Charles Mingus once said that when Charlie Parker was playing at the top of his form, you could tell the color of the hair of the woman he was thinking of while soloing. Extra sensory perceptions notwithstanding, there is something deeply ironic about offering a Cole Porter songbook without singing. For if Porter wasn't the finest lyricist produced by the Broadway stage, he was certainly a major contender - rivaled only by Irving Berlin (the other great words-and-music man), Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, and Lorenz Hart. There is further irony in pairing Parker and Porter, the former an uneducated saxophonist struggling against unceasing adversity and yet changing the course of American music in a very short time, and the latter a wealthy Yale and Harvard graduated songwriter indulged from birth and wildly acclaimed all his life. Yet they had much in common - their genius, love of pure melody, appetites for pleasured, capacity for pain. This is a poignant collection, because it shows Parker at the peak of his powers and at his nadir; still, every selection reveals his abiding regard for Porter's unique sense of song. Mingus was right, up to a point. If you know Porter's songs, words and music, you will hear Parker ruminating on both, singing the words and commenting on them at the same time