When
bebop
came along in the mid-'40s, the style encountered more than its share of hostility; some
swing
and
Dixieland
musicians had difficulty comprehending the innovations of
Charlie Parker
,
Dizzy Gillespie
Bud Powell
, and
Thelonious Monk
. Regardless,
bop
remained, and when
Delmark
assembled this
-oriented compilation in 2003, the style had been around almost 60 years -- which is saying a lot when you consider that
's early detractors hoped that it wouldn't live to see the '50s. Spanning 1944-1998,
Bop Lives!
offers a 32-minute sample of the contributions that
Apollo
(whose catalog
owns) have made to
hard bop
. This CD is hardly the last word on
's
output;
, after all, has been around since the early '50s and has turned out to be one of the most enduring labels in the history of
jazz
blues
. But if
barely scratches
's surface, it's a generally impressive surface. The disc gets off to an exciting start with
Coleman Hawkins
' 1944 recording of
"Woody 'n You,"
which features trumpeter
Gillespie
and has often been cited as one of the earliest
recordings -- and
keeps the momentum going with tracks by heavyweights like
Donald Byrd
(
"Blues Walk"
from 1955),
Jimmy Forrest
"All the Gin Is Gone"
from 1959), and
"Rifftide"
from 1962). Most of the selections are instrumental; the exceptions are
Babs Gonzales
' 1947 recording
"Ray's Groove"
and the obscure
Francine Griffin
's 1998 performance of
"Anthropology."
It should be noted that the delightfully quirky
Gonzales
was quite daring for his time; in the '40s, he was among the first singers to bring the complexities of early
to the
vocal
realm. Although solid, most of
falls short of definitive; this CD is nonetheless an enjoyable, if brief, celebration of
's contributions to
. ~ Alex Henderson