Birks Works: Verve Big Band Sessions Review

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(More customer reviews)Dizzy Gillespie always hankered to lead a big band, but like most post-war big band leaders he found that they just were no longer economically viable. His first big-band efforts, recorded on Savoy & RCA Victor, date from the heyday of bop; that band broke up, but this later band, from 1956-57, is made up of a terrific mix of hungry up-and-coming hard boppers like Lee Morgan, Benny Golson & Ernie Henry and other musicians like Phil Woods, Al Grey, Wynton Kelly & Joe Gordon. This band was decidedly a Cold War-era band: its three albums (compiled on this 2-fer set) were called _Dizzy Gillespie: World Statesman_, _Dizzy in Greece_ and _Birks' Works_, & the band basically survived by touring around the world, sponsored by the US Government. (For more information on Gillespie's bandleading & its background, the curious should look at Scott DeVeaux's marvellous book _The Birth of Bebop_.) After they returned to the US the band broke up in 1958--ironically enough, as an interview in the liner notes points out, just before their recording of "Over the Rainbow" became their first jukebox hit.
OK, so what of the music? Well, it's hard-hitting big band material, with charts by Ernie Wilkins, Benny Golson, Quincy Jones, Melba Liston & others. Surprisingly there's little material showing the interest in Afro-Cuban fusion which Gillespie elsewhere showed. There's a certain amount of throwaway material--silly nonsense songs like "Umbrella Man", or the disappointing "The Champ" which after a terrific Gillespie scat intro becomes a long drum solo for Charlie Persip. Melba Liston inexplicably provides the umpteenth jazz reorchestration of Grieg's "Anitra's Dance" and Debussy's "Reverie". But the rest is prime Gillespiana--often revisiting past tunes like "A Night in Tunisia" but also providing first hearing to important material like Golson's "Whisper Not" and "Stablemates". The man himself solos mightily, & the rest of the band is superb too.
One caveat, however: there are two serious remastering problems with the release. First: the previously unreleased take of "Whisper Not" is afflicted with bad reverb, to the point of unlistenability. Second: the master take of "Whisper Not" has several odd volume fluctuations, including a strange moment where the rhythm section triples in volume for a second. One wishes that record companies paid closer attention to the products they released--in every other respect this CD is a model reissue.

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