dimanche 25 Jui 2006, 18h04m

Another mix, roughly chronological, hitting some of my favorite tracks by Dizzy Gillespie during the 1950s.

1 – Leap Frog w/Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk
2 – Tin Tin Deo
3 – The Champ
4 – You Ain’t Such a Much
5 – Night & Day w/His Operatic Strings
6 – Wee (Allen’s Alley) live w/Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, Max Roach
7 – When it’s Sleepy Time Down South
8 – It Don’t Mean a Thing w/Stan Getz
9 – Con Alma w/Candido
10 – Sometimes I’m Happy w/Roy Eldridge
11 – Manteca live at Newport
12 – I Remember Clifford
13 – It’s Only a Paper Moon w/Stuff Smith
14 – U.M.M.G. w/Duke Ellington
15 – Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac

All kinds of killer collaborations during that decade. Wish there were more space to show off his State Department Band. The version of Wee (Allen's Alley) that I decided to use is the one without Mingus' overdubbed bass & altered pitch–sounds much brighter & brassier. Before putting this together had forgotten about his collaboration with Stuff Smith, and it has been a thrill to hear them tossing phrases back and forth on that session. That version of Con Alma is a beauty–just Dizzy, bass, piano, bongo, conga, timbales and uhm percussion. Seems like the humor is more overt in a lot of these tracks than the '40s–the snore at the end of Sleepy Time Down South cracks me up every time.

Thinking about putting together a '60s disc, but haven't been able to get too excited so far. It seems like a lot of his recordings from that period are very professional, but lacking in variety & surprise. He certainly didn't collaborate as much (though maybe a lot of that has to do with moving from Granz' Verve label to Phillips). Anyhow, I'm open to suggestions–