Charlie Parker with Strings is the name of two separate albums by jazz musician Charlie Parker, released in 1950 on Mercury Records. The sessions place Parker in the context of a small classical string section and a jazz rhythm section, rather than his standard bebop quintet. They were Parker's most popular sellers during his lifetime and were admitted to the GRAMMY Hall of Fame in 1988.

 

 

Summertime is an aria composed in 1934 by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The song soon became a popular and much recorded jazz standard, described as "without doubt ... one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote ... Gershwin's highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of African Americans in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century." The song is recognized as one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music, with more than 33,000 covers by groups and solo performers.

 

Hoagland “Hoagy” Carmichael composed one of the most popular and enduring jazz standards of the 20th century. Stardust has been recorded more than 1,500 times over a 90-year period, attesting to its stylistic flexibility made possible by the strength of its compositional structure. In an interview with the BBC, Carmichael stated, “Well, I got the idea just walking across the campus one night, my university campus where I went to school. I’d just left the college hangout called the Book Nook, and I started whistling, and I whistled this opening strain of ‘Stardust,’ and I knew that I had something very strange and different.”

 

 

Although Just Friends by John Klenner was first introduced by Red McKenzie and His Orchestra in October 1931, the song first became a hit for singer Russ Columbo who recorded it with Leonard Joy’s Orchestra in 1932. Ben Selvin and His Orchestra also charted with their recording that year. Originally a slow sentimental ballad, since the 1950s the song has typically been played at a fast tempo by jazz musicians.