CHARLIE PARKER COMPLETE JAZZ AT MASSEY HALL

Pianist Bud Powell was drunk. Parker was playing a plastic saxophone borrowed from a local music store. At one point, bassist Charles Mingus got so angry at trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's antics that he stomped offstage. Yet on this night of May 15, 1953, at Toronto's Massey Hall, the musicians, along with drummer Max Roach, somehow pulled together to give an incandescent, unforgettable performance. Captured in a low-fi taping by Mingus and Roach, the concert showed what bebop--and live jazz--was all about.