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Biography
Infobox musical artist| name = Bud Powell| image = Budpowell.jpg| caption = The Amazing Bud Powell - early LP cover| image_size = 200| background = non_vocal_instrumentalist| birth_name = Earl Rudolph Powell| alias =| birth_date = birth date|1924|9|27| death_date = death date and age|1966|7|31|1924|9|27| origin = New York City , New York , United States | instrument = Piano | genre = Jazz , bebop | occupation = Pianist | years_active = 1944–1965| label = Blue Note Records Mercury Records Norgran Records Clef Records Verve Records | associated_acts = Sonny Rollins Miles Davis | website =| current_members =| past_members =| notable_instruments = Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 & ndash; July 31, 1966) was a Jazz piano|jazz pianist who was born and raised in Harlem , New York City . His greatest influences on his instrument were Thelonious Monk , who became his close friend, and Art Tatum . Along with CharlieParker and Dizzy Gillespie , Powell was a key player in the development of bebop , and his virtuosity as a pianist led many to call him the CharlieParker of the piano.
Biography
Powell's father was a Stride (music)#Stride piano|stride pianist {Gitler |1966|p=112}. Powell took to his father's instrument and started to learn classical piano, at age five, from a teacher whom his father hired; but by age ten, he had also showed interest in the jazz that could be heard all over the neighborhood, mimicking Fats Waller at rent party {Crawford |1966|p=12} and mastering James P. Johnson's "Carolina Shout" {Pullman |2012|chapt=1}. His older brother, William, played the trumpet ; and, by age fifteen, Bud was playing in his brother's band. By this time, he had had exposure to Art Tatum , whose overwhelmingly virtuosic technique Powell set out to equal . His younger brother, Richie Powell|Richie , and his teenage friend Elmo Hope were also accomplished pianists who had significant careers.
Bud, though underage, was exposed to the exciting, musically adventurous atmosphere at Uptown House, an after-hours venue that was practically around the corner from where he lived. It was here that the first stirrings of modernism could be heard on a nightly basis, and where CharlieParker first appeared when he was unattached to a band and stayed briefly in New York{Patrick |1983|p=159-161}. Thelonious Monk had some involvement there but, by the time that he and Powell met, in about 1942 {Hentoff |1966|p=16}, the elder pianist/composer was able to introduce Powell to the circle of bebop musicians starting to form at Minton's Playhouse . Monk was resident there and, so, presented Powell as his protege. The mutual affection grew to where Monk was, and remained, Powell's greatest mentor -- returning the compliment a few years later by dedicating the composition " In Walked Bud " to him.
In the early Forties, Powell played in a few dance orchestras, including that of Cootie Williams , whom Powell's mother decided her son should play for and tour with (rather than have him accept an offer from Oscar Pettiford and Dizzy Gillespie, whose modernist quintet was about to open at a midtown nightclub). Powell was the pianist on a handful of Williams's recording dates in 1944, the last of which included the first-ever recording of Monk's " 'Round Midnight (song)|'Round Midnight ". His tenure with Williams was terminated one night in January 1945, when he got separated from the band after a Philadelphia dance engagement and was apprehended, drunk, by railroad police inside a station. He was beaten by them and then briefly detained. Upon his release, he was hospitalized in New York City and then sent to a psychiatric hospital, sixty miles away. He stayed there for two and a half months.
Powell resumed playing in Manhattan immediately, in demand by various small-group leaders for nightclub engagements in the increasingly integrated midtown scene. His 1945-46 recordings, many as the result of his sudden visibility, were for Frank Socolow , Dexter Gordon , J. J. Johnson , Sonny Stitt , Fats Navarro , and Kenny Clarke .
Powell soon became renowned for his ability to play accurately at fast tempos, his inspired bebop soloing, and his comprehension of the ideas that CharlieParker had found from the chords of " Cherokee (Ray Noble song)|Cherokee " and other song-forms. His solos, conceived in emulation of and rivalry with Parker -- he maintained an animus toward the acknowledged nonpareil saxophone virtuoso and leader of the bebop movement, throughout their careers -- are instantly recognizable, with frequent arpeggios punctuated by chromaticism . They are nonetheless progressive-sounding, exploring the Harmonic series (music)|harmonic series in unexpected ways. He often formed carefully phrased statements, singing along with his playing. Powell's generally rough-edged execution contrasted with his very daring and virtuosic passages at higher tempos. Many later pianists copied his melodic ideas.
Powell adhered to a simplified left-hand accompaniment|"comping" recalling stride (music)|stride and pianist Teddy Wilson . The comping often consisted of single bass notes outlining the root and fifth. He also used a tenth, which he was able to reach easily due to his very large hands, with the minor seventh included.
He freed the right hand for continuous linear exploration and facilitated in the left a statement of the harmonies typical of bebop. When Art Tatum questioned his neglect of the left hand, the younger player responded audaciously in a subsequent tune by soloing with his left hand. His favoring the treble was not to avoid integrating the hands, which is essential to both a solo and accompanying technique. These formed the basic small ensembles that have dominated jazz since the bebop era (after swing music|swing ). Before Powell, Art Tatum and Earl Hines had also somewhat explored independent homophony closely resembling later piano playing.
Powell's career advanced when CharlieParker chose him to be his pianist on a quintet record date, with Miles Davis , Tommy Potter , and Roach, in May 1947. Powell demonstrated his mature style on the third complete take of "Donna Lee", where he got a brief solo spot, and with his jocular chord fills while the horn players paused to breathe during "Buzzy", the last tune recorded. When the quintet came together for the final ensemble section, Powell's piano made its final, sarcastic comment on the proceedings.
The Parker session aside, Powell was inactive for most of 1947. In November, he had an altercation with another customer at a Harlem bar; in the ensuing fight, Powell was hit over his eye with a bottle. When Harlem Hospital found him incoherent and rambunctious, it sent him to Bellevue , to the ward where patients were given psychiatric evaluations. It was determined that he be sent to Creedmoor State Hospital , where he was kept for eleven months. Powell eventually adjusted to the conditions in the institution, though in psychiatric interviews he expressed feelings of persecution founded in racism. From February to April 1948 he received electroconvulsive therapy , first administered after an outburst deemed to be uncontrollable. It might have been in reaction to learning, after a visit by his girlfriend, that she was pregnant with their child.{Pullman |2012|chapt=4,5}
While the electroconvulsive therapy was said to have made no difference, Powell was given a second series of treatments in May. He was eventually released, in October 1948, though he suffered from emotional instability periodically, for the rest of his career. Powell's increased celebrity, now that he was active again and bebop was becoming more accepted, made plain to fellow musicians and fans that he had a serious problem with alcohol alcoholism|alcoholic ; even one drink had a profound effect on his character, making him aggressive or morose. Nonetheless, and with a repeat (though brief) hospitalization in early 1949, the year was Powell's greatest, both for his thrilling nightclub performances and for a handful of record sessions of unrivaled virtuosity on his instrument.
Jazz pianist Bill Cunliffe , whose music was influenced by Bud Powell, said in an interview with All About Jazz :
Bud Powell is the most important pianist in jazz and one of the most underrated because he spent over a third of his life in mental and medical hospitals. He was beaten by the police when he was twenty and he never fully recovered from that beating and as a result, he suffered pain and had to take drugs to alleviate the pain. ... In spite of that, he created a whole lot of wonderful music. He was really the first guy. Before Bud Powell, pianists were playing "boom, chuck" in the left hand and a lot of melodic figures in the right hand that tended to be arpeggios ... Bud Powell was imitating CharlieParker . So Bud was the first pianist to take Charlie Parker's language and adapt it successfully to the piano. That's why he is the most important pianist in music today because everybody plays like that now. -- Bill Cunliffecite news |author= Fred Jung |title= A Fireside Chat With Bill Cunliffe |publisher= all-about-jazz |quote= When I was a kid, I was listening mostly to classical music because my dad had a lot of it in the house. I listened to all the stuff that was on the radio in the Sixties and Seventies. |year= 2010 |url= http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php? id=1231 |accessdate= 2010-06-07
It is generally agreed that from 1949 through 1953 Powell made his best recordings, most of which were for Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records and for Norman Granz of Mercury , Norgran , and Clef . The first Blue Note session, in August 1949, features Fats Navarro , Sonny Rollins , Powell, Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes , and the compositions "Bouncing with Bud" and "Dance of the Infidels". The second Blue Note session in 1951 was a trio with Russell and Roach, and includes "Parisian Thoroughfare" and "Un Poco Loco", the latter selected by literary critic Harold Bloom for inclusion on his short list of the Harold Bloom#The American Sublime|greatest works of twentieth-century American art . Sessions for Granz (more than a dozen) were all solo or trios, with a variety of bassists and drummers including Russell, Roach, Buddy Rich , Ray Brown (musician)|Ray Brown , Percy Heath , George Duvivier , Art Taylor , Lloyd Trotman , Osie Johnson , Art Blakey and Kenny Clarke .
Powell's continued rivalry with Charlie Parker, while essential to the production of brilliant music, was also the subject of disruptive feuding and bitterness on the bandstand, as a result of Powell's troubled mental and physical condition.
Powell recorded for both Blue Note and Granz throughout the fifties, interrupted by another long stay in a mental hospital from late 1951 to early 1953, following arrest for possession of cannabis (drug)|marijuana . He was released into the guardianship of Oscar Goodstein , the owner of the Birdland (jazz club)|Birdland nightclub. A 1953 trio session for Blue Note (with Duvivier and Taylor) included Powell's composition "Glass Enclosure", inspired by his near-imprisonment in Goodstein's apartment. His playing after his release from hospital began to be seriously affected by Chlorpromazine|Largactil , taken for the treatment of schizophrenia ; and, by the late fifties, his talent was clearly in eclipse. In 1956 his brother Richie was killed in a car crash alongside Clifford Brown . Three albums for Blue Note in the late fifties showcased Powell's ability as a composer, but his playing was far removed from the standard set by his earlier recordings for the label.
After several further spells in hospital, Powell moved to Paris in 1959, in the company of Altevia "Buttercup" Edwards, whom he'd met after an incarceration in 1954 . In Paris, Powell worked in a trio with Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke . Buttercup, though, did not have Powell's best interests in mind. She kept control of his finances and overdosed him with Largactil, but Powell continued to perform and record. The 1960 live recording of the Essen jazz festival performance (with Clarke, Oscar Pettiford and on some numbers Coleman Hawkins ) is particularly notable. In December 1961 he recorded two albums for Columbia Records under the aegis of Cannonball Adderley : A Portrait of Thelonious (with Michelot and Clarke), and A Tribute to Cannonball (with the addition of Don Byas and Idrees Sulieman & mdash;despite the title, Adderley only plays on one alternate take). The first album (with overdubbed audience noise) was released shortly after Powell's death, and the second was released in the late 1970s. Eventually Powell was befriended by Francis Paudras , a commercial artist and amateur pianist; and Powell moved into Paudras's home in 1962. There was a brief return to Blue Note in 1963, when Dexter Gordon recorded Our Man in Paris for the label. Powell was a last-minute substitute for Kenny Drew , and the album of standards& mdash;Powell could not by then learn new material& mdash;showed him to be still capable of playing with some proficiency. In 1963 Powell contracted tuberculosis , and the following year returned to New York with Paudras for a return engagement at Birdland. The original agreement had been for the two men to go back to Paris, but Paudras returned alone (although Powell did record in Paris, with Pettiford and Clarke, in July 1964). In 1965 Powell played only two concerts: one a disastrous performance at Carnegie Hall, the other a tribute to CharlieParker on May 1 with other performers on the bill, including Albert Ayler. Little else was seen of him in public.
Powell was hospitalized in New York after months of increasingly abnormality (behavior)|erratic behavior and self-neglect. On July 31, 1966, he died of tuberculosis, malnutrition, and alcoholism. Several thousand people viewed his Harlem funeral procession. http://www.blackpast.org/? q=aah/powell-bud-1924-1966 Powell, Earl "Bud" (1924-1966) at blackpast.org
Legacy
The pianist Bill Evans paid Powell a tribute in 1979:
If I had to choose one single musician for his artistic integrity, for the incomparable originality of his creation and the grandeur of his work, it would be Bud Powell. He was in a class by himself.Harvnb|Paudras|1998|p=ix
In 1986 Paudras wrote a book about his friendship with Powell, translated into English in 1997 as Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell . The book was the basis for Round Midnight (film)|Round Midnight , a film inspired by the lives of Powell and Lester Young , in which Dexter Gordon played the lead role of an expatriate jazzman in Paris. In February 2012 a biography titled Wail: The Life of Bud Powell by Peter Pullman was released as an ebook on Nook and Kindle.
Discography
Years listed are years recorded (not years released).
Studio recordings
1947: Bud Powell Trio#Release history|Bud Powell Trio ( Roost Records|Roost ) 10 inch LP release of January 1947 recording session. Roost Records|Roost RLP-401. Later re-issued together with Bud Powell Trio, Volume 2 on a single 12 inch LP, Bud Powell Trio (Roost RLP 2224 / RST 2224)
1949-50: Jazz Giant#Release history|Bud Powell Piano Solos ( Mercury Records|Mercury / Clef Records|Clef ) aka (½ of) Jazz Giant (Norgran / Verve Records|Verve ) 10 inch LP release of February 1949 and February 1950 sessions. Mercury MG 35012 (Clef MGC 102 / Clef MGC 502 / Mercury MGC 502). Re-issued together with (most of) Piano Solos #2 as Jazz Giant (Norgran MGN 1063 / Verve MGV 8153)
1949-51: The Amazing Bud Powell ( Blue Note Records|Blue Note ) 1951 release of August 1949 and May 1951 sessions. Blue Note Records|Blue Note BLP 5003, BLP 1503
1950: Jazz Giant#Release history|Bud Powell Piano Solos #2 (Mercury / Clef) aka (½ of) Jazz Giant (Norgran / Verve) 10 inch LP release of February & July 1950 sessions. Mercury MGC 507 (Clef MGC 507). All but the two July tracks re-issued together with Piano Solos as Jazz Giant (Norgran MGN 1063 / Verve MGV 8153)
1950-51: '' The Genius of Bud Powell#Release history|Bud Powell's Moods (Mercury / Clef) aka The Genius of Bud Powell (Verve) July 1950 session in trio; February 1951 session solo. Mercury MGC 610 (Clef MGC 610 / Clef MGC 739 and, as The Genius of Bud Powell , Verve 8115) Not to be confused with the Norgran release Bud Powell's Moods
1953: The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 2 (Blue Note) 1954 release of August 1953 session. Blue Note BLP 5041, BLP 1504 / Blue Note BST 81504 (pseudo stereo)
1953: Bud Powell Trio#Release history|Bud Powell Trio, Volume 2 (Roost) 10 inch LP release of September 1953 recording session. Roost RLP-412. Later re-issued together with Bud Powell Trio on a single 12 inch LP, Bud Powell Trio (Roost RLP 2224 / RST 2224)
1954-55: '' Bud Powell's Moods ( Norgran Records|Norgran / Verve) June 1954, January 1955 sessions. Norgran MGN 1064 (Verve MGV 8154) Not to be confused with the Mercury / Clef release Bud Powell's Moods
1954-55: Jazz Original (Norgran) aka ''Bud Powell '57 (Norgran / Verve) 1955 release of December 1954 and January 1955 sessions. Norgran MGN 1017 (and, as Bud Powell '57 , Norgran MGN 1098 / Verve MGV 8185)
1955: The Lonely One... (Verve) January and April 1955 sessions. Verve MGV 8301
1955: Piano Interpretations by Bud Powell (Norgran / Verve) April 1955 sessions. Norgran MGN 1077 (Verve MGV 8167)
1956: Blues in the Closet (Verve) September 1956 session. Verve MGV 8218
1956: Strictly Powell ( RCA Records|RCA Victor ) October 1956 session, RCA Records|RCA Victor LPM 1423
1957: '' Swingin' with Bud (RCA Victor) February 1957 session, RCA Victor LPM 1507
1957: Bud& #33; The Amazing Bud Powell (Vol. 3) (Blue Note) August 1957 session. Blue Note BLP 1571 (Blue Note BST 81571, CDP 7 81571-2)
1957-58: Bud Plays Bird ( Roulette Records|Roulette / Blue Note) October & December 1957 and January 1958 sessions only released in 1997
1958: Time Waits: The Amazing Bud Powell (Vol. 4) (Blue Note) May 1958 session. Blue Note BLP 1598 (Blue Note BST 81598, CDP 7 46820-2)
1958: The Scene Changes: The Amazing Bud Powell (Vol. 5) (Blue Note) December 1958 session. Blue Note BLP 4009 (Blue Note BST 84009, CDP 7 46529-2)
1961: A Tribute to Cannonball ( Columbia Records|Columbia ) December 1961 session in Paris, produced by Cannonball Adderley
1959-61: '' Earl Bud Powell, Vol. 5: Groovin' at the Blue Note, 59-61 (Mythic Sound)
1960: The Essen Jazz Festival Concert ( Black Lion Records|Black Lion )
1960-64: Earl Bud Powell, Vol. 11: Gift for the Friends, 60-64 (Mythic Sound)
1961: Pianology (Moon Italy) April 1961 live recording in Milan , Italy (Moon MCD 055-2). The album is split between the Powell session and unrelated 1966-70 European sessions by Thelonious Monk
1962: Bud Powell Trio at the Golden Circle, Vols. 1-5 ( Steeplechase Records|Steeplechase ) April 1962 live recordings at the Gyllene Cirkeln, Stockholm , Sweden. With Torbjörn Hultcrantz on bass, and Sune Spångberg on drums. 5 volumes available as individual discs. Rare Powell vocals on "This Is No Laughin' Matter".
Tempus Fugue-It (album)|Tempus Fugue-It ( Proper Records ) - Four disc set, from 1944 recordings with Cootie Williams to the first sessions for Blue Note and Clef in 1949-50.
The Complete Bud Powell on Verve - Five discs, sessions from 1949 to 1956.
The Best of Bud Powell on Verve - Single disc compilation of the best of Powell's work for the label.
The Complete Blue Note and Roost Recordings - Four disc set containing all of the Amazing Bud Powell... Blue Note sessions plus Roost Records|Roost sessions from 1947 and 1953. The Blue Note sessions have also been remastered and reissued as individual CDs and are arguably betterCitation needed|date=July 2011 (though the Roost material is not included).
The Complete RCA Trio Sessions - Contains '' Swingin' with Bud and Strictly Powell .
1960: Mingus at Antibes - sits in on one track, " I'll Remember April (song)|I'll Remember April "
Selected Compositions
multicol
"Blue Pearl"
"Bouncing with Bud"
"Bud's Bubble"
"Bud on Bach"
"Celia"
"Cleopatra's Dream"
"Dance of the Infidels"
"Dusk in Sandi"
"Fantasy in Blue"
"Glass Enclosure"
"Hallucinations" (aka "Budo")
multicol-break
"John's Abbey"
"Monopoly"
"Oblivion"
"Parisian Thoroughfare"
"The Scene Changes"
"So Sorry Please"
" Tempus Fugue-it " (aka "Tempus Fugit")
"Time Waits"
" Un Poco Loco "
"Wail"
multicol-end
Notes
reflist
References
citation |last1=Gitler |first1=Ira |title=Jazz Masters of the Forties |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |year=1966 |isbn=0-306-76155-6
citation |last1=Crawford |first1=Marc |title="Requiem for a Tortured Heavyweight" |publisher=Down Beat |location=Chicago |year=1966
citation |last1=Pullman |first1=Peter |title=Wail: The Life of Bud Powell |publisher=Peter Pullman, LLC |location=Brooklyn, NY |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-9851418-0-6
citation |last1=Patrick |first1=James |title="Al Tinney, Monroe's Uptown House, and the Emergence of Modern Jazz in Harlem" |publisher=Annual Review of Jazz Studies, IJS |location=New Brunswick, NJ |year=1983 |isbn=0-87855-906-X
citation |last1=Paudras |first1=Francis |last2=Monet |first2=Rubye (trans.) |title=Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell |publisher=Da Capo Press |location=New York |year=1998 |isbn=0-306-80816-1
citation |last1=Spellman |first1=A B |title=Four Jazz Lives |publisher=University of Michigan Press|location=Ann Arbor |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-472-08967-3
http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/burning-down-the-house-.html "Bud Powell Anthology" -- includes essays and transcriptions
http://www.freejazzlessons.com/shell-voicings-lesson-super-simple-yet-powerful-jazz-chords/ Reference article on Bud Powell's left hand jazz chords
Persondata | NAME = Powell, Bud | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | DATE OF BIRTH = September 27, 1924 | PLACE OF BIRTH = | DATE OF DEATH = July 31, 1966 | PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Bud Category:1924 births Category:1966 deaths Category:American jazz pianists Category:African American musicians Category:Bebop pianists Category:Musicians from New York City Category:Stride pianists Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Blue Note Records artists Category:ESP-Disk artists
