"Birdland" is a jazz daddy instrumental

Instrumental

An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....

 composition by keyboardist Joe Zawinul

Joe Zawinul

Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

 that debuted on the Weather Report

Weather Report

Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter...

 album Heavy Weather

Heavy Weather (album)

The album received positive reviews since its publication. American music journalist Richard Ginell gave the album the maximum rating, five stars out of five, and concluded his review for Allmusic by stating that, "[r]eleased just as the jazz-rock movement began to run out of steam, this landmark...

in 1977. A jazz-fusion piece, it achieved unusual commercial success and became a jazz standard

Jazz standard

Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

, entering the repertoire of many groups and bands, including Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

, Maynard Ferguson

Maynard Ferguson

Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...

's big band, and The Manhattan Transfer

The Manhattan Transfer

The Manhattan Transfer is an American vocal music group. There have been two manifestations of the group, with Tim Hauser being the only person to be part of both...

, who recorded a vocalese

Vocalese

Vocalese is a style or genre of jazz singing wherein lyrics are written for melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation. Whereas scat singing uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos, vocalese uses lyrics, either...

 take on the tune with lyrics by Jon Hendricks

Jon Hendricks

Jon Hendricks is an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists...

. An uptempo version (with a slight rap introduction) appears on Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones

Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

' 1989 album Back on the Block

Back on the Block

Back on the Block is a 1989 studio album produced by Quincy Jones. It features many famous and important musicians and singers, including Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Ice-T, Big Daddy Kane, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, George Benson, Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick, Barry White,...

, with vocals by Kool Moe Dee

Kool Moe Dee

Mohandas Dewese , better known as Kool Moe Dee, is an American Hip Hop MC prominent in the late 1970s through the early 1990s. He was born in Manhattan, New York...

, Big Daddy Kane

Big Daddy Kane

Antonio Hardy better known by his stage name Big Daddy Kane, is an American rapper who started his career in 1986 as a member of the rap group the Juice Crew. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential and skilled MC's in Hip Hop...

, Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

 and Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...

. The original version is easily recognized by an artificial harmonic

Artificial harmonic

To produce an artificial harmonic, a stringed instrument player holds down a note on the neck with the non-dominant hand, thereby shortening the vibrational length of the string, uses a finger to lightly touch a point on the string that is an integer divisor of its vibrational length, and plucks or...

 intro played by bassist Jaco Pastorius

Jaco Pastorius

John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....

.

"Birdland" was named after the New York jazz club Birdland

Birdland (jazz club)

Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979...

 on 52nd Street, which in turn was named after jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

, nicknamed "Bird". The song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 is a tribute to Parker and the club that Zawinul frequented as a young musician (and where he met his future wife). According to Pastorius in a 1978 interview, the studio version featured on Heavy Weather

Heavy Weather

Heavy Weather may refer to:*Heavy Weather , a novel by P. G. Wodehouse*Heavy Weather , a 1995 adaptation of Wodehouse's novel*Heavy Weather , a science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling...

 was recorded in just one take.

Single issues

The single has several issues, all with different cover, format and B-side (see the table below).

Year	B-side	Format	Label	Country	Note
1977	"Birdland"	45 rpm 7" vinyl	Columbia Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...  (3-10532)	US United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...	Promo
1977	1. "River People" – 4:47 2. "A Remark You Made" – 6:52	45 rpm 12" vinyl	CBS CBS Records CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...  (S CBS 12 7701)	UK United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...	—
1977	"Birdland (Edit Version)"	45 rpm 7" vinyl	CBS (CBS 5588)	Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...	Promo
1977	"The Juggler" (5:05)	45 rpm 7" vinyl	CBS (S CBS 5205)	UK	—
1978	"Brown Street" (6:55)	33⅓ rpm 12" vinyl	ARC American Record Company The American Record Company was a United States record label, in business from about 1904 to 1908. Then re-activated in 1979.The American Record Company was founded by Ellsworth A. Hawthorne and Horace Sheble and Frederick M. Prescott. It was based in Springfield, Massachusetts...  (AS 713)	US	Promo
1990	"Birdland" (5:55)	33⅓ rpm 12" vinyl	Old Gold (OG 4197)	UK	A-side: "The Groove" (4:55) by Rodney Franklin Rodney Franklin Rodney Franklin is an American jazz pianist and composer.At the age of six he took jazz piano lessons at Washington Elementary School...