Wittle Charlie

Product Description In a remarkably short span of time, Charlie Parker rewrote the rules of jazz and established himself as one of the most important musicians of the twentieth century. Parker made his mark in many ways – as a virtuoso saxophonist, and innovative composer, a trend-setting bandleader, and a galvanizing force in the development of modern jazz. He was on this earth for only thirty-four years, but he left behind several lifetimes' worth of immortal music.

To celebrate the 130th anniversary of Chaplin’s birth, we are excited to announce our collaboration with [PIAS] on a new double CD set of extracts from the film soundtracks in the Chaplin archives, out on April 12th 2019.
The Charlie Chaplin Film Music Anthology, compiled by the Chaplin Office, retraces many of the milestones in Chaplin’s music-composing career, from City Lights (1931), the first film he released with a score of his own creation, to the 1976 re-release of A Woman of Paris with a new score composed by Chaplin at the age of 86, not to mention extracts from Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Limelight, The Kid and more. The release includes a well-documented 20-page booklet that we scrupulously put together, illustrated with archival photographs.

The single most influential saxophonist of the Be-bop era fought through his own personal demons to produce amazing jazz records.

To celebrate the 130th anniversary of Chaplin’s birth, we are excited to announce our collaboration with [PIAS] on a new double CD set of extracts from the film soundtracks in the Chaplin archives, out on April 12th 2019.
The Charlie Chaplin Film Music Anthology, compiled by the Chaplin Office, retraces many of the milestones in Chaplin’s music-composing career, from City Lights (1931), the first film he released with a score of his own creation, to the 1976 re-release of A Woman of Paris with a new score composed by Chaplin at the age of 86, not to mention extracts from Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Limelight, The Kid and more. The release includes a well-documented 20-page booklet that we scrupulously put together, illustrated with archival photographs.

Charlie Parker radically reshaped jazz, changing the way musicians, fans and critics approached it. If Dizzy Gillespie was bop's patron saint, Parker was its founding elder. He was an amazing improviser, who used a slow, thin vibrato, astonishing harmonic knowledge and total technical command to recast songs via his solos. He usually ignored the melody and instead went to the harmonic structure. Through breaking the pulse, varying the rhythm, experimenting with pitch, in short, doing any and everything possible, Parker created solos that were fresh, radical and totally distinctive, yet were related to the original and didn't destroy its organization.

From Jazziz
In the 1940s, Norman Granz was a jazz visionary in several ways; one of these was his incorporation of strings into a variety of recordings. Granz ultimately attracted some of the best jazz artists of the era (and of all time). He managed a yet-to-be-duplicated balance of commercialism and risk-taking, of business and art, that led to the recording of some of jazz's landmark recordings. Charlie Parker With Strings (now on Verve, originally on Clef) is generally acknowledged as the first release to feature a jazz soloist backed by violins. It was just the beginning. Arguably the greatest improviser of all time, Charlie Parker was reputed to have been interested in doing a strings album for years. Granz gave him the opportunity to do it, with strings arranged and conducted by Jimmy Carroll (who was working for Granz at the time). Bird's album was monumental in more than the fact that he added strings - it was also an album of all standards, with Parker clearly stating each melody. "Just Friends" became Parker's biggest-selling single and the record of which he was said to have been most proud.

Bird and Diz is a studio album by jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. It was recorded primarily on June 6, 1950 in New York City. Two tracks featured on the original pressing, "Passport" and "Visa", were recorded by Parker, without Gillespie and with a different personnel than that of the other tracks, in March and May 1949. The album was originally issued in 1952 in 10" format as a collection of 78 rpm singles on the Verve subsidiary label Clef Records.

In celebration of the film’s 80th anniversary, today we are releasing the remastered soundtrack of The Great Dictator on all major digital music platforms.There’s also the deluxe limited-edition vinyl released by [PIAS] earlier this year, accompanied by a 24-page large-format booklet with rare texts and photographs.