jazz musician; pianist; composer
Personal Information
Born Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell, on September 27, 1924, in New York, NY; died July 31, 1966, in New York, NY; son of William Powell (a pianist) and Pearl Powell; married Frances Barnes; married Audrey Hill, 1953. children: Celia Barnes.
Career
At fifteen dropped out of high school to play local clubs; 1942-44; performed with the band of Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams; performed on New York City's 52nd Street with various jazzmen; recorded with Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon in 1946; recorded as trio leader for Blue Note and Verve labels, 1949-51; appeared at Jazz at Massey Hall concert in Toronto, Canada, 1953; performed with a trio at New York City's Birdland, 1953-57; performed in a trio with Charles Mingus and Elvin Jones, 1956; toured Paris with "Birdland 56" concert package; performed at the Club Saint Germain in Paris, 1957; moved to Paris in 1959; recorded and performed at clubs and concert dates throughout Europe; performed in a trio with Kenny Clarke and Peirre Michelot; returned to New York City in 1964; performed occasionally at Birdland.
Life's Work
A founding genius of bebop piano during the 1940s, Bud Powell's musical contributions helped define modern jazz music. Absorbing the lessons of European concert music, jazz pianists such as Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk, and the music of alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker, Powell's unique style served as a catalyst for modern jazz keyboard. An epitome of the tortured genius, Powell experienced psychological afflictions, intensified by substance abuse and electroshock treatments, which cut short a brilliant career. Because of Powell's personal travails, jazz writers have often overlooked his monumental musical achievements. Never forgotten by fellow musicians for his contributions, he spent his last years in Paris and New York City suffering from mental illness which limited him to playing occasional club dates and concerts. Under the honorary guardianship of French jazz aficionado Francis Paudras, he formed a friendship that served as the basis for the 1986 film Round Midnight.
Born in New York City on September 27, 1924, Earl "Bud" Powell began playing piano at six years of age, and subsequently received seven years of formal pianistic training. Powell's musical family included his father William, a talented stride pianist, brother William Jr., a violinist and trumpeter, and a younger brother Richie who became the pianist in the famed Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet. After dropping out of Dewitt Clinton High School at the age of 15, Powell played Coney Island clubs and Harlem nightspots such as actor Canada Lee's Chicken Coop. As a teenager he first heard jazz, and fell under the influence of pianist Billy Kyle, a member of bassist John Kirby's band who hailed from the school of Earl Hines. As jazz pianist Billy Taylor asserted in Swing to Bop, Kirby played a style that contained many "pre-bop" elements that helped bridge swing with modern jazz.
Mentored with Thelonious Monk
During the mid-1940s Powell met Thelonious Monk, the innovative composer and house pianist at Minton's Playhouse, one of Harlem's premiere birthplaces of bebop. After Monk first took him to Minton's, Powell was urged by the older keyboardist to perform among the other visiting musicians who constituted the core of New York City's bebop scene. As Thomas Owens asserted, in Bebop: The Music and Its Players, "There was a symbiotic relationship between Monk and Bud Powell," that benefitted Powell in an informal instruction by his older counterpart. According to musicians like drummer Kenny Clarke, Monk gave Powell many of written arrangements because he believed the younger pianist was the only one capable of playing his work. Powell's exceptional musical skills also astounded another member of Minton's bebop circle, Miles Davis who, in his memoir Miles, recalled that "Bud Powell was one of the few musicians I knew who could play, write, and read all kinds of music."
Like numerous other young jazzmen of the 1940s, Powell fell under the influence of alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker. As Thomas Owens asserted in Bebop: The Music and Its Players, "Powell was one of 'Bird's children' as surely as were any saxophonists of the time. He, more than any other early bebop pianist, transferred Parker's melodic vocabulary and phrasing to the piano." But as Gary Giddins asserted in the liner notes to The Genius of Bud Powell, "it would be a mistake to assume that Powell did nothing more than adopt Parker's percepts to the piano." As Giddins added, "The surface of his music seems frequently to be a mask made up of be-bop acrobatics, convoluted triplets, and flashy chromatic runs. Lurking below, however, is a confluence of emotions, ranging from self-lacerating ferocity to an elegant benignity more associated with [pianist] Teddy Wilson." Powell's close friend, Francis Paudras, also countered the notion that Powell simply translated Parker's music into the pianisitic idiom. Privy to tapes of Powell's playing recorded during the mid 1930s, Paudras, in his memoir Dance of the Infidels, asserted that the pianist's style had already possessed modernist elements and that it matured as a result of an independent vision which absorbed numerous musical sources.
Apart from the younger bebop innovators, Powell's most profound musical influence was Art Tatum, a virtuoso pianisitic talent whose music combined the elements of stride, swing, and European concert music. As pianist Erroll Garner explained in Notes and Tones, "To me Bud was the second greatest thing to Art Tatum....Bud came along later and added to what Tatum had....He was another Tatum, only much more modern." In summation of Powell's impact on bebop pianists, writer Whitney Baillet wrote in his book, American Musicians II, that during "the mid-1940s, Powell who came out of Kyle and Tatum, hypnotized a new generation of pianists. His single-note figures....particularly at up tempo....were nervous, hard, driven," which revealed "a coarse quick-wittedness."
Between 1943 and 1944 Powell, while still a teenager, performed and recorded with the band of trumpeter Cootie Williams, who served as his legal guardian. "When I was with Cootie Williams in 1944," recounted Powell in Dance of the Infidels, "I did most of the arrangements for the band 'cause I was the only one who could write music." Through Powell's insistence, Williams' band recorded Monk's classic ballad "Round Midnight." By the mid 1940s, Powell's musicianship found him abundant work on New York City's famed 52nd Street with musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Don Byas, Dexter Gordon, J.J. Johnson, and Sid Catlett. In 1946 he recorded sessions for the Savoy label with Dexter Gordon, and the following year with Charlie Parker which yielded the sides "Donna Lee" and "Chasin' the Bird." That same year, Powell recorded Monk's "Off Minor" nine months before its composer.
In the midst of establishing a music career, Powell suffered from physical and mental ailments. Withdrawn and aloof, Powell possessed a complex personality, and his penchant for alcohol only increased his unstable condition. In January of 1945, he received a blow on the head from a Philadelphia policeman, and was arrested for disorderly conduct. Powell received only superficial treatment for his head wound, and was often plagued with severe headaches. He was admitted to Bellevue for mental health treatment, and was subsequently confined to Creedmore Psychiatric Center.
Brilliant Trio Leader
Following his release from Creedmore, Powell recorded with the Blue Note label. Created from recording sessions held between 1949 and 1951, the album The Amazing Bud Powell Volume I showcased such Powell classics as "Bouncin' With Bud," "Dance of the Infidels," and "Un Poco Loco." Between 1950 and 1951, Powell also recorded for the Verve label. These sessions were featured on the album Genius of Bud Powell. Accompanied by bassist Ray Brown and Buddy Rich, Powell cut the sides "Tea For Two," "Hallelujah," and "Parisian Thoroughfare." The remaining solo piano numbers, recorded in February of 1951, included the original compositions "Oblivion," "Dusk in Sandi," and Hallucinations."
Arrested on a trumped up narcotics charge in 1951, Powell was placed in Bellevue's psychiatric ward. He was then admitted to Pilgrim State Hospital, where he underwent electroshock treatment before being transferred to Creedmore. Although Powell would still produce brilliant performances his playing, like his troubled personal life, became increasingly unpredictable. After his release from Creedmore in February of 1953, the State of New York declared Powell legally incompetent. Oscar Goodstein, owner of New York City's famed Birdland nightclub, became Powell's guardian and provided him with steady musical work. As bassist George Duvivier, who played with Powell at Birdland, related in his autobiography, Basically Speaking, "When I joined [Powell], he was already in the latter years of his career, and slowly deteriorating mentally. It was sad. There were nights when it was pure genius....We had no communication - only the music." Despite his increasing illness, Powell continued to record many fine Blue Note sides. His playing on sessions held in 1951 and 1953 which constitute The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 2, reveal a brilliant instrumentalist on such numbers as "Night in Tunisia," and the original compositions "Parisian Thoroughfare" and "Glass Enclosure," a piece which Powell claimed to describe his taste for drink.
Personal Troubles Increased
On May 15, 1953, Powell performed with the quintet of Parker, Gillespie, Mingus, and Roach at the Jazz at Massey Hall concert in Toronto, Canada. Recorded by Mingus and released on the Debut label, the date included a quintet release and a Powell trio performance, The Amazing Bud Powell at Massey Hall. On March 4, 1955, Powell was reunited with Parker, Mingus and Gillespie for a concert at Birdland. While on stage Powell insulted the saxophonist, who was ill. The two men began to exchange curses. Powell pounded his fists on the keyboard, and left the club. Eight days after the concert, Charlie Parker died in a New York City apartment. After Parker's death, Powell and Mingus formed a trio with drummer Elvin Jones. After Mingus' departure from the group in 1956, Jones continued to perform with Powell. In Notes and Tones, Jones, though in awe of Powell's musicianship, told the book's author Art Taylor that he "always had the impression that Bud had been hurt so much. He was like a delicate piece of china. I think he was an extremely sensitive person, a very beautiful person. I think he was a genius in what he was doing. His ideas about modern music were revolutionary."
Lived in Paris
The State of New York revoked Powell's need for legal guardianship in 1956, a decision that allowed him to travel to Europe as part of a package jazz tour, "Birdland 1956." During his short stay, he performed with a trio at a Paris nightclub, the St. Germain. In 1957, Powell returned to the St. Germain and received a hero's welcome. Jazz aficionado Francis Paudras, who was in attendance that evening, recounted in his memoir Dance of the Infidels, "The music he played was elusive but so appealing, and in it I felt his suffering." Powell recorded the Blue Note album, The Scene Changes, in 1958 with Taylor and bassist Paul Chambers, an effort that recaptured some of his earlier brilliance. Booked for an engagement at the Blue Note in Paris, Powell, accompanied by his girlfriend Buttercup and her young son Johnny, left for France in 1959.
While at the Blue Note, Powell performed with a resident trio comprised of drummer Kenny Clarke and Pierrre Michelot. Nicknamed the Three Bosses, the trio, noted Clarke's biographer Mike Hennesey in Klook, marked "the golden age of jazz in Paris and the presence of Kenny Clarke and Bud Powell at the Blue Note....was unquestionably a key factor in the high level of jazz activity in the French capital." While living in Paris Powell often embarked on European tours, and made guest appearances with visiting American musicians. In 1959, he sat in with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers at the Theatre des Champs-Elyees. The following year, Powell appeared as a guest with Charles Mingus' band at the Antibes Jazz Festival. This concert was later captured on the Atlantic album, Mingus Live at Antibes. In the recording's liner notes, Robert Palmer wrote, "The pianist is in a deliberate mood here, phrasing in a blocked-out, infinitesimally behind-the-beat manner that brings forth the Powell-Monk relationship to mind. His style is leaner and less like a steamroller than in his earlier years, and there are a few occasions when his articulation is not all it could be, but these are the kind of quibbles only a pedant would take seriously. The man is playing music of a very high order." In 1960, Powell participated in a live recording with legendary tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and, the following year, recorded with a trio for the Mystic Sound label.
While in Paris, Powell did not find a respite from his personal troubles. His bouts with alcoholism and its unpredictable effects alarmed fellow artists and club owners. Saxophonist Jackie McLean, in Jazz Masters of the Forties, related how "all Paris knows Bud - when I say Paris, I mean all the jazz people and artists, and they know its not a good idea to give Bud anything to drink....One glass of brandy can completely flip him around. I've never seen juice affect anyone like that." Under the harsh dominance of his girlfriend Buttercup, who garnished his wages, Powell was given doses of an anti-schizophrenic drug that nearly incapacitated him. In 1962 Francis Paudras, who had struck up a friendship with Powell, discovered that his friend had been admitted to a psychiatric ward in Paris. After securing Powell's release, Paudras served as his honorary guardian. Powell's troubled life in Paris is recounted in Paudras's memoir, Dance of the Infidels, which details Powell's troubled existence, and his effort to look after the welfare of a musician whose brilliance he ranked with Debussy and Ravel. Paudras's memoir subsequently inspired Bertrand Tavernier's 1986 film Round Midnight, in which the main character, played by Dexter Gordon, emerged as a composite of Powell and saxophonist Lester Young.
In May of 1963, Powell provided the piano accompaniment for Dexter Gordon's album Our Man in Paris. Powell's performances with Kenny Clarke and Pierre Michelot, described by Ira Gitler in Jazz Masters of the Forties, revealed "a flowing line of improvisation, even if the old fire is not there." In 1963 Powell contracted tuberculosis and, in October of that year, Oscar Goodstein held a Birdland benefit concert to help pay for the ailing pianist's medical expenses. Although he had planned to come to America for a brief visit, Powell left Paris in 1964 and never returned. As Tyler Stovall commented, in his study, Paris Noir, "Paris helped restore Bud Powell but could not save him...."
Last Years In America
Accompanied by Paudras, Powell arrived in New York on August 1, 1964. Powell played an extended engagement at Birdland where, in March of 1965, he appeared at a concert commemorating the tenth anniversary of Charlie Parker's death. During the summer of 1965, Powell discovered that he had severe liver damage. He continued to perform, but his musical skills were severely reduced. On July 31, 1966, Powell died in New York City's Kings County Hospital. An estimated 5,000 people lined the streets to bid farewell to Powell as his body passed in funeral procession. The procession was led by a Jazzmobile on which Barry Harris and Lee Morgan played Monk's "Round Midnight," "Dance of the Infidels," and "Bud's Bubble."
As jazz writer Ira Gitler noted in his work Jazz Masters of the Forties, "Despite the deterioration suffered by Bud Powell through his many and varied encounters with illness, his mark has been ineradicably stamped on the music of his native country." As the founder of an entire school of modern jazz piano, Powell's music has inspired musicians such as Bill Evans and Cecil Taylor. He remains an important influence for all who perform post-bebop acoustic jazz piano.
Awards
The Schaeffer Award.
Works
Selected discography
- The Amazing Bud Powell Vol. I, Blue Note.
- The Amazing Bud Powell Vol. 2, Blue Note.
- The Genius of Bud Powell, Verve, 1950, reissue 1988.
- Jazz at Massey Hall Vol. Two, Bud Powell Trio, Debut (recorded 1953) reissue Original Jazz Classics, 1991.
- Strictly Powell, RCA, 1957.
- Swingin' With Bud, RCA, 1958.
- The Scene Changes, The Amazing Bud Powell, Blue Note, (recorded 1958) reissued 1987.
- Portrait of Thelonious Monk, Columbia, 1961.
- The Complete Bud Powell on Verve, Verve, 1994.
- The Complete Blue Note(CD Box set), Blue Note 1994.
- Jazz Profile, Blue Note 1997.
- Young Bud, Indigo, 1999.
- With Others
- The Quintet, Jazz at Massey Hall, Debut (recorded 1953) reissue 1989.
- Dexter Gordon, Our Man in Paris, Blue Note (recorded 1963) 1987.
- Mingus at Antibes, Atlantic, 1976, reissued 1994.
Further Reading
Books
- Baillett, Whitney, American Musicians II: Seventy-One Portraits in Jazz, 1996, p. 455.
- Berger, Edward, Bassically Speaking: An Oral History of George Duvivier, The Scarecrow Press, 1993, p. 91.
- Davis, Miles, with Quincy Troupe, Miles, The Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1990, p. 60.
- Gitler, Ira, From Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940s, Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 103.
- Gitler, Ira, Jazz Masters of the Forties, Collier Books, 1966, pp. 110-130.
- Hennesey, Mike, Klook: The Story of Kenny Clarke, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990, p. 152.
- Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews, expanded edition, Da Capo, 1977, p. 225.
- Owens, Thomas, Bebop: The Music and Its Players, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 146.
- Paudras, Francis, Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell, translated from the original French by Rubye Monet English translation edited by Warren Bernhardt, Da Capo, 1998.
- Stovall, Tyler, Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light, Houghton Mifflin, 1996, p. 241.
- Additional information for this profile was obtained from the liner notes by Robert Palmer to Mingus at Antibes, Atlantic Records, and the liner notes by Gary Giddins to The Genius of Bud Powell, Verve Records.
— John Cohassey
