Jazz Today
Jack Maher : November, 1957

Two and a half years after his death, Charlie Parker is still the predominating figure in alto jazz, trumpet jazz and just about every other kind of jazz imaginable. The strength and the vitality of Parker becomes more and more apparent as time brings the true qualities of his work into a more mellowed focus. Bird at St. Nick’s (Jazz Workshop Series JWS 500) is an in-person recording that was made at that famed fight center, on February 18, 1950. It was made on a regular home tape recorder and it contains very little besides Bird, although Red Rodney, Al Haig, Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes were playing with Bird at the time. Trombonist Jimmy Knepper made the tape at that time, and because of the limited time and expense of tape, recorded no solos but those in which Parker figures prominently. After the Parker choruses, for instance, the taping process skips the other soloists and then comes in with Bird’s opening set of four bar breaks. The din that practically drowns out the music, is of course, caused by dancers and the hippies standing around the bandstand. The noise, somehow, creates a strange atmosphere around Charlie’s playing. It’s almost as though this were as much a part of his life as the music he created. It gives you the feeling that Charlie Parker was playing to deaf ears, to people too caught up in themselves, and in the talk among themselves, to care what he might have had to say. There is a feeling, too, in his playing that seems to be pleading with the listener, with the racket, to listen to what he has to say. At other times, the Parker voice is introspective, concerned more with hearing itself than in communicating with what seems a non-listening audience. From time to time, during the tape’s running time, the microphone must have been moved around. This lends another distinctive air, as if Bird’s music were coming from any number of different directions, and adding an inexplicable mood quality to the record.

As for the music itself, it’s highly imaginative Parker, intensely rhythmic and singularly lyric on two ballads, Embraceable You and I Cover the Waterfront. These two tunes have some of the most markedly creative Parker ever heard. He actually creates a distinctively feelingful and lyric melodic line, a melodic line that seems hardly relative to the chord framework used. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was, Ornithology and Visa, show Bird forcefully rhythmic, as the rhythm sections seems not to be jelling just the way he would want it, and, as a result, there’s a pushing tenseness to his improvising. Through most of the rest of the tunes, though, the rhythm section settles into a good, secure groove, and Charlie relaxes, concentrating all his powers on the creation of a spontaneous, and more melodic line.

This record, in spite of its obvious technical difficulties, is unquestionably recommended, with everything, even the monotonous buzzing crowd of significance.

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San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA)
Ralph J. Gleason : 10/29/1957

Charlie Parker died two and a half years ago and the latest Long Player “Jazz ‘n Pops” catalogue lists an even dozen Parker 12 inch LPs. Yet his influence is still so strong, so all-pervading in modern jazz that almost every transient note preserved via home recorder, air check or what have you, will sooner or later find its way to vinylite and the jazz fan.

Parker, like Louis Armstrong before him, revolutlonsied Jazz. Jazz was never the same after Armstrong. He altered with utter finality the concepts of his contemporaries and, except for those few who attempted the transition to modern jazz, they continued in their musical orbits, like so many Sputniks, launched by Armstrong’s superior power. Parker’s effect is much the same. It’s not only alto saxophonists who have been Influenced by him, it’s arrangers, pianists, trumpet players, tenors and even drummers (Max Roach attributes some of his own development to the experience of playing with Parker.) With few exceptions, once heavily hit by the Parker influence, modern jazz men stay that way.

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Another Parker LP just out is Bird at St. Nick’s (Jazz Workshop JW 500). It was recorded at an arena in New York with a small group including Red Rodney, Al Haig, Roy Haynes and Tommy Potter. The recording is atrocious; it was done on amateur equipment, but the spirit is there just as Louis Armstrong’s is amid the grating sound of the old King Oliver discs. There are 15 tracks but not 15 complete tunes. They’ve merely pressed the Parker choruses and eliminated the rest, which carries the idolatry of Parker to the nth degree. However, it was vintage Parker, every bit as alive and steaming as at Massey Hall. It is a tremendous tribute to his gifts that so much comes through despite the rough sound and the choppy framework. Two and a half years after his death, Parker continues to dominate modern jazz.

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Saturday Review
Martin Williams : 10/12/1957

Recorded on a small tape machine at a rather noisy dance and shorn of almost everything but unison choruses and Parker’s solos, these fourteen numbers show the altoist operating with a freedom seldom caught in his studio-made records. He breaks Star Eyes up into segments and re-splices these into a whole as easily as breathing, makes some hefty and humorous quotes from Armstrong on Visa, and he stages another beautiful counter-attack on Embraceable You—enough in itself to make this set more than worthwhile.

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Toronto Star (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
Roger Feather : 09/21/1957
4 stars

Ordinarily a new Charlie Parker record would rate an automatic five stars but the sound on this album is so extremely bad that the reating is lowered. Recorded on a home tape-recorder at a dance in St Nicholas Arena, New York, in February, 1950, this LP contains some of the freest-swinging “Bird” work on record. Only Parker’s solos were recorded and the balance of the rest of the group is so bad that they are almost inaudible throughout. On four tunes on the second side they attempted to get a better balance with the result that even “Bird” is hard to hear. Roy Haynes’ thunderous foot pedal drowns out numerous phrases on some tunes.

Parker, who died in ’55, was one of the few geniuses jazz has known. Inventive ideas pour out of his horn in such a matter-of-fact manner that many are passed over in the seemingly uncontrollable stream of notes. Charlie blew hot and cold throughout his career but on this record he was apparently in one of his healthier periods. His tone is mellow and full and although there is a blues feeling on all his tunes there is also much humor.

Fourteen tunes are included all of which have been recorded on other Parker LP’s. The best ones are Scrapple From The Apple, Orinthology, and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. This record is important because it is one of the very few on which “Bird” is heard in front of an audience, unrestricted by a recording studio.

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Down Beat : 12/12/1957
Jack Tracy : 4 stars

Because it is one of the few recordings on which Parker can be heard under fairly typical playing conditions working before an audience (only a few Granz items and the black market Black Deuce Carnegie Hall concert 78s come to mind as others), this LP is of great value. This despite the abysmally bad recording job (it was done on home recorder and picked up only Bird’s solos, making it just a collection of chunks and pieces) and the wordless but incessant crowd sounds that at times all but obscure the music.

Bird gets a chance to stretch out here, and to those who never heard him work in person it will help to confirm what so often has been said—you had to hear him over an evening to realize what an immensely inventive and agile musician he was.

To those who have entire recorded libraries of Parker (and apparently there are many), this LP will become a significant addition. To those who have heard Parker only in recording studios, it will be a worthwhile listening experience. I only wish I had such a recording of Beiderbecke or Armstrong in the late 20s, for example, no matter how badly it might be recorded.

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Liner Notes by Jimmy Knepper

The date is February 18, 1950; the place, St. Nicholas Arena in New York City; the occasion, not a boxing event but a dance, with music by a group including Charlie Parker on alto, Red Rodney on trumpet, Al Haig, piano, Tommy Potter, bass and Roy Haynes, drums.

Jazz Workshop Records do not apologize for the low fidelity recording here; we are happy that one of his blowing nights remains for musical posterity – – – even under the imposed conditions. The night was recorded on a home tape recorder at a time when personal fortunes allowed only enough tape to record Bird. The machine was turned on when he started to blow and turned off when he stopped – – – sometimes, I must admit, to the chagrin of the other musicians on the bandstand!

Much credit is due Bob Guy of Audiosonic Recording for “cleaning” up the tapes and masterfully splicing the separate sections of the same piece. As you will notice, only the in chorus, Bird’s choruses, the four bar choruses, and the out chorus were recorded. On most of the tunes, the splicing has been done without losing a beat – – – at least in eight bar phrases. On others, the listener will have to listen a few times to become familiar with what part of the tune is being played. For example: Scrapple From The Apple goes from the third chorus of Bird’s solo to the first bridge of another set of choruses; What’s New goes from the end of a chorus to the bridge of the last chorus; I Didn’t Know What Time It Was goes from the end of a chorus to the last bridge; and Out of Nowhere goes from the end of a chorus to the last briduge; and Out of Nowhere goes from the end of a chorus to the last half chorus.

This is a freer Bird than the one most often heard in a recording studio cage. Those who know him only through commercial three-minute recordings will undoubtedly gain insight into the way he made music. Here are some suggestions of how he would play two-part inventions as well as musical quotations ranging all the way from opera to exercise books; but most of all, here is the swinging Bird (perhaps being hung on the Yardarm) that carried people by his own strong pulsation.

Charlie Parker became a legend even during his lifetime. There were the young, up-coming jazz musicians, as well as non-playing fans, who practically lived, ate and breathed Charlie Parker. They greedily collected all the little-known facts about his personal life – – – bits of conversation overheard in clubs where he played – – – and faithfully recounted them to other “Bird-lovers” so that they were told and retold, often unconsciously embellished and exaggerated in the telling, so that now there are as many false stories as true ones circulated about his activities. However, so strange and many were his doings that the false is hardly less believable than the true.

Music fans who discovered Bird in his later years, especially those who never had a chance to hear him play in person, must sometimes wonder then if the stories told about the music he played at times aren’t at least half falsehood. These are the ones to whom these recordings may come as a real surprise and eye-opener, for here is the Bird that was heard only when he could spread his wings in the freedom of a club or ballroom where no time was imposed on the length of the tunes played or the choruses blown. Here were played the passages that almost defy musical analyziation because of their intricacies, their spontaneity, their humor, their tremendous depth of feeling – – – all played so glibly and matter-of-factly by this master of the alto saxophone.

Here, then, is Bird at St. Nick’s. This may be a difficult album for some to listen to, but one, I am certain, that will afford a most unique and rewarding listening experience.