Holiday Swinging with the Masters

The man above is the Titan of the jazz alto saxophone, the cat who launched a thousand beatniks, the incomparable Charlie Parker -- I only wish I could have seen and heard his glorious fingers fly live! But the next best thing has arrived just in time for cold nights and a special spot under the redwood in the living room -- another quartet of lovingly produced DVD's that bring jazz immortals to the home flatscreen. The Masters of American Jazz series is the next best thing to a smoke-filled room on 52nd St. in the 1940s.

Aside from "Bird" Parker, this lastest batch of performances and interviews feature pianist Thelonious Monk, thrush Billie Holiday and "The Story of Jazz," a scholarly but vivid look back at America's most thrilling musical dialect. Respected jazz critic Gary Giddins directed the Parker DVD, and even interviewed Bird's first wife, Rebecca, her first and only testimony about the tortured genius she called her mate. Charlie left his mortal coil behind at thirty-five, but his blazing path is well-charted in this sumptuously produced and researched film.

As for Monk and Billie, they too are among the most august figures in the jazz pantheon -- like most great musicians, you could always identify their sound in the first measure of a song, such was the authority and individuality of their respective "voices." "The Many Faces of Billie Holiday" features a wealth of her live performances caught on film, plus interviews with the likes of Carmen McRae and Annie Ross, both of whom emulated her supple phrasing and skin-tingling emotion. Monk is also lovingly recalled by family and colleagues and rounding out a portrait of the enigmatic, and sometimes hatter-mad, keyboard and composing genius. There will never be another one like him.

Finally, for the novitiate and cognoscenti alike, "The Story of Jazz" presents the century-long evolution of the art form from its blues roots to New Orleans, from swing to bebop and beyond -- right up to the still-pulsing present. Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Bennett and Wynton Marsalis contribute incisive reflections, and rare film clips pepper the informative history. Buy one, buy all, you will sow happiness in your wake by giving the gift that keeps on swinging when the squares have gone beddy-bye!