These items are very fragmentary, edited to Parker solos for the most part. They
may be dubs of wire recordings; in any case, fidelity is very poor throughout.
The date is uncertain. The Parker Quintet was booked for two weeks at Chicago's
Argyle Show Lounge (November 11-23, 1947), then for four nights at the Pershing
Hotel Ballroom (January 3-6, 1948). The recording could have been made during either
of these engagements.
Philology W 844 contains 22 titles purporting to be from this date, but I'm skeptical.
First, the trumpet player sounds like Kenny Dorham, not Davis. Second, Frank Loesser's
tune "On a Slow Boat to China" was not copyrighted until 1948, and Parker's "Barbados"
was not recorded in the studio until the Savoy date on September 18, 1948. It's
very unusual for a Parker original to appear in the live repertoire before it has
been recorded. Third, Parker's quotations and his playing (especially during his
solo on the second "Slow Boat to China") sound like 1949, not 1947. The Parker Quintet
(with Dorham, Haig, Potter, and Roach, and guest vocalist Arthur Daniels, were booked
for two weeks at Chicago's Pershing Hotel Ballroom (March 28-April 10, 1949), and
my guess is that those 22 tunes were recorded during this engagement. If so, Davis
was half a country away in New York at the Royal Roost and Capitol Recording Studios.
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