• Track Listing

Happy 100th birthday to one of the Mount Rushmore figures of jazz! Created for Charlie Parker’s centenary, this be-bop time warp restores five of his classic albums to their original, short-lived 10" vinyl format. The LPs’ forever-hip David Stone Martin artwork has been faithfully reproduced, the audio has been beautifully remastered and the elegant 10" x 10" booklet is packed with rare photos, session details and essays by Ethan Iverson and David Ritz. All the records here except for "Bird and Diz" have been out of print on vinyl since their original release more than 60 years ago. "Bird and Diz" (1952) joins "Charlie Parker with Strings" (1950), "Charlie Parker Plays South of the Border" (1952), "Charlie Parker with Strings—Vol. 2" (1953) and "Charlie Parker" (1954). Few sounds in recorded music can approach the sublime beauty of Charlie Parker’s horn with a lush setting of strings, and here you’ll also find Bird’s historic sessions with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Hank Jones and other jazz giants, recorded soon before Parker’s tragic early death but finding him at the peak of his prodigious powers. Many of Bird’s most revered compositions and performances are here, presented in a format that ought to deeply satisfy jazz record collectors: "April in Paris," "Summertime," "Everything Happens to Me," "I Didn’t Know What Time It Was," "Dancing in the Dark," "They Can’t Take That Away from Me," "Laura," "Bloomdido," "Leap Frog," "East of the Sun," "Tico Tico," "Estrellita," "Now’s the Time," "Confirmation," "Easy to Love," "Relaxing with Lee," "Laird Baird," "Passport," "An Oscar for Treadwell," "I Remember You" and more! Verve.