Why Evolution Is True

If you’re a Charlie Parker aficionado, you may know this little-known recording. It’s a genuine jam session, and it swings. Made in 1945, as I recall, it features top-class jazz musicians and, as a treat, one of the few recordings of Charlie Parker’s voice. I’m working from memory here, but it may have been laid down in the famous recording session that produced the jazz milestone “Ko-Ko.”

“Slim’s Jam” is led by Slim Gaillard, who breaks up the music with his own form of hep talk called “Vout” (in another piece, watch him play piano with the back of his hand). From time to time Gaillard calls for bizarre comestibles.

The musicians include Zutty Singleton on drums, Dodo Marmarosa on piano, Jack McVea on tenor sax, and Dizzy Gillespie, who finishes it off with a trumpet flourish. But the honors go to Bird, who apparently…

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