Music / Jazz at Massey Hall

"Salt Peanuts! Salt Peanuts!"

Jazz at Massey Hall is a live album featuring a performance by "The Quintet" given on 15 May 1953 at Massey Hall in Toronto. The quintet was composed of five leading "modern" Jazz players of The '50s: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach. It was the only time that the five men recorded together as a unit and it was the last recorded meeting of Parker and Gillespie, having collaborated previously on albums such as Bird & Diz.

A revolutionary recording, subsequent editions of this evening were released as a double-live album (featuring Bud Powell's piano trio set with Mingus and Roach), dubbed "The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever". The hyperbole is well-deserved, however, because at the time of this concert, each musician on the record was considered to be a principle instrumental innovator within the bebop movement.

Tracklist:

Vol. One^note  When initially released, it was originally issued as two 10" LPs with the second Vol. being comprised of the trio recordings of Powell, Mingus and Roach from the same date, but not included on the initial release.

1. "Perdido" (7:43)

2. "Salt Peanuts" (7:39)

3. "All the Things You Are" / "52nd Street Theme" (7:52)

Vol. Three

1. "Wee (Allen's Alley)" (6:41)

2. "Hot House" (9:11)

3. "A Night in Tunisia" (7:34)

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Personnel

• Dizzy Gillespie – trumpet, vocal on "Salt Peanuts"
• Charles Mingus – double bass
• Charlie Parker – alto sax
• Bud Powell – piano
• Max Roach – drums

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All The Things You Trope

• Acclaimed Flop: The concert was very poorly attended due to a boxing prizefight that was taking place at the same time. The Toronto New Jazz Society had planned to share the profits with the musicians, but the ticket revenue was so small that the society couldn't pay the musicians' fees. All of them were given bad checks, with only Parker being able to cash his; Gillespie later commented that it took several years for him to get his money. Nevertheless, the album is considered one of the greatest performances in jazz history and the definitive recording in the bebop style.
• Alliterative Title: "Wee (Allen's Alley)."
• Epic Rocking: The shortest track on the album clocks in at over six and a half minutes, and the longest is over nine.
• Iconic Item: Parker used a plastic Grafton saxophone for this concert. Even though he played it only a handful of times during his career, this concert was prominent enough to link him with it.
• Instrumental: All of them with the exception of "Salt Peanuts" which features vocals from Dizzy.
• Jazz: Considered to the be one of the greatest jazz concerts of all time and the magnum opus of the bebop genre.
• Record Producer: In addition to playing double bass for the performance, Charles Mingus also produced the record himself. The sound engineer on duty that night did such a lousy job that the bass lines were nearly inaudible. Mingus took the master tapes to New York, re-recorded his parts, and dubbed them in with help from Max Roach.
• Same Face, Different Name: Charlie Parker's name is listed as "Charlie Chan" due to contractual reasons.