Verve Jazz Masters 15

Includes liner notes by Jon Schapiro.

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

This is part of the Verve Jazz Masters series.

With the Jazz Masters series, Verve appears to have improved somewhat on its early Parker reissues in the Compact Jazz series. Still, JAZZ MASTERS 15 follows the same formula as COMPACT JAZZ. Verve attempts to provide a general overview of Parker's breadth as expressed in his recordings for producer Norman Granz over the last six or seven years of Parker's life. Most of the small group material, recorded in the early '50s, was collected at one point on a pair of Verve LPs, NOW'S THE TIME and SWEDISH SCHNAPPS (both subsequently reissued on CD).

"An Oscar for Treadwell" and "My Melancholy Baby" date from a 1947 session with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Curly Russell, and Buddy Rich. Like Verve's other Parker collections, JAZZ MASTERS 15 includes a couple of cuts from CHARLIE PARKER WITH STRINGS and rounds things out with a Neal Hefti big band cut on which Bird sat in, something Latin from the MACHITO JAZZ session, and a lengthy JAZZ AT THE PHILHARMONIC jam with Howard McGee, Lester Young, and others. The material is all first-rate Parker. Just be aware of the many overlaps among these Verve CDs.