Jazz Articles about Bud Powell

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The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History And The Challenge of Bebop

by Ian Patterson
October 11, 2013

The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History And The Challenge of Bebop Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. 240 pages ISBN: 978-0-520-24391-0 University of California Press 2013 A new book on pianist Bud Powell is something of an event. The first full length book on one of jazz's most dazzling pianists, Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell, was written in French by Powell's former confidante and supporter Francis Paudras, and published ...

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Bud Powell: Live at the Blue Note Cafe, Paris 1961 & In Copenhagen

by George Kanzler
September 7, 2008

Bud Powell Live at the Blue Note Cafe, Paris 1961 ESP-Disk 2008 Bud Powell In Copenhagen Storyville 2008

Pianist Bud Powell's music is often buried in his tragic personal history, so much so that his story is best known through the film Round Midnight, where his character is transmogrified into a ...

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Bud Powell: Bud Powell in Copenhagen

by Chris Mosey
February 26, 2008

After establishing iconic status as the first great bop pianist in the 1940s, Bud Powell was plagued by both mental illness and a fondness for, to borrow his mentor Charlie Parker's famous phrase, “a little sherry before dinner." As a result his output was vastly uneven. Catch Powell right and he is brimfull of energy and ideas. Catch him wrong and, while the technique is there, his playing falls flat and lacks inspiration--it can even be a downright mess. Powell's ...

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Bud Powell: In Europe

by Ken Dryden
December 10, 2006

Bud Powell In Europe: Paris 1959-Copenhagen 1962 Efor Films 2006

European television seems to have been more diligent than American networks about presenting and preserving jazz broadcasts from the late '50s and early '60s, as evidenced by this DVD compiling three separate performances by Bud Powell.

On the 1959 set from Club St. Germaine in Paris, the pianist is in good form, sharing the stage with trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Barney Wilen, ...

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The Amazing One

by Rob Mariani
November 12, 2006

At Birdland, Pee Wee Marquette, the diminutive MC, had a way of shouting into the mike when he announced the names of band members. Anyone who has heard it can not forget it. It made your jaw ache like you'd just eaten a quart of ice cream on a bad filling. “Ladies and gentlemen, he shrilled with the mike pressed right to his mouth, popping it and then causing ear-shattering feed back. “ We'd like to bring to ...

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Charles Mingus: Mingus At Antibes

by C. Michael Bailey
August 10, 2005

Charles Mingus. You just have to know that he would have nudged, cajoled, or bullied his way into the top of this list, even twenty years after his death. Mingus at Antibes is a kinetic, frenetic, dysthymic document of the genius of an overly stimulated, overly indulgent, and overly gifted personality. Mingus was not unlike Mozart in the respect that many of Mozart's contemporaries pondered why God granted such an undeserving imp such talent. So with Mingus. How could such ...

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Bud Powell: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall

by C. Michael Bailey
August 9, 2005

In 1953 the jazz genre called Be Bop, Bop, Re Bop, or Modern Jazz had fully matured and was settling in as the established mainstream rather than the cutting edge movement it had been in the early 1940s. Jazz as a style collective had begun to further fray at the ends and Be Bop gave way to such subtypes as “Cool," “Hard Bop," “Third Stream," and “Soul Jazz," all considered reactions to Be Bop's frenetic, nervous nature. However, on May ...