The final studio collaboration between alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was recorded on June 6, 1950 in New York, and released two years later. The band, assembled by producer and Clef Records head Norman Granz, was a surprising one — Parker and Gillespie were backed by pianist Thelonious Monk, whose vision of bebop had sharper elbows than theirs, built around abstruse, off-kilter melodies rooted in stride piano, as well as bassist Curly Russell and the true wild card, drummer Buddy Rich, best known as a big-band showman but whose precise, hammering technique is put in service of hardcore bebop melodies here. As such, the music doesn’t swing as hard as it might with Max Roach behind the kit, but it has a frantic, even manic drive that spurs Parker and Gillespie to skyrocketing heights on their respective horns. And when they start trading off, horn then drums, on “Leap Frog,” your skull might pop open. The nearly two dozen false starts and alternate takes available on the reissue are diverting, but the six tracks recorded for the original record are what you’re really after.