The booklet is certainly impressive for a best-of item producer Orrin Keepnews offers a complete sessionography, richly informative track-by-track annotation, and an introductory essay. This compilation whittles Charlie Parker's output on the Savoy and Dial labels down to 20 essential tracks. Max Roach died aged 83 on August 16th 2007.Title Of Album: Best of the Complete Savoy & Dial Studio Recordings It was two years in which Clifford Brown emerged as an undisputed jazz great and the Max Roach-Clifford Brown quintet set a standard for tight improvised jazz that has seldom been surpassed. On that journey, the music, as summed up by the final album "At Basin Street", became faster and more uncompromising, losing much of the freshness of this first album. In their two years together, the band toured extensively, heading East from its West Coast origins, taking New York, Max Roach's adopted home town since the age of four, by storm. "Parisian Thoroughfare", the Bud Powell composition, is perhaps the highlight, starting and finishing with a coy impromptu imitation of Parisian traffic sounds, it opens out into a beautifully balanced and relaxed expression of the confidence and optimism of the mid 'fifties.
"These Foolish Things", the 1930s show tune by Jack Strachey and Harold Link, showcases the bass playing of George Morrow, using bass as a lead instrument, a further innovation. This is clearly the case on "What Am I Here For?", the Duke Ellington composition, which also highlights how tight the ensemble playing is. His prodigious technique virtually defined modern jazz drumming. He transformed jazz drumming, pioneering an open style with emphasis away from heavy use of bass drum towards more subtle development of cross rhythms on ride cymbal, high hat and snare rim. Richie Powell and George Morrow on piano and bass add to the modern, open approach inspired by Max Roach's fine drumming.īefore forming this quintet with Clifford Brown, Max Roach had already established a lasting place in the history of the development of jazz, playing drums for Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie before appearing on nearly all of Charlie Parker's classic bebop recordings and on Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool". Harold Land, much overlooked, plays fluid, sinuous saxophone and shares real understanding with Clifford Brown in the many unison passages before breaking out into inventive and innovative solos. His solos, for example on Duke Jordan's "Jordu" or on the three Clifford Brown originals, "Daahoud", "The Blues Walk" and "Joy Spring", now jazz standards, are beautifully controlled yet expressive. As many have observed, to get from Louis Armstrong to modern trumpeters, in addition to Miles Davis, Fats Navarro and Lee Morgan, you have to give very serious consideration to Clifford Brown. Clifford Brown is superb on trumpet, building clear, precise melody lines with such authority and control for a mere 24 year old. The music is based in bop but has outgrown its origins to such an extent that it is clearly one of the first great examples of hard bop. It was tragically short lived Clifford Brown and pianist Richie Powell (Bud's brother) were to die in the same car crash within two years of the album's release, an event that affected Max Roach for years to come. "Clifford Brown and Max Roach" was the first recording of a quintet that changed jazz.
Remastered re-release date: February 19th, 2000ġ Delilah 2 Parisian Thoroughfare 3 The Blues Walk 4 Daahoud 5 Joy Spring 6 Jordu 7 What Am I Here For plus alternate takes of Tracks 3, 4 and 5.