including the inevitable (and dandy) "Salt Peanuts" and "Night in Tunisia." Parker's relaxed, bluesy mood is epitomized by a seriously interactive "All the Things You Are" that shifts bar-by-bar between virtuoso phrases and soulful here's-the-melody before dissolving into a "52nd Street Theme" breakdown. Gillespie is lyrical and incisive, Powell brings his A game, Roach thunders like no post-swing drummer working, and Mingus's bass is the most expressive in classic bebop. O Canada! A
Charlie Parker: Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker Collection [Rhino, 1996]
Because Dial was where he changed history most consistently, 14 of these 38 tracks are also on The Legendary Dial Masters. But despite the redundancy, both newcomers and fans will find his first cross-label, legit-plus-bootleg survey a gratifyingly listenable addition to his discography--two and a half hours free of outtakes, vocalists, Norman Granz, and the other dumb distractions his admirers contend with. His alto pervades every track. Even the live strings belong. A
Charlie Parker: The Legendary Dial Masters [Jazz Classics, 1996]
It's absurd for jazz's nonpareil improviser to have fallen into semiobscurity among new seekers for whom Parker and Coltrane and Davis and Armstrong are equally historic because they're equally dead. No one else has ever articulated so many ear-boggling, mind-expanding, stomach-churning, rib-tickling musical ideas so easily--so brilliantly--so insouciantly--so passionately--so fast. The two-CD Confirmation: The Best of the Verve Years makes up for Norman Granz's get-rich-slow schemes--Ella, Machito, Gil-Evans-ruins-Cole-Porter backup chorus, big bands, fucking strings--with small-group genius. And while it's stretched to its 37 minutes by the alternate-take marginalia obsessives dote on, Savoy's audiophile remix of the younger, purer Charlie Parker Story sweeps 50-year-old music into you-are-there territory. So all I can say for this two-CD middle-period remaster is that it's his peak. The secret is twisted heads with magic titles like "Dexterity" and "Scrapple From the Apple" and "Klact-Oveedes-Tene"--jokily virtuosic tunesmanship that suited his arcane harmonic interests the way 'Trane's simpler themes went with his modalism. And even if you believe improvisation is pretentious, arty, or male, Parker's outpourings are hard to resist in three-minute doses. Monk is definitely my man. Coltrane is probably yours. Armstrong is God. But Bird is It. A+
Charlie Parker: In a Soulful Mood [Music Club, 1996]
Compiled by UK music journo Roy Carr, this budget take on Parker's Dial sessions is findable cheap used and has become a favorite of mine by the odd strategy of skipping his twistiest heads. Although the two-disc Legendary Dial Masters is now collector-priced, longer Dial collections designated 1 and 2 are buyable as separate items, and the first consists almost entirely of originals that include the omitted "Dexterity," "Bongo Bop," and "Dewey Square" although not "Scrapple From the Apple." Worth owning. But in keeping with a generic title the label employed for many lesser jazz comps, what happens here is different. Midway through, originals give way to standards that begin with an "All the Things You Are" that's as inspired as Parker ever got and damn right soulful. If he'd had the strength of mind, he could have broken pop as the king of the intelligent makeout instrumental without getting near a violin. A
Bud Powell: Eight Classic Albums [Real Gone Jazz, 2011]
Poking around Amazon I came across this compact, unannotated, four-CD, 74-track set for 13 bucks and said what the hell--I'd never investigated Powell and Carola can't get enough jazz piano. When it arrived I was alarmed to discover that among the P's and R's hidden behind my office door resided the equally compact, richly annotated, five-CD, 101-track 1994 The Complete Bud Powell on Verve, '40s-heavy material that I was relieved to learn shares not a single recording with this set and bemused to learn remains in print for, well, 70 bucks. Unsystematic comparison listening indicates that you might as well start with these '50s sessions. Personally Powell was a wreck--his pal Thelonious once took a heroin rap for him. But more than Monk, whose deepest musical commitments were to his unimaginable melodies and implacable left hand, Powell was a pure bebop improvisor. Only one of the eight full albums here is a full classic: 1951's The Amazing Bud Powell, with drummer Roy Haynes and, crucially, Fats Navarro and Sonny Rollins's horns. Except for 1957's The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 3, where Curtis Fuller's trombone adds color, the others are trio jobs, with Art Taylor usually on drums as the bass passes from George Duvivier to Paul Chambers to Sam Jones to Ray Brown. My favorite is 1958's The Scene Changes--The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 5--hear Chambers rise to the surface of the eight-minute "Comin' Up." For sheer piano, check out the title track of Time Waits--The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 4. And the thick, speedy, bop-infused "Bud on Bach" reminds me to specify that never as I've ranged unsystematically through this bargain has a single track riled my tinkle-averse side. A-
Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings [Craft, 2023]
Somewhere in my unkempt trove of Charlie Parker CDs gather large portions of this legendary May 1953 bebop showcase, most of it recorded at 2753-capacity Massey Hall in Toronto's toddlin' town--not to a full house, especially with Joe Walcott defending his heavyweight championship against Rocky Marciano in Chicago the same night, a piece of history Dizzy Gillespie elected to follow on a backstage TV whenever he could grab the chance. The rest of this never again duplicated ensemble comprised doomed eternal bebopper Parker on alto, indomitable Max Roach on drums, a zonked Bud Powell replacing originally scheduled Lennie Tristano on piano, and Oscar Pettiford's replacement on bass Charlie Mingus, who when he discovered that some of his music had gone unrecorded that night absconded with the tapes so he could dub his own parts onto them. If this reads like some kind of mess, in some respects it was. For years when I wanted to hear some bebop I'd return not to Massey Hall however legendary it was but to the aforementioned Charlie Parker trove, especially his Dial sessions and the de facto Bird showcase Now's the Time. But given the historic weight of this event I'm definitely not done with Hothouse. And just for the record, whether those are the right Mingus bass parts doesn't seem to matter that much. A