Like the Savoy collection below, this is a recycling and repackaging of a 2015 set on Essential Jazz Classics (both were reviewed in Jazzwise 202). Rather than recycle my reviews, I feel they each deserve renewed attention, because most of the music herein is timeless. Both sets feature sessions by Parker's 1947-48 New York quintet featuring the young Miles and young Max Roach (18 classic tracks here) with the difference that Dial deliberately included Bird's playing of ballads.

The label had already touched on this side of his output in their earlier West Coast sessions that included ‘Dark Shadows’ (with vocalist Earl Coleman) the less coherent ‘Lover Man’, which still has beauty of conception despite flawed execution. The quintet ballads are something else, as on ‘Don't Blame Me’ and ‘Embraceable You’ – but note that the latter's master take here is not the more celebrated ‘Take 1’. Elsewhere, Parker is totally in command, whether it's uptempo bebop or slow blues. Dial began operations on the Coast, including the ‘Ornithology’ date (with even younger Miles) ‘Relaxin' At Camarillo’, but they also reissued Red Norvo's mid-1945 session and the eight privately-taped ‘Home Cooking’ tracks. This set's bonus tracks from other small labels, led by Sarah Vaughan and Sir Charles Thompson cover some of Parker's 1945 sideman duties, and complete an excellent compilation of excellent music.