September 18, 1948: Barbados and Afro-Cuban Jazz

"Well, if you wanna take it that way, but I mean, 'bop' is just a title, I mean, it's all still music to me..." (Charlie Parker)

The first tune recorded by the charlie Parker All Stars on the fateful session of September 18, 1948 was the mambo-blues "Barbados", a Parker composition with an infectious Latin rhythm and a wonderful soulful solo by Parker plus a playful one by Davis to a more straightforward swing beat. 

They did 3 complete takes on it and an aborted one, last one (track 4) was the published song. 

Charlie Parker (as); Miles Davis (tpt); John Lewis (p); Dillon "Curley" Russell (b); Max Roach (d)

There is also a live version recorded at the Royal Roost Club (see previous entries) where Parker's band was playing regularly. This one was recorded a few months later, on February 12, 1949, and the band that night apparently included bongosero Carlos Vidal of the Machito and His Afro-Cubans orchestra (it's difficult to hear). Vidal was actually a conguero with Machito, and in fact is one of the first congueros to record in the United States. Here's a photo of him on congas (right) with Mangual on bongós and Machito on Maracas:

Once again, the song is a testimony to how much Parker could improvise on the solos and do a different song each time and to go to many different places with his solos:

Full personnel:
Charlie Parker (as); Kenny Dorham (tpt); Al Haig (p); Tommy Potter (b); Max Roach (d); Leonard Hawkins (tpt); Ted Kelly (tb); Sahib Shihab [Edmund Gregory] (as); Benjamin Lundy (ts); Cecil Payne (bs); Tadd Dameron (p); John Collins (g); Dillon "Curley" Russell (b); Kenny Clarke (d); Carlos Vidal (bgo); Symphony Sid Torin (ann)


In the solo here, around the minute mark and on, Parker appears to quote to Gillespie's "Black and Blue":

 

By the time of this live recording at the Roost, Parker had already joined Verve/Clef and had recorded with Machito's Afro-Cubans. This would be the first attempt by producer Norman Grantz to record Parker with different settings (from here would later come albums like "Parker with Strings" or "South of the Border"). Parker recorded three songs with the Afro-Cubans, the top Latin orchestra of New York City: Mango Mangue and No Noise (Dec 20 1948), and Okiedoke (somewhere in January 1949):

Mango Mangue:

Okiedoke:

No Noise 

(the first sax solo is by Flip Phillips, Parker starts at 3:01)

 

 This was one of the foundational moments of Latin Jazz. Parker and Machito's orchestra would go on to record the Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite of Chico O'Farrill in December 1950:

Machito and his partner, arranger and orchestra director Mario Bauzá commented with awe on Parker's musical genius: how he was humble enough not to want to record the world-famous "Manisero" (Peanut Vendor) because he wasn't comfortable with the rhythm; and how he had not heard the songs before the session but he would hear them just once and then be perfectly and completely ready to record them on the next take. 

From Peter Losin's chronology of Parker's recording sessions:

Referring to this session between numbers at the Roost several days later (January 1, 1949), [Club M.C.] Symphony Sid Torin says, "That new thing that you did with Machito was really one of the most sensational things yet... One of the most sensational things, recorded for Mercury on the bop series, it's received a lot of wonderful kicks... It more or less puts bop in a more or less commercial sort of a groove, don't you think?" Parker laconically answers, "Well, if you wanna take it that way, but I mean, 'bop' is just a title, I mean, it's all still music to me..."