Charlie Parker’s career on recordings are dominated by his affiliation with the Savoy, Dial and Clef labels with an ever growing discography of location and broadcast material filling the spaces in between the times he was not in the recording studios. The Savoy label is where his early classics – the amazing ‘Ko Ko’, ‘Billie’s Bounce’, ‘Now’s the Time’, ‘Donna Lee’, ‘Cheryl’, ‘Parker’s Mood’ et al – helped define bebop, and thus an era, and for that reason are probably the most significant, even though his work on the other two labels is indispensable. Assuming, like me, you have not shelled out the inflated prices for Universal/Decca’s now deleted The Complete Masters 1941- 54 boxed set of 13 CDs from 2011, then us mere mortals are left to contemplate the relative merits of the various Complete Savoy Sessions sets that have appeared over the years, of which this is the latest. The first ‘complete’ incarnation appeared on a 5LP set on the Savoy label (made under licence by RCA) in the mid-1980s. In 1985 Savoy released Bird/The Savoy Recordings (Master Takes) which together with the vinyl has tended to be the definitive representation of this period until companies began to exploit the standard copyright length of life +70 years (UK and US) via countries which have a life +50 year copyright length. And since no-one seems to enforce these limits, then a general free for all has emerged in more recent times (post 2005). Thus we have Bluebird: The Legendary Savoy Sessions (American Jazz Classics) from 2011 confined to the Parker/Miles Davis sides on Savoy and the 8CD Complete Savoy and Dial Sessions (Definitive) from 2001. There may be more, but these seem to be the main players. As things stand at the moment, I would go for this latest set on Essential Jazz Classics, which has sensible sleeve notes, and all known takes of the 23 Savoy sides made under Parker’s name (that includes the 14 August 1947 session under Miles Davis’ name where Parker plays tenor sax) between 1945-48. On the completist side, it includes the full 15 September 1945 session with Tiny Grimes where other reissues usually confine themselves to ‘Tiny’s Tempo’ and ‘Red Cross’. Also included are the three tracks on which Parker played on the Sir Charles Thompson date for the Apollo label on 4 September 1945 (four tracks in all were recorded that day) and represent Parker’s only encounter on record with Dexter Gordon; Sarah Vaughan’s legendary 25 May 1945 date for Continental which produced three tracks and paired Parker with Dizzy Gillespie; the important 28 February 1945 session with Gillespie that produced ‘Groovin’ High’, ‘Dizzy Atmosphere’ and ‘All the Things You Are’ for the Guild label (subsequently acquired by Savoy, hence their inclusion) and the Slim Galliard session of 29 December 1945, again with Gillespie who together with Parker they make gems out of ‘Flat Foot Floogie’, ‘Poppity Pop’, ‘Slim’s Jam’, and ‘Dizzy’s Boogie’. These tracks were originally for the BelTone label, which was again acquired by Savoy. Interestingly, the drummer is Zutty Singleton, who had appeared on Armstrong’s Hot Five and Seven sessions. The complete Comet session under Red Norvo’s name is also included, with Parker and Gillespie in the company of vibist Norvo, Flip Phillips, Teddy Wilson, Slam Stewart and either Specs Powell or J.C. Heard. Finally, a session which I knew nothing about circa 1950, which the liner notes said briefly surfaced on a bootleg in the 1990s from what is thought to be a demo by Gene Roland that concluded with a jam session. Four tracks in all are included here, with the only appearance of ‘The Great Lie’ in Parker’s discography to round out this very well compiled set.