Mark Miller discusses the audience present at Charlie Parker's interview in Montreal in 1953

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Mark Miller discusses English versus French barriers in Montreal

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Mark Miller discusses the recording of the famous Massey Hall concert of 1953

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Q: “You’ve heard this [Massey Hall concert] in so many different versions that as a musician’s label – which Debut was – they didn’t treat all of the material with more respect!”

A: Mark Miller: “There seems to be a distinct lack of integrity to the way they've presented the music in terms of cutting it up, in terms of taking solos out, chopping things off, putting new baselines on as required. Even to the point of including on the Bud Powell releases a track that wasn't recorded at Massey Hall at all, which is, basically speaking, a Mingus feature. Now, they may have played it at Massey Hall. I have no way of knowing that one way or the other, but in fact, it was recorded in New York afterwards. Bud's not even on it. It's Billy Taylor.”

Interviewer: “Billy Taylor.”

Mark Miller: “And I phoned Billy Taylor and said, "Well, you know, is it you?" And he said, "Yes, it's me." So just the presentation and the packaging and all the rest of it considering that this is a musician's own company. It's very strange and I would have to, maybe I shouldn't say it, I will have to think that's more of Mingus' doing than Roach's doing because Roach is a man of inscrutable integrity. Mingus, I think, had a definite idea of how the world should run and was prepared to manipulate it until it ran the way he wanted it to.”