Birds small group Verve recordings on LP

[Pim]

Is there a LP or LP set compiling Birds small group stuff on Verve excluding the bigband/latin/strings stuff. I already have the complete master takes on cd but would like to have the small group stuff on vinyl as well. His discography is so overcrowded with all sorts of compilations I haven’t managed to find what I am looking for. Maybe you guys could help me or maybe I am looking for something that does not exist.

[JSngry]

There was a Complete big box LP set that wasn't really complete and has since been superceded. 

[colinmce]

Obviously a million things out there, but I don't personally know of any compilations on vinyl that are small-group only. The Verve 2xLPs from the mid-70s intermix the strings & Latin stuff. That said, the original Clef albums Swedish Schnapps, Now's The Time, and Charlie Parker (only available on vinyl as 10"-- the Verve Master CD expands it quite a bit) are all in the small group format and are all 3, of course, some of the finest concentrated blasts of jazz music in existence. 

[Gheorghe]

Well yes, I had or still have those 8 Volumes of individual Verve LPs, I think they were Japanese Pressing where the cover is a bit harder than on most national editions of LPs. But the strange thing is that they was not in chronological order. Vol. 1 was not the earliest studio date and Vol. 8 was not the last studio date.

I think the first mentioned "Now´s the Time" and "Swedisch Schnapps" are the most autentic vintage bop recordings. Those together with maybe "Charlie Parker Plays Cole Porter" are the ones where Norman Grantz didn´t interfere with the personnel and it seems to be Bird´s personal choice of musicians, who knew his music. 

On "Bird ´n  Diz" , though I love it to have Monk on it, there are two faults on it: Norman Grantz choose Buddy Rich on drums. Why not Max or Art Taylor or Roy Haynes ??? 
And the tunes are not so interesting like vintage bop standards, it seems that they just were penned down in the studio or didn´t even have a "head" . "Relaxin´ with Lee" sounds like a good old blues in Db, but it doesn´t really have a theme. 

"Jazz  Perennial" is also small group, but what drove Norman Grantz to add this "Tommy Turk" on trombone. From the few stuff I heard, he had a helluva tehnique, but musically it just doesnt make me feel good. Why didn´t he take J.J. or Kai Winding ???? 

If I must listen to Bird with Strings, okay then the earlier things like "Just Friends" etc., but one 1952 string date with "Temptation" , good as the tune is, it sounds like a movie score of some old black white kitschy early 1950´s film, and the "big band" just sounds like a square studio band", no musical tension like charts written by Tadd or Gil Fuller would be......

Facit: To really learn from Bird what I have to know about him, other labels like Savoy and Dial were much more helpful to me. 

[Big Beat Steve]

18 hours ago, Pim said:

Is there a LP or LP set compiling Birds small group stuff on Verve excluding the bigband/latin/strings stuff. I already have the complete master takes on cd but would like to have the small group stuff on vinyl as well. His discography is so overcrowded with all sorts of compilations I haven’t managed to find what I am looking for. Maybe you guys could help me or maybe I am looking for something that does not exist.

I tried a search as well but it seems like what others already said is true - the SERIES of Verve LPs out there include everything in chronolgical order but include strings and latin along with the "pure bebop" sessions.

Here are two that I am aware of:

This one reissued by French Polydor in the 80s:
https://www.discogs.com/label/762066-Bird-On-Verve

And this one - reissued in c. 1966, with German, French and UK pressings existing:
https://www.discogs.com/label/1183964-The-Definite-Charlie-Parker

But no doubt there were other comprehensive reissue series.

Do you have access to the "Bird Lore" discography by Piet Koster?
As far as I can see the reissue listings (vinyl etc.) of each track in this book are way more comprehensive (but maybe too much so ?  ) than whatever is in the online Bird discography on jazzdisco.org.
I got a secondhand copy of Part I (the actual discography) not long ago but admittedly did not bother to pick up Parts II and III (which "only" include listings and cross-references of the 78/vinyl issues and of CDs and really are overkill in their endless degree of detail).

Edited October 17, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Gheorghe]

3 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I tried a search as well but it seems like what others already said is true - the SERIES of Verve LPs out there include everything in chronolgical order but include strings and latin along with the "pure bebop" sessions.

Here are two that I am aware of:

This one reissued by French Polydor in the 80s:
https://www.discogs.com/label/762066-Bird-On-Verve

And this one - reissued in c. 1966, with German, French and UK pressings existing:
https://www.discogs.com/label/1183964-The-Definite-Charlie-Parker

But no doubt there were other comprehensive reissue series.

Do you have access to the "Bird Lore" discography by Piet Koster?
As far as I can see the reissue listings (vinyl etc.) of each track in this book are way more comprehensive (but maybe too much so ?  ) than whatever is in the online Bird discography on jazzdisco.org.
I got a secondhand copy of Part I (the actual discography) not long ago but admittedly did not bother to obtain Parts II and III (which "only" include listings and cross-references of the 78/vinyl issues and of CDs and really are overkill in their endless degree of detail).

Steve, do you remember those Verve double albums. In our youth they where quite cheap and were not samplers, and usually united to original LPs. 

I think there were two of them of Bird, one of the earlier stuff from the 40´s to early 50´s, and one of the midfifties. 

Like Bud Powell: There was one Double album which united the first Verve LP with "Tempus Fugit, and the second with the solo tracks, and two trio tracks. 

And the second double album was the mid fifties sessions, where a small portion may have been a bit uneven......

I think it was a mode of the 70´s both for Verve and Blue Note to release them double albums. And for kid with pocket money or student with need of beer and cigarettes, they where not to expensive and had more hours of music. 

[Big Beat Steve]

Are these the ones with the painted portraits on the covers? The Verve Select Double series? I have several of these. The Bud Powell one was called "The Genius of Bud Powell", and then there were "Lester Swings" by Lester Young, "Sixteen Men Swinging" by Count Basie, various JATPs and so on ... But not usually (or not always) straight reissues of ENTIRE original Verve albums.
And apparently not to be confused with the British-produced "Verve Re-Issue Series" twofers (which e.g. had their own "Lester Swings" album, but not with quite the same contents).

What I most vividly remember from the 70s are those Verve twofers of the "Jazz History" series with those garish, horrid covers that combine the US flag with all sorts of objects - candles, light bulbs, miner's lamps, gloves, flower pots ... Another all-time low in cover "art"work silliness that was so rampant in the 70s.
These were just samplers. I have some of these, including the one on Charlie Parker which has a "flagged candle" on the cover. I bought this one back in my early collecting days in the 70s because - yes, the series was priced nicely, and besides, at the time this was about the only Verve reissue on the market. The French "Bird on Verve" LPs did not come until quite a bit later, and the "Definite" series had already disappeared (I cannot recall having ever seen any copies of this series in the shops in the 70s, at least not in Germany). I still have this "Jazz History" Bird twofer because there still are 1 or 2 or 3 tracks on it that I do not have on other Bird Verve LPs (admittedly I am no total Bird Verve completist).

Edited October 17, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

There were 12" Verve LPs as part of their " The Genius Of Charlie Parker" series. 

[Big Beat Steve]

Yes but if you look beyond the original 50s pressings then it seems to me that VINYL reissues of most of them only existed as Japanese pressings (starting as far back as the 70s). Which (realistically speaking) makes them irrelevant (and/or uneconomical) to most of the "normal" collectors with normal budgets.

And the "Charlie Parker Story" LP series on Verve won't fit the bill either because it is selective (3 volumes only) and does not focus exclusively on the sessions that Pim prefers.

[JSngry]

They were in stock and on shelves here well into the 70s. Not at all hard to get. 

[Big Beat Steve]

Of course, but that was then. And on the one hand the Japanese reissues probably were inexistent in Europe, whereas TODAY and even through the internet I guess they most often are overpriced for what they are. So if you are going to settle for a reissue anyway the other series (particularly the Frnech one from the 80s) might be better buys - at least for the "Yurpeens" (like Pim, for example).

[JSngry]

They were American pressed, not Japanese. Any serious record store had at least some of them, and could order any of them .

The big box is what was Japanese. The Japanese reissued of the 12" LPs didn't come along until the 1980s or so. Verve as a non-reissuance label had petered out by then, but in the early 70s, their Bird catalogue was available. 

Many iterations over the years, and still cheap: 

https://www.discogs.com/label/582254-The-Genius-Of-Charlie-Parker

[Pim]

Allright thanks guys both of those series are helpful. I will pick up some of hose separate releases. Have to check out what’s the best way to obtain most tracks. 
 

Japanese LPs are definitely attractive to buy. As a matter of fact: Japanese sellers are almost the only ones that sell vinyl on Discogs for reasonable prices. Maybe because the vinyl hype isn’t that big over there. And for me Japanese vinyl is like Japanese cars: high in quality and very reliable.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Pim

[Big Beat Steve]

@JSngry:
OK, so Discogs was incomplete in what they listed as Japanese vs (undated) US reissue pressings? You are referring to the undated US pressings with the "T" trident label that are listed there?  (As opposed to much earlier pressings with the trumpeter label)

@Pim: All the better, as long as Japanese shipping costs won't sour the deal for you.

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Mark Stryker]

The downside to the '70s domestic Genius of Charlie Parker LPs on Verve was that they are simulated stereo. The Japanese LP versions from the '80s are an improvement for sure but not ideal either in that the drums/cymbals are disappointingly low in the mix.  Clean copies of the older domestic Verve issues from the '50s and '60s, whether in the Charlie Parker Story series (three volume, yes?) or the Genius of Charlie Parker series or various individual LP releases not in any series -- or even the three Bird twofers from the '70s -- almost always sound better to me than the Japanese reissues of this material. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

15 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

@JSngry:
OK, so Discogs was incomplete in what they listed as Japanese vs (undated) US reissue pressings? You are referring to the undated US pressings with the "T" trident label that are listed there?  (As opposed to much earlier pressings with the trumpeter label)

 

I have no idea. I just know that they were there when I went to buy them.

And yes, rechanneled stereo. 

[JSngry]

Sorry, misunderstood "trident".

Yes, those. Pretty much all new stock of catalog item Verves were like that. 

[Gheorghe]

On 10/17/2023 at 1:25 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

Are these the ones with the painted portraits on the covers? The Verve Select Double series? I have several of these. The Bud Powell one was called "The Genius of Bud Powell", and then there were "Lester Swings" by Lester Young, "Sixteen Men Swinging" by Count Basie, various JATPs and so on ... But not usually (or not always) straight reissues of ENTIRE original Verve albums.
And apparently not to be confused with the British-produced "Verve Re-Issue Series" twofers (which e.g. had their own "Lester Swings" album, but not with quite the same contents).

What I most vividly remember from the 70s are those Verve twofers of the "Jazz History" series with those garish, horrid covers that combine the US flag with all sorts of objects - candles, light bulbs, miner's lamps, gloves, flower pots ... Another all-time low in cover "art"work silliness that was so rampant in the 70s.
These were just samplers. I have some of these, including the one on Charlie Parker which has a "flagged candle" on the cover. I bought this one back in my early collecting days in the 70s because - yes, the series was priced nicely, and besides, at the time this was about the only Verve reissue on the market. The French "Bird on Verve" LPs did not come until quite a bit later, and the "Definite" series had already disappeared (I cannot recall having ever seen any copies of this series in the shops in the 70s, at least not in Germany). I still have this "Jazz History" Bird twofer because there still are 1 or 2 or 3 tracks on it that I do not have on other Bird Verve LPs (admittedly I am no total Bird Verve completist).

Yes they had painted portraits on the covers. I also think that those painted portraits were on the walls of the old Birdland from the late 40´s/50´s . 
It seems that you bought records much earlier than me. And more of them. Usually I bought something if I had heard a musician live, or if it was for learning how good musicians sound and phrase....

I didn´t know about twofers (is this the right name for double album ? ) that is called "Jazz History" but can imagine horror covers with strange obiect. The only European pressings of jazz records I have is the french Musidisk, "America" and the Italian "Kings of Jazz" and "Lineatre" , maybe other imports were harder to find around here. 

The things about covers that I hated most was that they somethimes reissued albums with other coverfotos of the artist, coverfotos that was from later stages of their live. For example: A mid fifties Davis Release of Prestige recordings had Miles in the 70´s when he played wah wah trumpet. 

And a mid fifties Bud Powell record for Victor shows an extremly fat, actually bloated Bud from his last days. 

Same thing happend with Mingus records and Dexter records......

I´m also no Bird Verve completist, or maybe involuntarly, since I got those 8 Volumes of Japanese Import as a birthday present or something......, so I have all 8 of  ´em . Or do you refer to not releaste alternate tracks ? This I don´t have or know....., I´m annyoed enough if you have the same tracks repeated on albums, like on that Fats Navarro Blue Note. I always was pissed of by it since you pay for the hole album and "get" only half of it, since each tune is played twice..... or worse even......

[Quasimado]

6 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

 I´m annyoed enough if you have the same tracks repeated on albums, like on that Fats Navarro Blue Note. I always was pissed of by it since you pay for the hole album and "get" only half of it, since each tune is played twice..... or worse even......

You mean alternate takes? Aren't they valuable? And especially with Fats Navarro - If you haven't heard the rare alternative take of Fats on "Nostalgia" (issued Savoy SJL 2216), you have missed out on a valuable listening experience - and there are many other similar examples ....

 

[Big Beat Steve]

Agreed on the Fats Navarro (and Bird, of course) alternates, such as on the "Prime Source" Blue Note "paper bag" twofer. Aural comparisons of these often are very interesting and instructive

But basically I think Gheorghe has a point - not all alternate takes by all artists are overly instructive listening for their differences, and sometimes the compilers of reissues really go overboard, particularly on box sets. And having not just two versions (master and alternate) but a total of 3 (or even 4) versions of the same tune one after another - and this for several tunes in a row - can not just get boring but annoying, particularly if you have almost endless strings of such "triplicates". Particularly on vinyl sets where you cannot just press the Skip button as with CDs.  Still beats me why they could not put all the master takes in the original session order on the first disc (or discs) of a box set and then the alternates (in the same order) on the remaining discs. At least in SOME cases. I just cannot imagine that there is a clear majority of buyers/listeners who regularly sit there throughout entire box sets, listening raptly to multiple alternates of multiple tunes in a row, gravely nodding their heads and mumbling something to the effect of "yes, hearing him play the altered 17th instead of the diminished 9th in bar 19 of that alternate take, that is the bees knees!" 😁😁
Not to mention the case of reissues filled to the brim with false starts, abortive runs, studio chatter, etc. where you get an LP's full of such snippets that in the end amount to complete recordings of maybe 4 or 5 tracks, not more. Quite OK if you find these dirt cheap in the special offer bins but otherwise? Because listening in like that tends to wear thin after a while (or even fairly soon), even if it's candid enough, such as on that Sonny Boy Williamson LP where the track preceded by (lengthy) studio chatter was marked "not suitable for airplay" on the cover because the man made no bones about the fact that he considered one or several of those present at the session just a "motherfucker"!

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Gheorghe]

I have the same impressions like @Big Beat Steve . And if I remember right, Fats had a fantastic memory and often he plays a very similar solo on the alternate track of the "Prime Source". Starts with the same phrase, makes the same quotes. I even have read that some critics thought that he memorized his soloes. 

The worst example of alternate takes I have is on the late 40´s record of Wardell Gray. And yeah, on CD-player at least I can scip them, but that´s not good listening for me, since mostly if I listen to a record I just close my eyes and listen to it without having to worry about anything else but the music. 

And since I practically USE records to hear them like a live performance if I am too tired to go out and listen to live music , and for learning or more than that get inspiration to play myself . In my beginnings, it was more imitating, now it is completly else. After listening to a record it would happen that I get up and go to the piano and play some, it may be completly else tunes and else moods, but at least the listening to the record made me get up and play myself some good music. 

I can´t get that feeling from those records which have all alternate takes, including interruptions, studio talk, false starts and so on. If I read a book, I also don´t want pages that repeat the same idea, if I go to a concert or play myself, I also don´t have the same tune played twice. 

 

[jazzcorner]

[John L]

I recall that when I first got really interested in Bird in the mid-1970s, there was almost nothing available on Verve.   Then they issued most (but not all) of the music on three successive 2-LP sets.  I remember waiting impatiently for the next one to come out.    It was the same way for The Lester Young Story on Columbia.  It took them 4 years to release all of those volumes.   I kept reading about all these extraordinary performances that I had no access to.   

No, I don't long for "the good old days.:

Edited February 15 by John L

[Gheorghe]

6 hours ago, John L said:

I recall that when I first got really interested in Bird in the mid-1970s, there was almost nothing available on Verve.   Then they issued most (but not all) of the music on three successive 2-LP sets.  I remember waiting impatiently for the next one to come out.    It was the same way for The Lester Young Story on Columbia.  It took them 4 years to release all of those volumes.   I kept reading about all these extraordinary performances that I had no access to.   

No, I don't long for "the good old days.:

Me too, I got interested in Bird after I had heard "Parkeriana" , Mingus´ tribute to Bird , and after reading the liner notes of my first Miles Davis LP where they write that Miles had started with Bird. 

So I had to get to know how sounds that man , whom Mingus dedicated a composition, and a live long Bird-love started, though I seldem listen to his records now. 

I think there were some "striped series" from UK, and some of the Savoy or so , or on Bellaphone, but I never cared for labels, only for the music itself. 

I think the Verves were only available from Japonia import, very expensive, I never had it, but later the 2-fer albums. Somehow they never fascinated me the same way like the Savoys, Dials, and the live recordings (with Diz or Fats or Bud, at Carnegie, Birdland, Massey Hall and so on). 

I think the Verves are better sound quality and more listenable for many people, especially since it reaches more accessible stuff like "South of the Border", "Cole Porter" and "Strings" and so on....

As a musician, I listen more to the other stuff, where I can learn more from it.....

[Big Beat Steve]

8 hours ago, John L said:

I recall that when I first got really interested in Bird in the mid-1970s, there was almost nothing available on Verve.   Then they issued most (but not all) of the music on three successive 2-LP sets.  I remember waiting impatiently for the next one to come out.    It was the same way for The Lester Young Story on Columbia.  It took them 4 years to release all of those volumes.   I kept reading about all these extraordinary performances that I had no access to.   

No, I don't long for "the good old days.:

I remember those days too, particularly the Lester Young Story twofer (that I bought at once from high school student's money). I remember I also wondered about this being Vol. 1 but nowhere any Vols. 2 etc. in sight. Until years later (at a time my buying priorities had shifted somewhat) I found out they did in fact exist but somewhow never got distributed to any significant degree here so you just never saw them. Looking them up on Discogs now I see Vol. 1 was released in 1976, Vol. 2 in 1977 and vol. 4 in 1979. Not that excessively delayed, it seems ...

(And to be honest, in hindsight I am glad I never got my hands on these later volumes back then. Buying the music in different packagings - particularly the Basie Columbia sessions - made much more sense to me)

As for Bird, I don't know about reissues generally available in the US in the mid-70s, but I remember I bought a Bird twofer over here from the Jazz History series on German Verve plus another LP with Verve masters on Dutch Mercury (Jazz Masters series) rather early on  (1977 or so). So these were some of the starters.

As for you not "longing for the good old days", I get your point, particularly in today's reissue world where you can get almost anything not just as downloads (if you go for that medium) but also in a zillion different "Complete" CD box packagings at almost any moment you want them.

But honestly - didn't you ever reflect on how you approached and explored the music back then? Sometimes I do - and it makes me wonder if we actually still enjoy, absorb and digest the music as intensely today where almost everything is at one's fingertips (and earbuds 😁). Whereas back then, you felt incredibly lucky after having gotten your hands on this or that 12- or 16-track reissue LP of any earlier favorite artist or band of yours that had been OOP for ages. And then you went on to really absorb each and every tune in full, and over and over again. Just because you knew this was what you had and nothing more - for the time being.

It may sound odd but I still can feel that vibe of the "good old days" when I peruse old record catalogs that list these items (or when I spin the LPs again). I am far from sure we always appreciate the indivdiual tracks to the same extent in today's world where you can let an artist's complete work flood your ears in one longish session at any moment. (Sometimes to the detriment of the music and one's listening experience, to be honest,  because quite a bit of music from the 78rpm era was not intended to be listened to in one go but piece by piece at (release) intervals. )

Just saying ...

Edited February 15 by Big Beat Steve