Review Summary: Charlie Parker collaborates with famous jazz musicans and creates one of his best albums.
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Two of the finest names in jazz music collaborating on an album together. They recorded a few times before, but this was their last album together and there only album with jazz piano master Thelonious Monk. The version I’m reviewing is the 1997 reissue with 16 bonus tracks and extra liner notes as well as complete breakdowns of the structure of the songs in here. Anyways on to the review…
Here Parker and Gillespie play some of the finest bebop styled jazz you will ever hear. The melodies are exquisite. There is a blues influence throughout the album that really shows within the first track,
Bloomdido with its uptempo groove and sweet, sweet improvisation. The improvised solo sections between Parker, Gillespie and Monk are incredible. You can never really guess what they’re going to play next and the soloing is so fluid and melodic. These performers were truly masters of their instruments. This album is almost completely up tempo styled playing except for
My Melancholy Baby which is , as the title implies, a slow melancholic track that really stands out on the album.
Leap Frog is also an interesting track as Charlie And Dizzy switch back forth every 4 bars, Therefore expanding further upon the ideas of two frogs leaping back and forth from each other.
The reissue also comes with a handy booklet on the history of this album as well as breakdowns of tracks and playing styles. It’s very informative to someone who doesn’t listen to jazz. Bird And Diz also comes with 16 bonus tracks of shorter arrangements of tracks, and mess-ups of tracks made during the recording sessions. There’s even some dialogue between the musicians. There really is nothing wrong with this album. It is essentially the perfect jazz album played by a few famous jazz musicians. IF there are any problems, it’s that the drumming is a bit off-kilter and the bass isn’t very audible. Overall a jazz master piece.
