Legendary jazz producer and label owner Norman Granz formed Pablo Records during the early 1970s, just about a decade after he sold his Verve Label. One of the artists he quickly signed was trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie. They had collaborated on a number of projects in the past. Granz like to pair him with different musicians and record the results. He continued that approach by bringing Gillespie, bassist Ray Brown, guitarist Joe Pass, and drummer Mickey Roker into a Los Angeles record studio on September 17 and 19, 1974. The results were released as Dizzy\u2019s Big 4, <\/i>which has now been reissued with two bonus tracks as a part of the Concord Music Group\u2019s Original Jazz Classics Remasters Series.<\/p>\n
Guitarist Joe Pass appeared on a number of Pablo releases and his work was usually the glue that bonded the various musicians together. So it is here, especially since there is no keyboardist to fill in and carry the sound.<\/p>\n
Three of the seven original tracks are Gillespie compositions. \u201cFrelimo\u201d begins the album on a light-hearted note as each musician establishes his territory in this eight minute offering. \u201cBe Bop\u201d is one of Gillespie\u2019s best known compositions, which is highlighted by its complicated structures. He just carries the song along with solo bursts of his trumpet. \u201cBirks\u2019 Works\u201d is a nearly nine-minute stroll that allows each musician to solo.<\/p>\n
Other highlights are \u201cHurry Home,\u201d a showcase for bassist Brown, and \u201cRussian Lullaby,\u201d with a number of tempo changes and a sweet Pass solo on both the original and the added bonus alternate take.<\/p>\n
Dizzy\u2019s Big 4 <\/i>remains one of Gillespie\u2019s better small group works. It brought together four different but talented musicians who all enjoyed long careers. They managed to produce an excellent piece of work that still sounds fresh four decades later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":31702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9277],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-43412","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dizzy-gillespie-joe-pass-ray-brown-mickey-roker","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43412"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43412"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}