To celebrate the centenary of Charlie Parker a CD release of Parker’s ‘The Savoy 10-Inch LP Collection’. The collection, spotlights Charlie Parker’s ground breaking be-bop sessions for Savoy Records spanning 1944 to 1948. The tracks are already available on vinyl and digital formats.
The CD edition features 28 tracks from the four legendary Savoy 10-inch albums, presented with newly restored and re-mastered audio and a deluxe 20-page booklet containing vintage photos, rare ephemera and liner notes journalist and author Neil Tesser.
These historic recordings, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Lewis, Bud Powell and Max Roach.
When saxophonist Charlie Parker and his contemporaries introduced bebop in the 1940s, they were ushering in a bold new style that would influence modern music for decades to come.
Nowadays, as Neal Tesser argues i bebop was considered avant-garde. “Bebop undergirds such a vast swath of American music that its revolutionary nature recedes into the background. It is now so familiar and comfortable, such an ever-present part of the family history, that non-historians can hardly envision it ever being ‘revolutionary.’”
However, when listeners heard this new sound for the first time, it was unlike anything they had experienced before. Though bebop evolved in the early part of the decade—cultivated in New York’s late-night jazz clubs—it didn’t appear on record until the mid-1940s, following a two-year strike by the AFM (the US Musicians’ Union), which banned commercial recordings for labels, due to royalty disputes.
The 28 tracks that make up The Savoy 10-Inch LP Collection are some of the world’s earliest bebop recordings, including takes from a November 1945 date that is often referred to as “The Greatest Jazz Session Ever,” featuring Davis, Roach and Curley Russell appearing as “Charlie Parker’s Reboppers.”
The tracks were compiled by Savoy and released over the next several years four LPs set: New Sounds In Modern Music, Volume 1 (1950); New Sounds In Modern Music, Volume 2 (1951); as well as Volumes 3 and 4 (both released in 1952).
Nearly all of the compositions heard in this collection are originals by Parker, with a few contributions by Miles Davis, and an original tune from guitarist Tiny Grimes—who led Parker in the session for “Tiny’s Tempo.” Highlights include the upbeat “Now’s the Time,” the bluesy “Parker’s Mood” and “Constellation,” which Tessler notes “seems to anticipate the free-jazz energy solos of the 1960s.” Also notable is “Ko-Ko,” featuring an impressive improvisation from the saxophonist, as well as one of Bird’s most recognizable tunes, “Billie’s Bounce”.Though multiple styles of bop would become mainstream by the end of the 1950s, these recordings mark the beginning of a new era and a radical shift in musical trends. It was a sound that, Tesser declares, was “at once liberating but also threatening. Charlie Parker and his fellow instigators…sparked a cultural earthquake that upended the music landscape for decades.”
Track Listing (CD version):
- Now’s The Time
- Donna Lee
- Chasin’ The Bird
- Red Cross
- Ko-Ko
- Warmin’ Up A Riff
- Half Nelson
- Sipping At Bells
- Billie’s Bounce
- Cheryl
- Milestones
- Another Hair-Do
- Thriving From A Riff
- Buzzy
- Little Willie Leaps
- Klaunstance
- Bluebird
- Bird Gets The Worm
- Parker’s Mood
- Steeplechase
- Perhaps
- Tiny’s Tempo
- Constellation
- Merry Go Round
- Confirmation
- Barbados
- Ah-Leu-Cha
- Marmaduke