Search - Gillespie, Berman, Navarro :: Complete Dial Masters: Modern Jazz Trumpets

Ross Russell's Dial label was in the forefront of bop recording, and this CD brings together some neglected masterpieces. The eight tracks by Dizzy Gillespie come from a 1946 trip to California with Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, and (heard only on one track) Charlie Parker. They demonstrate Dizzy's unique brilliance, from the high-speed, high-register fireworks of "Dynamo" to the incisive rendering of Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight." Much rarer, though, are the glimpses offered of two tragically doomed talents. Sonny Berman died at 22 in 1947, and his small-group recordings are few. Here he's heard with fellow members of Woody Herman's Herd, playing brilliant bop on a muted horn and developing a rich sound and heartfelt conception on Ralph Burns's advanced ballad "Nocturne." Fats Navarro made few recordings as a leader and died in 1950, but his influence on modern jazz trumpeters has proven as durable as Gillespie's. The 1948 session included here has tracks led by Eckstine-like singer Earl Coleman and two brilliant takes of "Move." Navarro possessed the rarest combination of high invention and extraordinarily precise execution. --Stuart Broomer