**** CHARLIE PARKER, “Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker Collection,” Rhino

Charles Mingus once wrote a piece titled “Gunslinging Bird,” with the subtitle, “If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats.” Mingus was right about one thing--the copycats. Because Parker was, by any arguable standard, one of the two most powerful influences in jazz history. If the sound, the substance and the style of Louis Armstrong dominated the first half of jazz in this century, Parker’s articulation, rhythmic phrasing and harmonic imagination on his alto saxophone similarly impacted the jazz century’s second half.

Fortunately, Parker’s work was well-documented during his relatively brief career. (His recordings were all made in the 15-year period between his debut with the Jay McShann band in 1940 and his death, at the age of 34, in 1955.)

The pieces included in this absolutely vital, eminently listenable collection have been drawn from a prime period in Parker’s life, reaching from 1945 recordings with Dizzy Gillespie, through the work of his extraordinary group of the late ‘40s--with Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Duke Jordan, Max Roach and others--and concluding with a group of unusual selections from live performances.

While this two-CD set, containing 38 tracks, obviously omits many important Parker outings, it serves nicely as a basic survey of the music he recorded before and outside of his contract with Verve in the ‘50s. (The music from that period is still available in the comprehensive boxed set “Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve.”)

What is it that makes Parker’s music so special? First of all, its timelessness. The only aspect that dates it, in fact, is the quality of the sound and, in some cases, the playing of Parker’s associates. This is music that, with rare exception, still sounds utterly contemporary, utterly fascinating. How contemporary? When Clint Eastwood produced the biographical film of Parker’s life, “Bird,” Parker’s solos were electronically extracted from the original recordings and placed with a contemporary rhythm section. After the final mix of the two elements, Parker’s playing sounded as though it might have been done live at the time, more than three decades after his passing.

Parker’s music also is special for the manner in which it balances accessibility and creative density. It is entirely possible to listen to Parker--on pieces such as “Now’s the Time,” “Parker’s Mood” or “Don’t Blame Me”--and respond to the pure beauty of the music itself, with no awareness of the sophisticated harmonies that Parker was exploring at the time. As with Mozart, another shooting-star genius whose work is both melodically appealing and creatively complex, Parker’s music--beneath its exterior accessibility--stretches the envelope in almost every fashion, rhythmically, harmonically and melodically.

That this music was produced by an artist whose mind and body were tortured by drug and alcohol addiction is even greater testimony to the depth of his creative powers.

One Parker classic after another is present: early bebop hits such as “Groovin’ High,” “Salt Peanuts” and “Hot House”; Parker’s remarkable (and much imitated) excursion across the difficult chords of “Cherokee” in “Ko Ko”; dozens of his memorable melodies--”Yardbird Suite,” “Relaxin’ at Camarillo,” “Scrapple From the Apple,” “Bloomdido” and “Moose the Mooche,” to name a few; his superb slow blues playing on “Parker’s Mood”; his gorgeous approach to ballads in his readings of “Don’t Blame Me,” “Out of Nowhere” and “Embraceable You.” And, of course, there is the presence of a young Miles Davis on many of the pieces, carefully carving out his own style and managing to hold his own while playing alongside one of the great geniuses of Western music.

For more detail-oriented listeners, the Rhino collection traces almost completely to Parker’s recordings for Musicraft, Guild, Dial, Savoy and Clef. There also are some supplemental tracks from the Columbia album, “Summit Meeting at Birdland,” recorded during a live radio Broadcast from New York City’s Birdland Club in 1951, featuring the remarkable all-star ensemble of Parker, Gillespie, Bud Powell, Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes. The final four tracks, in which Parker plays some of the music from his “Parker With Strings” albums, was recorded live at the Rockland Palace in New York City in 1952.

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