Diz

About Diz

Bird and Diz is a studio album by jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. It was recorded primarily on June 6, 1950 in New York City. Two tracks featured on the original pressing, "Passport" and "Visa", were recorded by Parker, without Gillespie and with a different personnel than that of the other tracks, in March and May 1949. The album was originally issued in 1952 in 10" format as a collection of 78 rpm singles on the Verve subsidiary label Clef Records. Although produced by Norman Granz, known for large ensembles at the time, the album contains compositions performed with the standard bebop instrumentation of saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass, and drums. In a 1952 four-star review of Bird and Diz, a Down Beat magazine columnist wrote of Granz's contribution to the album's sound, stating "Though there is no mention of bop in Norman Granz'[s] notes, we owe him a salvo for reminding us through this LP that this music is still very much alive." It is the final collaborative studio recording by Parker and Gillespie, and has been reissued several times by Verve and PolyGram Records more »