Charlie Parker Jazz At Massey Hall (vinyl, Waxtime in colour, Live in 1953, released 2018) ****
Genre: Jazz
Places I remember: Little Red Bookstore (Hastings); MyMusic (Taupo)
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: A Night In Tunisia (Jazz at Massey Hall)
Gear costume: Moose The Mooche (Volume IV)
Active compensatory factors: My Charlie Parker collection consists of these two albums plus three compilations - Encore which cherry picks the Savoy sessions, the soundtrack to Bird and The Very Best of Bird (a double album).
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: A Night In Tunisia (Jazz at Massey Hall)
Gear costume: Moose The Mooche (Volume IV)
Both of those featured above are live albums. With recording technology being what it was in the early 1950s, you have to accept that they won't necessarily be crisp clean recordings.
That said, Bird is on fire amidst the audience noise on Volume IV. Here, he's live in New York City with piano, guitar, bass and drum accompaniment. Even a poorly recorded archive document can't dim his particular fire.
Jazz At Massey Hall is another thing altogether as it was a hugely prestigious gig. He's joined by jazz superstars Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach. Wowsers!!
It also sounds wonderful in both sound quality and playing (some of the bass and drums were overdubbed later). These guys just groove! And stretch out - a lot of these songs are around the 7 or 8 minute mark.
Where do they all belong? The Encore set on Savoy remains my personal favourite. I heard it and bought it while working at Marbecks back in the late seventies. It is a great great compilation; hot and sweaty and Charlie sounds like he's beamed down from another planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment