Mosaic Records has released a nine-disc box set, The Complete Dial Modern Jazz Sessions, featuring 185 tracks recorded for the seminal jazz label. Included are all of Charlie Parker’s sessions for Dial from 1946-47. Bird is accompanied on the tracks by Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Howard McGee, Wardell Gray, J. J. Johnson, Duke Jordan, Teddy Edwards, Erroll Garner, Tommy Potter, Max Roach and others. Parker and Gillespie (along with Flip Phillips and Teddy Wilson) are also heard on the rare 1945 Red Norvo sessions, recorded for Comet Records a year before Dial came into being (and purchased some years later).
Dexter Gordon is featured on three sessions, one of which features Wardell Gray; another features Teddy Edwards and the third features trombonist Melba Liston. Howard McGhee has two sessions, one of which features James Moody, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones and Ray Brown; the other is co-led with pianist Dodo Marmarosa (who also has his own trio date included) and Edwards on tenor. Pianist Erroll Garner is represented by a solo date and a few tracks with his trio and Gillespie also has his own sextet session featuring Lucky Thompson and Milt Jackson. The collection is rounded out with Fats Navarro and vocalist Earl Coleman, and a Sonny Berman Big 8/Ralph Burns Quintet date that includes Bill Harris, Flip Phillips and Serge Chaloff.
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