23 hours ago - Music

Record Store Day digs up jazz history for Black Friday

Troy Smith

Black-and-white photo of a male jazz saxophonist in a light suit, eyes closed, playing on stage, with a drummer visible in the background. — Jazz legend Charlie Parker performs circa 1953. Photo: Bob Parent/Getty Images

This year's Record Store Day Black Friday sale will include a rare bit of Cleveland music history.

State of play: 1,500 vinyl copies of jazz legend Charlie Parker's "Bewitching Bird: Bird at Cafe Society and The Sky Bar" will go on sale at select record stores around the country on Nov. 27.

The intrigue: Side one features recordings made in 1950 at the legendary Greenwich Village club Café Society in New York City.

Side two features never-before-issued live tracks recorded during Parker's 1951 performances at Cleveland's Lindsay's Sky Bar.

Zoom in: The jazz club, which opened in 1934 on Euclid Avenue, was the area's first jazz venue to book national performers, including numerous Black musicians as early as 1939.

Sky Bar hosted everyone from Parker and Billie Holiday to Art Tatum and Dizzy Gillespie before it closed in 1952.

The bottom line: Hopefully, a few copies of the Parker set make it to participating local record stores on Black Friday.

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Record Store Day digs up jazz history for Black Friday

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