Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker Collection

First off, let me say that I absolutely loath "best of" and "hits" collections. "Best of" is always subjective and with any great artist, the "hits" are rarely their best work. I'm also not too keen on anthologies either - even the ones with previously unreleased material. I figure if there is something worth releasing, just release it and don't make me buy a bunch of stuff I already have to to get it. And what I hate the most about collections is the way so many consumers believe a good collection is all they really need and anything else is a waste of money.Which brings me to why I like this collection so much.Rather than some kind of be all end all single volume purchase, I like it because it's the perfect place to start listening to Charlie Parker. So many of the reviews here basically say this set is good, but some other set is so much better. And usually they're recommending some huge anthology from a specific period of his career. For a novice there couldn't be a worse way of going about it. For the novice, less is more.The tracks on the CD span his entire career from beginning to end on two discs and includes an excellent 50 page booklet that provides some background on what the listener is listening to. Two discs covering an entire career as huge and influential as Charlie Parker's is a pill small enough for even the most ADD inflicted consumer to swallow.When somebody has a genuine interest in expanding their listening palette to include jazz, I always start them off with Miles Davis "Kind of Blue". The album is instantly accessible to even the most casual of listeners and everybody on it went on to have huge solo careers, so there are plenty of ways to expand their horizons beyond just the one album or even just Miles Davis.When it comes time to get them started on Charlie Parker, or if somebody specifically asks me to recommend something by Parker, I almost always recommend this collection. I tell them to burn it into their iPod, add it to their favorites list and five star all the tracks so they pop up frequently in shuffle mode. The peak of Parker's career happened when recording technology was still very young and its relative crudeness might be a little distracting at first.It may not happen right away, but eventually something they really like will pop out at them and, like "Kind of Blue", that's the place where they dive in. Use the booklet to find out more about the track. What session is it from and what album(s) does that session appear on? Who are the musicians on the session and did Parker record anything else with them? When was it recorded and what else did he record around that time? It doesn't matter why they like it, they just need to know there is a lot more of that where it came from and they need to know where to look in order to find it.In a way, the collection is almost like a Charlie Parker road map. You use the recording to preview the phases of his career you'd like to visit, then use the book to go there and start expanding your collection.I just wish Rhino would release collections like this featuring other Jazz legends.

Very good sound quality for used discs

I bought this collection 19 years ago and I still listen to it very frequently. The collection is a great representation of this true genius. The packaging is filled with great photography and a quality item on the bookshelf. 🎼

This package is a lovely-assembled and shrewdly compiled overview of Parker's entire career, and it's the best overview to come from a U.S. record company by far.For the intended audience, the fact that Rhino has used compression and jacked up the bass frequencies on these sides is probably either a plus or a non-issue. Rhino no doubt wanted to make it as easy as possible for listeners unaccustomed to 78-era recordings to get into Parker's music. If you are the type to care, however, you might notice, particularly on some of the Savoy cuts, these "improvements" (clean, untampered-with versions of the Savoy tracks mastered by Jack Towers have been available on CD since the late-1980s).That caveat aside, this collection packs it in, and if the four-CD Proper Records box ("Boss Bird") sounds like too much Bird to start with, then this set should suffice. The booklet is thick, featuring many of the iconic images of bird and a few rare pics as well. There is also a biographical essay with commentary on the music that is up to Rhino's usual standards.Ironic that the producers weren't able to licence a couple of the Verve "with strings" tracks, but were able to get pretty much every essential small-group side from the Dizzy-led Guild sessions in 1945 to the Verve-owned "Confirmation" late in his career--in other words, it's got all the classic bop compositions you'd find in a jazz fakebook in one place, which had never been done prior to this release. The three live tracks featuring Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie (and including a rare chance to hear Bird play 'Round Midnight) are a cherry on top.

For years I shied away from delving into Charlie Parker's music for lack of the knowledge to discriminate among a huge number of recordings, many of them of quite dubious provenance. These problems are unnecessary today, with guides like Penguin and AMG easily available.And now this fine Rhino package makes things even easier for someone checking out Bird for the first time. Great care has gone into the selection of tracks, as well as the packaging, with informative liner notes, photos, and gratuitously elegant touches like the spirals found on the clear underlay for each of the 2 discs.Here, however, is something to think about -- do you want an attractive Parker box for your collection (this is a box containing 2 discs and a booklet) for show, or do you really want to listen to Bird intensely and repeatedly? This collection covers Bird's entire career, including several live sides with strings from his last years, which I personally have little interest in.I suggest that you might consider starting with the Savoy masters, say THE GENIUS OF CHARLIE PARKER, and/or the excellent collection of later Verve sides, BIRD'S BEST BOP ON VERVE. (There doesn't seem to be a single-disc collection of the Dial sides, and YARDBIRD SUITE contains a good dose of Dials.) You can't go wrong diving in right here, but if you hear this collection after hearing some of his essential Savoy, Dial and Verve recordings in concentrated form, you may better appreciate its riches.If this is where you start, listen closely -- if you do, you're certain to want to hear more!(verified purchase from the Cosmic Record Emporium)

Excellent product and service.