Un Poco Loco

Powell wrote it alone and recorded it on May 1, 1951 at WOR Studios in New York with Russell on bass and Roach on drums, produced by Alfred Lion. Jazzdisco lists three takes, BN382-1 (3:46), BN382-2 (4:28) and the master BN382-4 (4:42), which was the Blue Note single 1577, coupled with "It Could Happen to You". Our upload is most likely the master.

In Peter Pullman's account as retold by Blue Note, Powell arrived, went to the bathroom and slipped out of the building, and Russell and Roach waited about ninety minutes before he returned; Lion recalled that nobody was prepared. Roach recalled that Powell objected when he played a conventional Afro-Cuban beat on the first take, telling him he was supposed to be Max Roach, and that he responded by turning the groove into an 8/8 rhythm, a single-source recollection relayed by Everything Jazz. Ethan Iverson thinks the 5+5+6 clave in the second take probably came from Roach's imagination and that Roach would be justified in calling himself co-composer.

The tune has a 32-bar form and is Lydian-based, with overlapping chords that suggest polytonality, such as D major 7 over C major 7. Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. argues it marks the establishment of Afro-Cuban jazz within bebop, and Scott Yanow notes it was Powell's only involvement with Afro-Cuban jazz. Leonard Feather's liner notes say the first take bogs down and the second lacks the conviction of the third, the version released on 78. Harold Bloom named it among the most sublime works of 20th-century American art in the late 1980s, and Blue Note calls it one of Bud's most celebrated tunes. Ethan Iverson's big-band album Bud Powell in the 21st Century (2021) includes it, from a search result we could not open. No chart history was found.