If you think that Parker was "conventional" in his arrangements, it is because he and the other bebop pioneers created modern jazz arrangement. The strings was a Norman Granz thing. Parker is alawys worth listening to in any circumstances, but for the motherlode you have to listen to the Savoy and Dial recordings, not the Verve recordingsa; and among the Verve recordings, listyen to, e.g., Now's the Time or Swedish Schnapps. Coltrane is wonderful, and became great with the Quartet, but there's no comparison in terms of musical power, fertility, inventiveness, richness, and, truth be told, sheer virtuosity. Parker sounds "conventional" becomes his innovations became jazz. Bird lives. --jks
>
> >I guess. It's him [Armstrong] or Charlie Parker, if we consider both
>instrumental
> >virtuosity and compositional ability. If we drop the virtuosity
>requirement,
> >Ellington goes into mix, along with Stravinsky.
> >
> >--jks
> >
>
>What about Coltrane? While Bird Parker was a great musician (the Jimi
>Hendrix of the alto sax), he was terribly conventional in choice of
>arrangements -- his string music being the most obvious example. Coltrane
>was a true innovator who kept pushing and breaking the form. "The Father
>And
>The Son And The Holy Ghost" is as mad an arrangement as I've ever heard.
>Perhaps it will be understood by 2057.
>
>DP
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