Your favourite early bebop LPs

[Big Beat Steve]

  On 3/17/2021 at 9:17 PM, JSngry said:

Americans might lose sight of the fact that the Bird Savoys were always in print in some for or fashion (even if not always well-distributed), but the Dial sides never really had a proper release until that limited edition Warner Brothers box (and then "best-of 2-fer of master takes)that was supposed to accompany the supposed to be Richard Pryor Bird movie...so you either srpung for the Spotlite imports or you took what you could get from other sources.

Expand  

This souds like europeans fared betteer, not only because of the Spotlite LP series but also earlier on the (U.K.) SAGA label which was around from the early 70s.

 

@Rabshakeh, re- your question about why no Tadd Dameron or West Coast etc.:

I for one in my first reply was focusing (as per your question) on EARLY bebop which made an impact on me in my EARLY bebop listening days. The Tadd Dameron recordings from the 40s are usually to be found among Fats Navarro reissues and the others that I have date from the 50s so IMO would not qualify as "early" bebop recordings.

As for West Coast, isn't that quite a different playing field if we are talking about bebop here?

But to get some West Coast in (though not the actual West Coast Jazz style), here is one that remains among my favorite recordings and reissue packagings:

While on the subject of prestige, a nod also to this twofer that spans a wider range of artists that merit exploring:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Big Beat Steve

[BillF]

I first got to know Charlie Parker from albums that looked like this. In 1958 I could only afford to buy 2 of the series of 5.

[HutchFan]

  On 3/18/2021 at 7:33 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

As for West Coast, isn't that quite a different playing field if we are talking about bebop here?

But to get some West Coast in (though not the actual West Coast Jazz style), here is one that remains among my favorite recordings and reissue packagings:

Expand  

Yeah, that album is terrific!  

 

[gmonahan]

  On 3/17/2021 at 1:43 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

 

And this one (since superseded by the RCA Black & White twofer but I still recqll teh impression it made)

 

 

 

Expand  

These two old LPs introduced me to Bop. Loved the old Vintage series!

 

 

 

gregmo

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Does Jolly count?

[scooter_phx]

This Dizzy album was the very first bebop I listened to.  I checked it out from the public library.  I was 11 years old and it changed me forever.  It had to be around '72 or '73.

[Gheorghe]

  On 7/2/2022 at 4:40 PM, scooter_phx said:

This Dizzy album was the very first bebop I listened to.  I checked it out from the public library.  I was 11 years old and it changed me forever.  It had to be around '72 or '73.

Expand  

This was also my first Diz album, after I had bought my Parker "Savoy Mastertakes". 

I love them both. the only thing I didn´t like sooo much then and now is , that some tracks have old style drummers and Slam Steward´s singin and bowin. Like the old fashioned beat on the first side of the Parker Mastertakes, from the 1944 Tiny Grimes session. 

I love most the early Big Band tracks on the "Groovin High album" and the 1946 sextet with Sonny Stitt with I think Klook on drums. 
I like Bop if it´s played with a bop drummer. One of the basics of bop is the new role of the drums, Klook, Max, Roy Haynes and so on....
 

[mjzee]

Back around 1970, I kept hearing about Charlie Parker but never saw any actual albums.  I didn't know what he sounded like, and so didn't know if I would like his music.  In a budget bin, I found this album:

I was too young, and couldn't relate to it.  In 1978, around the time the Warner Bros. set came out, I bought all 6 Spotlite Dial albums.  Now it made a lot more sense.  

[jazzbo]

This was the first one I heard, in the collection of a friend's father:

It was a bit beat but I knew Miles had played with him and this was my first reach that far back into jazz history other than my parents' Ellington, Goodman and Miller LPs.

I borrowed it and didn't really get it but it did spark my interest. A bit later I did buy a Charlie Parker Records LP . . .but it actually had Lateef's LP on that label inside, with Parker labels, and man I was confused! Took some time to sort that out. Years later I bought the five LP Savoy box set.

[Big Beat Steve]

  On 7/7/2022 at 8:20 PM, jazzbo said:

 A bit later I did buy a Charlie Parker Records LP . . .but it actually had Lateef's LP on that label inside, with Parker labels, and man I was confused! Took some time to sort that out. Years later I bought the five LP Savoy box set.

Expand  

I guess, then, I was a bit luckier with that label. Some time after I had bought my very first bebop LPs (the Dizzy Gillespie "In The Beginning" twofer on Prestige with his Guild and Musicraft sides from 1945 onwards which (for me) proved to be just about the ideal LP for someone trying to get into (and "get") bebop) I came across copies of the "Bird Symbols" and "Bird Is Free" LPs on the Charlie Parker Records label (real US pressings) in a local record shop that wasn't even particularly well-stocked in jazz. No idea how these LPs (which at that date - 1975 or 1976 - normally would have been long out of print) ended up there and at the right price to top , but anyway... I grabbed them (along with an LP of the Dexter Gordon Dial sides on Storyville) and my bebop exploration continued ...

[John L]

Yea, I also first got into Bebop in the age of the two-fers, although I bought single discs to get Charlie Parker on Dial.   Some of the packages that have great sentimental value for me are:

 

[Teasing the Korean]

One of my first was a Savoy 70s various artist twofer called The Bebop Boys.  This is notable for not containing any alternate takes.  All killer, no filler.

Another early one was the Charlie Parker Complete Savoy Sessions box.  I had to make a cassette of the master takes to make this one listenable.  I would have preferred an album presentation for the first couple of discs, with the alternates included on the others, but considering that I paid ten bucks for it, beggars can't be choosers. 

[Chuck Nessa]