Born Sept. 27, 1924, Powell helped set the type for jazz piano after WWII. Whereas earlier pianists performed busy bass patterns, he helped set up a extra fragmented, punctuating position for the left hand.
TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. Jazz pianist Bud Powell was born Sept. 27, 1924. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead, says Powell’s life was typically a nightmare. He was shy and withdrawn, even earlier than getting severely overwhelmed by Philadelphia Transit Police in 1945. After that, he was out and in of psychological well being services for years and regularly handled with shock remedy. Of us who sorted him did not at all times do proper by him. However Kevin says Bud Powell’s music is a special story. Greater than anybody, he set the type for jazz piano after World Conflict II.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUD POWELL’S “DANCE OF THE INFIDELS”)
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Bud Powell reside at New York’s Birdland, 1953. In a means, all improvising is autobiographical, revealing a participant’s historical past, coaching, tastes and strengths. So we glance to improvisers’ lives to light up their artwork. However with Bud Powell, there’s typically a putting disconnect between the hectic life and orderly improvising. Some Bud watchers give attention to the gloom. Like different pianists, he absentmindedly sang alongside together with his proper hand in solidarity together with his instrument. However when Bud did it, some people marvel, was that singing alongside, a cry of ache? It will probably sound extra like laughter.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUD POWELL’S “BLUE PEARL”)
WHITEHEAD: Inspired by fellow pianist, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell got here up within the mid-Nineteen Forties, a cut up second behind the bebop pioneers who have been revolutionizing jazz, rhythm and concord, complicating every thing. First amongst revolutionaries was saxophonist Charlie Parker, together with his quicksilver timing, offbeat phrasing and right-sounding incorrect notes.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE PARKER’S “BUZZY”)
WHITEHEAD: Parker’s solo language, his entire feeling, was massively influential. Swiftly, trombonists, drummers, pianists – all of them aimed a phrase with Charlie Parker’s pace and magnificence, Bud Powell included.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE PARKER’S “BUZZY”)
WHITEHEAD: Bud Powell could not actually be a Charlie Parker copycat since he did not play a horn. A well-trained pianist with approach to burn, Bud sat up straight on the bench, not even glancing on the keys. Whereas his proper hand sang like a hen, his grunting or murmuring left hand went its personal means. Earlier jazz pianists performed busy bass patterns that drove the music’s rhythm. Consider boogie-woogie. Bud Powell helped set up a brand new, extra fragmented, punctuating position for left hand, a little bit revolution in itself. Rhythmic dialogue between fingers propels the beat.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUD POWELL TRIO’S “BUD’S BUBBLE”)
WHITEHEAD: Bebop drum virtuoso Max Roach, whose personal centennial was in January. That is 1947’s “Bud’s Bubble,” one in all a number of Powell titles, alluding to his withdrawn nature, which did depart some audible traces on his music. Bud favored his minor keys, and the repetitions embedded in his 1953 composition “Glass Enclosure” do convey a boxed-in feeling.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUD POWELL’S “GLASS ENCLOSURE”)
WHITEHEAD: Bud Powell’s reside and recorded work was inconsistent throughout and after the years he was out and in of psychological well being services. Generally he was launched simply in time to satisfy a nightclub engagement, and typically individuals assumed that to be true when it wasn’t. 5 later years he spent in Paris have been memorialized within the 1986 film “Spherical Midnight,” about an expat American jazz man who arrives in tough form and barely hangs on. However on the final album Powell made earlier than heading to Paris, 1958’s “The Scene Adjustments,” he performs with clear authority and few missteps. That is “Crossin’ The Channel.”
(SOUNDBITE OF BUD POWELL’S “CROSSIN’ THE CHANNEL”)
WHITEHEAD: That final episode, the place each fingers performed the identical line in octaves, was a retort to older pianists who accused him of getting a weak left hand. On the identical date, Bud Powell reduce the pointedly lighthearted tune “Borderick,” which he’d improvised one evening to amuse his 3-year-old son. A seldom mentioned tune at odds with the tragic Bud stereotype, it reminds us Bud Powell’s music contained mild and pleasure, in addition to darkish clouds. Name it a triumph of exuberance over bleak expertise.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUD POWELL’S “BORDERICK”)
MOSLEY: Kevin Whitehead is the creator of “Play The Approach You Really feel: The Important Information To Jazz Tales On Movie,” “Why Jazz?” and “New Dutch Swing,” which has simply been reissued. That is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF GERALD CLAYTON’S “SOUL STOMP”)
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