The second half of Parker’s studio output was all done for Norman Granz, including the famous Afro-Latin sessions that are not part of this collection. There are five albums here rather than Avid’s usual four, because two of them were 10-inch LPs: the self-explanatory quintet Bird And Diz (which just also happens to have Monk on piano) and the 1952-53 quartet set with Roach. These two are the highlights – the latter by coincidence being my first Parker purchase 60 years ago this month – while the 12-inch albums of Bird with big-band and/or strings are sadly rather curate’s-egg stuff. The arrangements veer from intelligent to corny, sometimes in the space of a few bars, with Parker’s melody statements and brief improvs counterbalanced by various sessionmen’s equally brief solos.

The closing small-group set of Cole Porter tunes (Granz was into composer songbooks long before Ella hit the jackpot) is from Bird’s last year and finds some songs better suited to him than others. Reproducing Granz’s five liner-notes illustrates his carelessness with the facts, for instance ignoring Hank Jones’s presence on half the quartet tracks. At least that is corrected by Avid, but it’s unforgivable of them to follow him in not admitting there are only six tunes featuring Monk and Dizzy, while the remaining tracks of that album actually have Al Haig and Kenny Dorham.