Charlie Parker Quintet

Charlie Parker - Intégrale Charlie Parker, Vol. 6, "Passport", 1949 (2013) {3CD Set Frémeaux & Associés FA1336}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 900 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 515 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 407 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1949, 2013 Frémeaux & Associés | FA 1336
Jazz / Bebop / Bop / Saxophone

You really have to be blind to all the evidence if you refuse to see that Parker’s calibre was at least as prodigious as that of the greatest musicians of earlier generations. -Boris Vian. The aim of 'The Complete Charlie Parker', compiled for Frémeaux & Associés by Alain Tercinet, is to present (as far as possible) every studio-recording by Parker, together with titles featured in radio-broadcasts. Private recordings have been deliberately omitted from this selection to preserve a consistency of sound and aesthetic quality equal to the genius of this artist.

This second installment in the Classics Charlie Parker chronology contains quite a number of Bird's best-loved and most respected recordings. The first 12 tracks, recorded in New York for the Dial label in October and November of 1947, are all masterpieces of modern music, with the ballads, especially "Embraceable You," constituting some of Parker's very best recorded work. This is the classic 1947 quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter, and Max Roach. Even if his personal life was characteristically chaotic, 1947 was a good year for Charlie Parker's music. It was in November 1947 that this band hit the road to play the El Sino Club on St. Antoine Boulevard in Detroit. Unfortunately, Bird got really snockered and couldn't perform, so the El Sino management canceled the gig. Bird ultimately destroyed his saxophone by throwing it out of a hotel window onto the street below. (A tragic and disturbing image!) Back in New York, the band – now a sextet with the addition of trombonist J.J. Johnson – made six more sides for Dial on December 17, 1947.

Musicians like to observe that for all his notoriety as the wellspring of bebop, Charlie "Bird" Parker's music was loaded with the blues. Swedish Schnapps is as good a place as any to make that connection with Parker's music, including as it does two of his most enduring bop heads based on the blues, "Au Privave" and "Blues For Alice." While you wouldn't mistake either composition for a Muddy Waters tune, both relate Bird's off-kilter accents and serpentine melodicism at walking tempos that let you hear what's actually going by, instead of leaving you astonished but bemused. To really drive the point home, there's "K.C. Blues," which finds the altoist at his hollerin' best, and "Lover Man," certainly one of the bluesiest 32-bar standards around.

On May 15, 1953, five of jazz's most influential musicians - Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Max Roach and Bud Powell - met at Massey Hall in Toronto for their first and only known recording as a quintet. Although only a small audience had the opportunity to experience this historic evening in person, it was captured on tape. The resulting album, The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall, became one of the genre's most important and acclaimed releases.

Charlie Parker was a pioneer of many of the elements and characteristics that make up the 'classic' BeBop sound, forever pushing the boundaries of tempo, tonality and improvisation beyond the limitations of his time. His influence is only too clear today, and is no better demonstrated than in this spectacular tribute performance. Phil Woods, Red Rodney, Rufus Reid, Roy Haynes and Monte Alexander perform their own collective tribute to the great improviser and composer in this very special live concert from Cannes, 1990.

Charlie Parker - Intégrale Charlie Parker, Vol. 4, "Bird Of Paradise", 1947 (2012) {3CD Set Frémeaux & Associés FA1334}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 886 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 491 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 419 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1947, 2012 Frémeaux & Associés | FA 1334
Jazz / Be Bop / Bop / Saxophone

The year 1947 was one of the most creative of Charlie Parker. This box presents in 70 tracks the legacy recorded during the second half of this fruitful year, the first session of Miles Davis under his name for the Savoy label on August 14, 1947 at the session for the label Dial on December 17, always with Miles Davis but this time under the name of Charlie Parker.