This material is very fragmentary, edited to Parker solos for the most part. These
may be dubs of wire recordings -- the fidelity is quite poor throughout, and there
are serious speed and pitch fluctuations. Philology Volume 14 contains two versions
of "Dizzy Atmosphere" -- maybe one is a dub of the other, but they are the same
performance. A shorter (but slightly better-sounding) version of "All the Things
You Are" is included on Philology Volume 14; a longer version is included on
Volume 4. They are the same performance, as the quotations of "On the Trail" and
"Kerry Dancers" make clear.
The last three items are included on Philology Volume 66. They are badly off-speed
and I have tried to correct for this in the timings listed above. They may belong
elsewhere, but I have not been able to match them with other versions.
The fragment of "How High the Moon" (1:18) on Philology Volumes 1/4 (track 15) is
an excerpt of a longer version (3:05) included on Philology Vol. 14 (track 23).
The longer version begins with the theme and a two-chorus Parker solo; after
several measures of trumpet solo there is a splice (at 2:02), and after another
splice at 2:44 the closing theme is played to the end. The shorter fragment begins
at about 1:25 of the longer version, toward the end of Parker's solo; there is
a splice at 0:37 and the tune ends abruptly at 1:12.
I am unsure of both the date and the personnel for this session. Most discographies
place these tunes in November 1947, with Parker, Davis, Jordan, Potter, and Roach.
Since that group was booked at the Argyle Lounge for two weeks during that period
-- November 11-23, 1947 -- this is possible. That group also played the Pershing
Ballroom in Chicago on January 3-6, 1948, and the tunes might be from that session.
Nevertheless, I am convinced these items are from later. Frank Loesser's tune "On
a Slow Boat to China" was not copyrighted until 1948, and "Barbados" was not recorded
in the studio until the Savoy date on September 18, 1948. It is very unusual for a
tune to appear in the live repertoire before it has been recorded. Further, Parker's
quotations and his playing (especially during his solo on the second "Slow Boat
to China") sound like 1949, not 1947. Finally, to my ears the trumpet player sounds
like Kenny Dorham, not Davis. The Parker Quintet (with Dorham, Haig, Potter, and
Roach) played a two-week engagement at Chicago's Pershing Hotel Ballroom from March
28-April 10, 1949, and my guess is that these tunes were recorded during this gig.
I am grateful to Phil Wilson, Leif Bo Petersen, John Griffin, and Alexander Keth for
help with this session.
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