"Charlie Parker Records" Label?

[dsockel]

I can't find out much about this record label besides a discography.

Where did the Charlie Parker material come from? Was it previously released?

I am listening to a copy of Bird Symbols PLP-407 and just wondering.

[marcello]

I usewd to have the Lester Young "Pres is Blue" and the Duke Jordan / Sadik Hakim "East and West of Jazz". They were poor pressings. I think Doris Parker owned the label, or had something to do with it.

Charlie Parker Label

Mayhew bebops his way into Parker estate

Aubrey Mayhew has led an American life that includes running with Johnny Paycheck, buying the infamous Texas Book Depository in Dallas and winding up with the rights to the Charlie Parker songbook.

Mayhew met Parker in 1953 when he was running the WCOP Jamboree in Boston. "Charlie used to play a jazz club there," Mayhew said in a recent interview from Nashville. "[New York disc jockey] Symphony Sid got fired, so we hired him in Boston to do our midnight show. Sid would bring jazz artists to Boston, but he was slick. He'd bring them up on a bus and pay them $20 to play in a club he was running. He would also play them on our station.

"I went over to the club one night and Parker was sitting at the table. I asked him how much he was getting paid for the taping. He said he wasn't getting paid anything. So I jumped on Sid about that, went to Parker and said, 'Don't you tape anything for anybody unless you get paid.' I offered him $1,000 for the taping we did that night. That bonded us together."

After Parker died in 1955, his widow Doris contacted Mayhew. In 1959, Mayhew joined the Parker estate as a music adviser and by 1961 Doris Parker and Mayhew launched the Charlie Parker Records imprint. The Parker Records roster included saxophonist Cecil Payne, bop pianist Duke Jordan, drummer Cozy Cole (of Louis Armstrong's All-Stars) and several Parker sides.

After the label stopped issuing product in 1965, Doris assigned all the rights to Mayhew.

"And I've owned all the Charlie Parker rights ever since," Mayhew said.

AND:

Koch Records hit the jackpot when they purchased the Charlie Parker Records catalogue, a superb little label run by Black Music lover Aubrey Mayhew

Here's something more from this forum:

Charlie Parker Records from Organissimo

[Shawn]

The only one on vinyl I ever owned was Cecil Payne's The Connection (w/Kenny Drew), nice session but not a very good pressing.

[medjuck]

I usewd to have the Lester Young "Pres is Blue" and the Duke Jordan / Sadik Hakim "East and West of Jazz". They were poor pressings. I think Doris Parker owned the label, or had something to do with it.

Charlie Parker Label

Mayhew bebops his way into Parker estate

Aubrey Mayhew has led an American life that includes running with Johnny Paycheck, buying the infamous Texas Book Depository in Dallas and winding up with the rights to the Charlie Parker songbook.

Mayhew met Parker in 1953 when he was running the WCOP Jamboree in Boston. "Charlie used to play a jazz club there," Mayhew said in a recent interview from Nashville. "[New York disc jockey] Symphony Sid got fired, so we hired him in Boston to do our midnight show. Sid would bring jazz artists to Boston, but he was slick. He'd bring them up on a bus and pay them $20 to play in a club he was running. He would also play them on our station.

"I went over to the club one night and Parker was sitting at the table. I asked him how much he was getting paid for the taping. He said he wasn't getting paid anything. So I jumped on Sid about that, went to Parker and said, 'Don't you tape anything for anybody unless you get paid.' I offered him $1,000 for the taping we did that night. That bonded us together."

After Parker died in 1955, his widow Doris contacted Mayhew. In 1959, Mayhew joined the Parker estate as a music adviser and by 1961 Doris Parker and Mayhew launched the Charlie Parker Records imprint. The Parker Records roster included saxophonist Cecil Payne, bop pianist Duke Jordan, drummer Cozy Cole (of Louis Armstrong's All-Stars) and several Parker sides.

After the label stopped issuing product in 1965, Doris assigned all the rights to Mayhew.

"And I've owned all the Charlie Parker rights ever since," Mayhew said.

AND:

Koch Records hit the jackpot when they purchased the Charlie Parker Records catalogue, a superb little label run by Black Music lover Aubrey Mayhew

Here's something more from this forum:

Charlie Parker Records from Organissimo

ii

I used to own a copy of this. I think the material on it is available on various cds.

Edited June 5, 2008 by medjuck

[Teasing the Korean]

Don't forget Mundell Lowe's "Satan in High Heels," arguably the greatest album ever recorded.

[sidewinder]

Still got a vinyl of the Cecil Payne 'The Connection' - will se if I can find it. Yes, Doris Parker is credited on the label. There's also an album by Slide Hampton - forget the title - and one by Barry Miles.

[JohnS]

I've several of these. All UK pressings. They sold for 50p if I rememeber correctly, mostly they were marketed through newsagents and tobacconists rather than record shops. They are not on the best vinyl but pressing quality wasn't too bad. Some interesting if not essential stuff.

[sidewinder]

They sold for 50p if I rememeber correctly, mostly they were marketed through newsagents and tobacconists rather than record shops.

Which explains why one old vinyl shop I went in seemed to have dozens of the Barry Miles LPs, all at 50p to £1 !

[JohnS]

They sold for 50p if I rememeber correctly, mostly they were marketed through newsagents and tobacconists rather than record shops.

Which explains why one old vinyl shop I went in seemed to have dozens of the Barry Miles LPs, all at 50p to £1 !

That's one I don't have.

The Slide Hampton surfaced on a Fresh Sound cd some time ago. Poor sound presumably taken from vinyl.

[Big Beat Steve]

The "Bird Symbols" and "Bird Is Free" LP's (U.S. pressings) (and probably more which I didn't pick up) still were available new in a local record store here in the mid-70s when I had just begun to explore Bird, and as they were fairly affordable they were some sort of door opener to Bird for me. Still have them, BTW, and my copy of a Cecil Payne LP (UK pressing) isn't too bad soundwise either.

Now was this a bootleg label or not? One of my C.P. Records LP's is made up of Dial masters (no doubt not in the public domain then), and these were circulating in numerous other guises and labels elsewhere but on the same markets at the same time too.

[AllenLowe]

Brings back memories - Dayton's on 8th Street in the Village, circa 1968 - boxloads of Riversides at $1.98 (!) and lots of the charlie Parker lable - got me going in jazz -

[Peter A]

There is a record on the CP label by singer Joe Carroll, which has Grant Green on guitar. It's a live session which is not very well recorded, but quite energetic. The Slide Hampton record is great, IMO.

[six string]

I see recordings on the label all the time but I've always heard that the pressings were poor so I've avoided them.

I suppose if there was something really worth owning, I'd put up with the noise. So far, I haven't seen anything that really interested me.

[captainwrong]

MONO-PACT!

I always wanted to put this on an album cover.

[dsockel]

Thanks all for the thorough responses.

[JSngry]

The Lester Young stuff on CP is "must have", I think.

[jazzbo]

I think so too.

[jazzbo]

First one I bought was a Lateef title. . . which was actually "Bird is Free," totatlly mislabled. Confusing at first indeed!

[AllenLowe]

"The Lester Young stuff on CP is "must have", I think."

that stuff was Dave Schildkraut's favorite - he once called me on the phone, held the receiver to a speaker as he played one of those LPs, and than said "this is where I went to school."

[Quasimado]

"The Lester Young stuff on CP is "must have", I think."

that stuff was Dave Schildkraut's favorite - he once called me on the phone, held the receiver to a speaker as he played one of those LPs, and than said "this is where I went to school."

... and the LP *Bird Is Free* is incredible ... unbelievable saxophone playing (Lester Leaps In - My Little Suede Shoes etc.) ...

Davey was in school for that, too...

Q

Edited June 7, 2008 by Quasimado

[Big Beat Steve]

Regarding that "Must Have" Lester Young stuff on CP, you are talking about the Royal Roost recordings from '48 and '49 (according to the liner notes), i.e. Be Bop Boogie/ These Foolish Things/ D.B.Blues/Just You Just Me etc.? (how many C.P. records with Prez were there, after all?)

Re-"Bird Is Free", some of it really is incredible if this is your first exposure to "live Bird", e.g. "Sly Mongoose" or "My Little Suede Shoes". Did somebody say there was no melody in bebop?

The club sound with talk, tinkling glasses, etc. would certainly be called "extra lo fi" by some but actually if you put that record on very late at night you can almost picture yourself right among the crowd. Somehow I've never had any trouble "listening through" that background noise.

[AllenLowe]

that particular Bird, as I recall. was later pitch corrected and remastered by Doug Pomeroy - and was recorded, I think, by Chan at that benefit for a Communist candidate for Congress - only problem with Bird Is Free is that it's too fast - has Lester Leaps In in the key of B, shoulda been Bb -

[AllenLowe]

unless I'm thinking of the wrong recording, but I think that's the one -

[MartyJazz]

Brings back memories - Dayton's on 8th Street in the Village, circa 1968 - boxloads of Riversides at $1.98 (!) and lots of the charlie Parker lable - got me going in jazz -

Hey I worked at Dayton's in the Village, circa '71. Copped lots of great sides there. Still remember the prices, cutouts were as you say $1.98. Regular LPs were $3.67 and $4.29.

Back to the thread topic, I have quite a few of those Charlie Parker LP sides. The one I still put on the turntable every so often is the gatefold LP titled THE HAPPY"BIRD" which has Bird with Wardell Gray on Side 2 performing "I Remember April" and "I May be Wrong". Yeah, the sound could be much better, but the music is there!

[medjuck]

"The Lester Young stuff on CP is "must have", I think."

that stuff was Dave Schildkraut's favorite - he once called me on the phone, held the receiver to a speaker as he played one of those LPs, and than said "this is where I went to school."

... and the LP *Bird Is Free* is incredible ... unbelievable saxophone playing (Lester Leaps In - My Little Suede Shoes etc.) ...

Davey was in school for that, too...

Q

Is the Bird is Free material from the Rockland Palace sessions?