In the early Sixties Doris Parker, the widow of the immortal Bird, and Aubrey Mayhew, his manager, issued previously unreleased tapes of radio broadcasts, "air checks" and jams on the Charlie Parker label. Sadly, the venture failed financially, but Leon Parker, Bird's son and administrator of his estate, has now made available two of a projected series of 14 Parker LPs, many of which will bring "new" material to light.

Thankfully, Bird is not raped by any "electronically rechanneled for stereo" horrors; these are original monos, carefully remastered. Considering the catchpenny on-location recording techniques of 1947-'49 the sound is quite acceptable.

As for the music on Volume 1 (released last fall), there are such Bird staples as "Groovin' High," "Ornithology" and "Half Nelson," with some glorious Parker choruses. Also on hand was the young Miles Davis, the late, underestimated trumpeter Kenny Dorham and the cohesive fraternity of pianist Al Haig, bassist Tommy Potter and percussion dynamo Max Roach.

Best of all, however, is an animated "Tiger Rag" with Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet and the brilliant Lenny Tristano on piano. Taken from a "battle of the bands" broadcast that pitted Bird's boppers against the Dixielanders of Wild Bill Davison, "Tiger" is a hilarious put-on, taken at the raggedest of rapid tempos. In light of the fact that Louis Armstrong, himself a musical radical in the Twenties, later denounced bop as "Chinese music," "Tiger Rag"'s overtly sarcastic tone is all the more mordantly amusing—and significant.

Volume 2 is further testament to the "Dean Benedetti Theory," to which I subscribe in part. Benedetti was the man who followed Bird from club to club and surreptitiously recorded only Parker's solos on a wire spool recording machine. His rationale was, as Ross Russell wrote in the biography, Bird Lives!, "These men [Parker's accompanists] were just barely good enough to occupy the same bandstand ... of interest only because of their supporting roles."

Perhaps Benedetti's obiter dictum was too severe, but this set certainly reinforces the notion that Parker cast the most colossal shadow in the annals of black music. Bird plays with almost casual magnificence on an album that is taken primarily from live 1948-49 sets with the Dorham-Haig band, as well as a few cuts with Miles. And aside from the music, which again includes "Ornithology" and "Groovin' High" (the latter versions show Bird at the peak of his improvisational powers) plus Parker's purported favorite tune, "Slow Boat to China," we hear a bit of Americana, as DJ Symphony Sid serves as an interlocutor, interviews The Master and invites us to come down to the Royal Roost while the boisterous crowd ushers in the New Year of 1949.

It must have been a hell of a party. (RS 156)

JAMES ISAACS