Bird at St. Nick's

Occupation

• Alto Saxophone: Charlie Parker
• Trumpet: Red Rodney
• Piano: Al Haig
• Bass: Tommy Potter
• Drums: Roy Haynes

Bird at St. Nick 's is a jazz album by Charlie Parker, recorded at New York's St. Nicholas Ballroom on February 18, 1950. The recordings were first released on the labels debut and Jazz Workshop by Charles Mingus and published in 1972 Fantasy Records as double album Charlie Parker, coupled with the album Bird on 52nd St. by 1948.

The album

After Charlie Parker had four days earlier played at New York's Birdland, he presented his new quintet at the St. Nicholas Arena, otherwise a venue for boxing matches, which was located in the 69 West 66th Street, corner of 66th Street and Columbus Avenue. His quintet consisted of Red Rodney, Al Haig, Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes. Parker played well-known standards such as Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Star Eyes, bebop classics like Thelonious Monk and Tadd Dameron's 52nd Street Theme Hot House and its own titles such as Confirmation, Now 's the Time and Ornithology; in his composition, he quoted Louis Armstrong Visa West End Blues.

The performance was recorded by two young musicians from the West Coast, Joe Maini and Don Lanphere. About Mainis friend Jimmy Knepper reached the bands of Charles Mingus, who decided to make them appear on his label debut Records. However, after the financial end of Debut Records in 1957, they appeared on the Danish branch of debut. They were the first live recordings Charlie Parker, which appeared after his death in March 1955.

With the restoration of the bands at the re-release by Fantasy Records ( 1972), much time was spent on cleaning the belts out background noise from sound engineer Bob Guy. This individual parts of the recordings were like a jigsaw puzzle together to form a liquid whole.

List of titles

• All other tracks are from Charlie Parker.

Editorial notes

The recordings first appeared on the Danish label debut Records on three EPs, Charlie Parker - Bird At St. Nick's, Vol 1 (DEP 35), Vol 2 (DEP 36) and Vol 3 (DEP 37). The LP edition was published in 1958 allegedly at Jazz Workshop ( JWS 500), and later with Fantasy (LP 6012, LP 86012 ), Original Jazz Classics ( OJC 041, OJCCD 041-2 ), America (France, 30 AM 6062 ). Under the title Charlie Parker published Fantasy Records Bird at St. Nick's in 1972, coupled with the 1948 album recorded through Bird on 52nd St. (PR 24009 ) 2007 remastered CD edition. At present (2012 ) is sold album of the Concord Music Group.

Review

Richard Cook and Brian Morton, the count next to Charlie Parker at Storyville and Jazz at Massey Hall album from 1953 to the essential live documentation of the late Charlie Parker, featuring the album in The Penguin Guide to Jazz with the second highest rating of 3 ½ stars and called it the introduction " an appealing varied package of material from a dense and professionelll [ gambling ] band that sounds as if they are already together for a while. " the recordings were much more convincing than about the cobbled together material from Bird 's Eyes, Volume 1

Also JazzTimes emphasized the importance of recordings of Bird at St. Nick's ( and Bird on 52nd St. ); despite the inferior sound quality it had valuable documents Parker's great solo trips.

According to Lawrence O. Koch documented the recording of Charlie Parker's music could go to the extremes to hear in the late DIAL recordings and even in the apparently chaotic atmosphere of Bird at St. Nick's and his appearance at the Festival International 1949 de Jazz in Paris.

Peter Niklas Wilson and Ulf Goeman emphasized that they had ample opportunity to pursue detailed live improvisations Parker, one sees from the bad reception conditions and hide the solos. So Rodney is heard only in some dialogs with Parker, " even worse coming off of pianist Al Haig; you can only hear it with some accompanying chords while Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes in particular - albeit poorly absorbed - are constantly present "; Haynes also come into play as a soloist in some passages, as in Scrapple from the Apple. " The live program itself is balanced, alternating faster pieces - mostly his own compositions -. , And ballads, whose melodic beauty Parker savors in all shades " The authors emphasize that in Parker's game on Bird at St. Nick's notice free passages, the you can bring in connection with activities of later innovators like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. They also cite the Parker biographer Ross Russell, who pointed to the influence of Parker on the phrasing of the trumpeter Clifford Brown and Miles Davis, and also mentions the influence of modern saxophonist Albert Ayler as Archie Shepp and Sonny Simmons.

Scott Yanow awarded the album in Allmusic only 1 ½ ( out of four) stars and complained despite the good game from Parker ( his interpretation of Confirmation was wonderful) the horrible sound quality; one can only guess how the music of Parker, Rodney, Haig, Potter and Haynes may have sounded.