Bud Powell

Harlem and bebop

Earl Rudolph Powell, known as Bud, was born on September 27, 1924 in Harlem (his birth certificate wrongly says 1922). His grandfather Zachary was a flamenco guitarist, his father William a stride pianist and his brother William a trumpeter and violinist who took him into his band at about 15. His brother Richie, seven years younger and also a pianist, gave him the nickname as a corruption of brother. He took classical lessons from age five, idolized Art Tatum, mastered James P. Johnson's "Carolina Shout", and played his first professional job accompanying the singer Valaida Snow.

From 1943 to 1945 he was pianist, then musical director and arranger, for Cootie Williams, and recorded the first version of Monk's "'Round Midnight" with Williams in 1944. He recorded with Frank Socolow, Sarah Vaughan, Dexter Gordon, J. J. Johnson, Sonny Stitt, Fats Navarro and Kenny Clarke in 1945 and 1946, and Monk wrote "In Walked Bud" for him. His first Roost trio sessions with Curley Russell and Max Roach were in January 1947, and he recorded with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tommy Potter and Roach for Savoy in May 1947. Bill Cunliffe calls him the first pianist to adapt Parker's language to the instrument: single-note right-hand runs, with the left hand punctuating with chords.

Blue Note and Paris

His first Blue Note session was on August 8, 1949, with Navarro, Sonny Rollins, Potter and Roy Haynes. He played Carnegie Hall on December 25, 1949 with Miles Davis and Stitt, recorded One Night in Birdland with Parker and Navarro in 1950, and on May 1, 1951 made the Blue Note trio session with Russell and Roach that produced "Un Poco Loco". Blue Note's page says most historians place his best work between 1949 and 1953. In 1953 Oscar Goodstein, the owner of Birdland, became his guardian and financial manager, and on May 15, 1953 he played Massey Hall in Toronto with Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus and Roach, released by Debut.

He moved to Paris in spring 1959 and made Bud in Paris, played the Essen Jazz Festival in 1960 and Antibes that July with Mingus, and led the Three Bosses trio with Kenny Clarke and Pierre Michelot at the Blue Note club in 1961-62. Our Man in Paris, with Dexter Gordon, was recorded in 1963. The caretaker Francis Paudras brought him back to New York on August 16, 1964, and he played Birdland from August 25. He died on July 31, 1966, aged 41; the funeral on August 8 in Harlem had bands in the streets and was televised. The film Round Midnight (1986), by Bertrand Tavernier, was based on Paudras's story.

Legacy

Horace Silver, Wynton Kelly, Alice Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson and Keith Jarrett are among the pianists credited as influenced by him, and Corea made Remembering Bud Powell in 1997. Monk is quoted as saying no one could play like Bud: too difficult, too quick, incredible. Peter Pullman wrote Wail: The Life of Bud Powell (2012) and Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. The Amazing Bud Powell (2013). His daughter Celia founded the Mythic Sound label.