Bird & Diz

1	Bloomdido / Dizzy Gillespie 3:25
2	My Melancholy Baby / Dizzy Gillespie 3:24
3	Relaxin' with Lee / Dizzy Gillespie 2:47
4	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie 2:29
5	An Oscar for Treadwell / Dizzy Gillespie 3:23
6	Mohawk / Dizzy Gillespie 3:35
7	My Melancholy Baby / Dizzy Gillespie Complete Take 3:17
8	Relaxin' With Lee / Dizzy Gillespie Complete Take 3:56
9	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Complete Take 2:34
10	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Complete Take 2:02
11	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Complete Take 2:06
12	Oscar for Treadwell / Dizzy Gillespie Complete Take 3:21
13	Mohawk / Dizzy Gillespie Complete Take 3:48
14	Relaxin' With Lee / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:17
15	Relaxin' With Lee / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 1:08
16	Relaxin' With Lee / Dizzy Gillespie False Start 0:04
17	Relaxin' With Lee / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:24
18	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:26
19	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:14
20	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:40
21	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:18
22	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:20
23	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:13
24	Leap Frog / Dizzy Gillespie Breakdown Take 0:41

Barnes & Noble

Although trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie considered himself "the other half of Charlie Parker's heartbeat," the two fathers of bebop had an often-volatile relationship racked by competition and the inevitable tension brought on by Parker's drug addiction and erratic behavior. After the revolutionary recordings the two collaborated on in the mid and late 1940s, Parker and Gillespie went their separate ways; their subsequent recordings as a team would be captured from infrequent live get-togethers. BIRD AND DIZ is actually their only official full-length studio recording. Both men put aside their differences for this 1950 reunion -- which also captures their only studio meeting with the iconoclastic pianist Thelonious Monk -- to cut loose on meat-and-potatoes bop tunes including "Relaxing with Lee," "Leap Frog," the standard "My Melancholy Baby," and the most durable of the session's tracks, "Bloomdido." As cutting as these edgy flights of one-upmanship get, you can still sense the love and respect that these brothers-in-bop retain for each other and their remarkable gifts. Steve Futterman

All Music Guide

This collection of 78 rpm singles, all recorded on June 6, 1950, was originally issued in album format in 1956 (this CD reissue adds three alternate takes to make what was originally a very skimpy program slightly more generous). Several things distinguish this from numerous other quintet recordings featuring these two bebop pioneers. It was recorded during the period that Parker was working under the aegis of producer Norman Granz, whose preference for large and unusual ensembles was notorious. The end result in this case is a date that sounds very much like those that Parker and Gillespie recorded for Savoy and Dial, except with top-of-the-line production quality. Even more interesting, though, is Parker's choice of Thelonious Monk as pianist. Unfortunately, Monk is buried in the mix and gets very little solo space, so his highly idiosyncratic genius doesn't get much exposure here. Still, this is an outstanding album -- there are fine versions of Parker standards like "Leap Frog," "Mohawk," and "Relaxin' with Lee," as well as a burning performance of "Bloomdido" and an interesting (if not entirely thrilling) rendition of the chestnut "My Melancholy Baby." Rick Anderson