js God bless Record Store Day, not only does it help support one of civilization’s finest institutions, ie your local record store, but it has also been encouraging labels to re-release classic vinyl albums that many of us thought would be forever unattainable. If you had told me a few years ago that I would soon be able to buy pristine copies of Charlie Parker LPs, I would have thought you plumb crazy, but then, here we are with another outstanding Record Store Day release in the form of “The Magnificent Charlie Parker”. This album was originally released in the mid-50s on the Clef album and it contains much of Clef’s Parker singles from 1951 when Bird was playing at his best. It’s a wonderful collection of singles all arranged in logical succession with no weird volume or sound quality leaps as you go track to track. Those who are familiar with some Parker CD collections will know what I mean by incongruent track succession.

Side one opens with four tracks that feature a young Miles on trumpet, as well as Max Roach on drums. Miles’ playing at that time was very clean and precise, revealing the influence of Clifford Brown, as well as Miles’ classical background. All of these tracks are great, with “She Rote” being the ultimate in bebop styled abstraction and modernity. The last two cuts on this side are exotica pop numbers with a vocal choir and small orchestra arrangement. by Gil Evans. Side two features Red Rodney on trumpet, possibly Parker’s most cohesive and inspiring sideman outside of Dizzy Gillespie. This group also features a young John Lewis on piano before he became known as a purveyor of 3rd stream chamber jazz.

Every track on here is excellent and its nice that the song choices lean away from show tunes and more towards bebop originals that really bring out the witty urban flavor of one of jazz’s most creative eras. I think there are only about 3000 copies of this available, so grab it while you can.

js If you tend to buy your CDs at the used shops and thrift stores, then you will already know that these Ken Burns collections tend to show up a lot, and usually at a very reasonable price. I’m going to guess that a lot of these Ken Burns collections were bought as gifts during the height of his TV series, and then after a few listens, the hype wears off and the CD owner realizes he didn’t really like jazz all that much anyway, ha. This Parker CD tends to get a similar evaluation as many of Burn’s other compilations, a nice collection of tunes marred by hit and miss sound quality. How big this sound quality issue is to you will probably determine if this is a CD you would like to have.

To my ears, the sound on here is not that bad, about 20 to 25 percent of the tunes have a pronounced high end hiss and surface noise, but most of the rest are fine. Which brings us to the next issue, how good do you expect older recordings to sound? Technology does exist today to clean up old recordings, but when you remove the high end, you stand a chance of losing some cymbals, or even slightly altering what a horn sounds like. It’s a tough choice sometimes. Me personally, I don’t expect old jazz recordings to sound perfect, and over time, I barely notice things like hiss, especially if there is plenty of ambient noise going on (traffic, people talking etc). I read one complaint about this CD in which a consumer claimed that this CD sounded bad on headphones. Yes, high end hiss will be very pronounced on headphones, but why listen to older recordings on headphones, it’s a bad combination to begin with. A lot of this music was mixed to sound good coming out of small radio speakers, and smaller speakers, or just an average home stereo, is still what this music sounds best on. If you are looking for deep bass ala your latest dub-step club mix or Pink Floyd surround-sound, then its time to drop this CD off at the thrift store for someone who will provide a proper home for it.

As far as the music on here goes, you get a nice overview of Parker’s career spanning from his early days as a radical innovator and on up to his last years where he slowed his pace, but developed an extra sweet and supple tone. If you like the crazy early be-bop, that’s well represented here with “Salt Peanuts”, “Ornithology” and the ultimate Parker rush; “Ko-Ko”. Elsewhere on here you get one early cut when Parker was a sideman with Jay McShann’s big band and at least one of those ‘Parker with strings’ tracks. Bird’s recordings with strings were much maligned when they were released , but over time they have been accepted, and for good reason, those recordings with strings contain some of Parker’s very sweetest playing. The rest of this CD consists of favorites any fan will know, and any novice will want to hear.

Once again, the sound quality of several cuts is going to be the make or break on this one. Personally I think it sounds ok, but it may not sound so good to folks raised on perfect digital sound and modern compression. For those who want to sample the worst, probably the highest amount of noise occurs on “Yardbird Suite” and “Relaxin at Camarillo”, although there are a couple more that are not much better. The other thing to consider is the scope of this collection, I would imagine some would prefer a collection that only features Parker’s earlier work and not his later efforts. The overall evaluation for this CD; this may not be the best Parker collection, but I’ve heard worse, at least Ken Burns and his crew did a good job of matching the volumes on the different tracks.

js “Bird and Diz” is a collection of tunes recorded by the dynamic duo in 1950 and released two years later. This would be the last time these two would record together in the studio, and the only time they recorded with the idiosyncratic Theolonius Monk on piano. It is a stellar all-star lineup, and they do not disappoint. Many have criticized the use of the old school swing drummer, Buddy Rich, for this modern (circa ’50) bop session, but given that the drums are not recorded that well in the first place, basically the best you could hope for is someone who keeps good time, and Buddy does fine in that department. The tunes on here range from the old school humorously corny “My Melancholy Baby”, to the abstract, modern and high speed rush of “Leap Frog”. Except for “Baby”, all of the tunes on here are Parker originals that mostly lean on well worn bop chord changes. The tunes are okay, but its what they do with them that sets this group apart.

Although supremely talented on their own, something happens to ‘Bird and Diz’ when they get together, their talent seems to multiply, and when you add the dry wit of Monk, you have one of the more inspired sessions on record. Playing that is this confident, witty, relaxed and just plain brilliant is rare. Everything on here has a certain effervescent buoyancy that others can not reproduce. Sly humor is a big part of all this, particularly Monk’s terse deconstructionist rides. You can also hear them spoof each other’s solos, such as on the out-take of “My Melancholy Baby” where Parker follows Monk’s ridiculously melodramatic schmaltz with a flurry of crazy notes that bury Monk’s last chord. A special sound for this duo is when they play their unison melodies while Diz is using a mute, and you get that on both “An Oscar for Treadwell” and “Mohawk”.

Despite the criticisms of using Rich instead of the more bop savvy Max Roach, I still think this is one of the better jazz records in my less than extensive collection, but the potential buyer most be warned of one serious problem with this recording. The sound of the drums on here is pretty bad, and downright annoying sometimes. Apparently the recording engineer decided to channel most of the cymbal sounds through a very narrow eq setting and the result is that the cymbals sound like a faucet that was left running in a metal sink. How annoying this is depends on the listening medium, it seems worse in the car stereo than the home system, and I would say that it bothers me less and less over time.

js Some musicians are so gifted that their fans, and musicologists in general, want to have every note they played archived somehow, no matter how bad the condition of the recording or its sound quality may be. If I had to name one musician who deserves such attention, that musician could easily be Charlie Parker, but you have to draw the line somewhere. “Bird at St Nick’s” is a good example of where a lot of us would draw the line on how bad of a recording is acceptable, especially when that recording is sold on expensive 180 gram vinyl.

Side one of “St Nicks” consists of someone holding a tape deck very near Charlie Parker and only recording while he plays his solos. Later a sound engineer did a decent job of splicing the solo sections together for the continuity of the songs. The recording quality is typically bad, Parker comes through okay, but the rest of the band is a vague rumble in the background. The good thing about this side though is that you do get some very good solos for the serious fan who wants to have every note Parker ever played. This side is acceptable from a musicological standpoint, but things get much worse on side two.

Side two opens with “Confirmation”, which features Parker’s best solo on the record, and a sound quality similar to the first side, but then its all down hill from there. Something happens on the ironically titled “Out of Nowhere”, it sounds like the band is in the other room now. I get the feeling the guy left the deck running while he went to the bathroom, but maybe I’m wrong. There is so much room reverb on the saxophone that it sounds like a violin, I literally checked the album cover to see if there was a guest violinist! Side two continues with more songs that are so badly recorded you can barely make out what Parker is playing, much less anyone else except, oddly enough, the bass player.

For the hardcore Parker fan and obsessive musicologist, there are some good solos on side one and parts of side two, but then there are some other songs on side two that are just plain worthless. I can understand why this recording exists, but my main complaint is why was this issued on 180 gram vinyl? It seems to me that putting something on 180 gram vinyl comes across as an endorsement that this is one of his best recordings.

js With what seems like hundreds of Charlie Parker compilations out there, its hard to know which might be the best one to start with. Although I already own a couple Parker sides, I thought it was time I got a better overview of his almost overwhelming discography. After receiving a gift coupon to redeem, I sampled about 20 or more of his comps on line and finally settled on “Charlie Parker 1947-1949” (from the well-known Chronological Classics series), as one of the very best I heard. After making my own analysis, I thought I would check out what others thought and was happy to find out that many others also hold this compilation in high regard.

One of the big problems with other Parker compilations is there is often a huge difference in the volume and overall sound of different tracks. Some of these compilations would have you constantly adjusting the volume as you move from song to song. This Classics Parker CD does a great job of matching the tracks, not only in volume, but also in general sound production, not an easy feat. Another plus is the extraordinary variety of material on here. The years 1947 to 49 were very productive for Parker and these tracks show him playing in many styles and combos including; his All-Stars with the young Miles Davis, big band bop with his own orchestra, early Afro-Cuban with Machito, elegant chamber music with strings and much more. There is enough interesting variety on here that you can set this one CD on shuffle and you have a great jazz radio program, once again the matching track volumes prove invaluable.

If there are some drawbacks, I would have preferred a few less cuts with strings and a couple more of his more outsider high octane numbers, and there are also no songs on here with Dizzy Gillespie. Still, I have been playing this one a lot lately, this whole CD just has an excellent flow to it. Of course the star of the show is Parker and his crazy alto. His modernist tendencies come through on numbers like “Constellation”, "The Bird" and “Merry-Go-Round”, its hard to imagine why people had to freak over altoists like Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy when a lot of what they were doing was already here. If you are looking for a good Parker compilation to start with, I highly recommend this one.