75 Facts About Bud Powell

Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American jazz pianist and composer.

Bud Powell returned to a regular recording schedule, toured across Northern and Central Europe, and made records, before becoming ill with tuberculosis in 1963.

Bud Powell's date of birth on his birth certificate was incorrectly listed as 1922, but he was born in 1924.

Bud Powell began to take classical piano lessons at the age of five.

Bud Powell's teacher, hired by his father, was a West Indian man named William Rawlins.

At 10 years of age, Bud Powell showed interest in swing music, and he first appeared in public at a rent party, where he mimicked Fats Waller's playing style.

Bud Powell enrolled in classical music competitions but was admired by jazz musicians and shifted toward jazz after leaving DeWitt Clinton High School.

The first jazz composition that he mastered was James P Johnson's "Carolina Shout", but at an early age Powell developed an interest in adapting Broadway songs to jazz improvisation.

Bud Powell's father made private tape recordings of him from 1934 to 1939; for these he played classical music and jazz standards.

Bud Powell became a friend of fellow jazz pianist Elmo Hope during his childhood.

The nickname "Bud Powell," given to him by Richie, was a corruption of "brother".

Bud Powell appeared in performances at Coney Island and Canada Lee's Chicken Coop and played with a group known as the Sunset Royals.

When Monk met Bud Powell he introduced Bud Powell to musicians who were starting to play bebop at Minton's Playhouse.

Bud Powell worked as a pianist for dance bands, his incubation culminating in becoming the pianist for the swing orchestra of trumpeter Cootie Williams.

Bud Powell was the pianist on a handful of Williams's recording dates in 1944 and embarked on a tour of the South with his band.

Bud Powell frequently clashed with Williams over what tunes the band would play, and by the mid-1940s the pianist had shifted toward the bebop scene on 52nd Street.

Bud Powell was beaten up by them and incarcerated briefly by the city police, but as his headaches persisted, he moved to his family's second home in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.

Bud Powell became known for his sight-reading and his skill at fast tempos.

Charlie Parker chose Bud Powell to be his pianist on a May 1947 quintet recording session with Miles Davis, Tommy Potter, and Max Roach; this was the only studio session intended for release in which Parker and Bud Powell played together.

In November 1947, Bud Powell had an altercation with a customer at a bar in Harlem.

Bud Powell was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was found to be "incoherent and rambunctious", and so was moved to Bellevue, which had a record of his previous confinement there and at a psychiatric hospital.

Bud Powell received electroconvulsive therapy while institutionalized, but was released after eleven months.

Bud Powell's only daughter, Celia, was born in 1948; Bud Powell named one of his compositions after her.

Bud Powell recorded that summer for two independent producers, a session that resulted in eight masters; Max Roach and Curly Russell were his accompanists.

In January 1950, Bud Powell was back in the studio with Stitt to record more of their joint album, but it was Bud Powell's trio recording the following month that contributed to his famous album Jazz Giant.

Bud Powell joined Charlie Parker and Fats Navarro at Birdland for One Night in Birdland, a live album performed shortly before Navarro's death from tuberculosis in July 1950.

Bud Powell was recorded at Birdland for the live album Summit Meeting at Birdland with Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet and Parker on saxophone.

Bud Powell was interrupted by another stay in a psychiatric facility from late 1951 to mid-1952 after being arrested for possession of heroin.

Bud Powell was transferred to Creedmoor Hospital in 1952 and was not permanently released until 1953.

In February 1953, Bud Powell entered the guardianship and financial management of Oscar Goodstein, owner of the Birdland nightclub, but saw his health and piano playing affected by the antipsychotic medication Largactil, which he was prescribed as treatment for schizophrenia.

Bud Powell played at Massey Hall in Toronto with The Quintet, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach, on May 15,1953.

However, Bud Powell's alcoholism was a constant problem, and he recruited several groupies from Utah to prevent him from buying alcohol or stealing drinks.

Gitler cites 1953 and 1954 as when Bud Powell became less talkative, more withdrawn, and less technically able as a pianist.

Bud Powell was briefly married to Audrey Hill, but they separated and divorce proceedings were never finalized.

One of his few New York engagements during this time, with Parker and Kenny Dorham in March 1955 shortly before the former's death, ended early when Parker and Bud Powell had an argument.

Additionally, Bud Powell was still under a guardianship and therefore lacked control over the release of his recordings, leading many to be released where he was confused or unable to play.

Bud Powell became a friend of his in his later years and contributed to the liner notes of The Complete Bud Powell on Verve.

Bud Powell was arrested but later released on the basis that he was not biologically capable of being a father.

Around the same time as this incident, the New York Supreme Court rescinded its claim that Bud Powell was mentally incompetent, again enabling him to tour.

Bud Powell took part in the spring 1956 Birdland Tour organized by Morris Levy, for which he was joined by bassist Joe Benjamin and drummer Roy Haynes.

Nat Hentoff, writing for DownBeat, noted that during the Tour, Bud Powell's style appeared to have become calmer and more lucid, contrasting with the turbulence of his playing in previous years.

Hentoff remarked that, in his opinion, Bud Powell's constant touring was bad for his mental health, and that he needed psychotherapy while traveling due to the "grueling" nature of nightly performances.

Attorney Cohen responded that Bud Powell was the one who wanted to tour, and wrote that the pianist was recovering from his illness.

Bud Powell continued to perform at Birdland throughout fall 1956 and recorded for RCA Victor in late 1956 and early 1957.

Bud Powell returned to his trio with Duvivier and Taylor but, according to later comments from Duvivier, refused to talk to his bandmates, who played entire sets entirely by ear.

Bud Powell experienced further hospital stays in the US before being convinced by Edwards to move to France in the spring of 1959.

Bud Powell moved to Paris in 1959 with Altevia "Buttercup" Edwards and her son, John.

In 1960, Bud Powell was joined by Oscar Pettiford and Kenny Clarke on a German tour including the Essen Jazz Festival.

In December 1961, Bud Powell recorded two albums for Columbia Records while in France: and A Portrait of Thelonious and A Tribute to Cannonball.

Meanwhile, Bud Powell formed the Three Bosses Trio with Clarke and Michelot for a regular gig at the Blue Note Club in Paris, and a compilation of recordings at the venue supplied the music for the album 'Round About Midnight at the Blue Note.

In early 1962, Bud Powell began a tour of Central Europe.

Bud Powell was tracked down by biographer and pianist Francis Paudras, who believed that Powell had been abused by his common-law wife Edwards during the couple's preceding years together.

Bud Powell was examined by a doctor; he claimed to be suffering from fatigue and revealed that he suffered from nightmares and heard voices.

Bud Powell made a series of record dates throughout spring and early summer 1963, including a Frank Sinatra-sponsored and Duke Ellington-produced trio recording with Gilbert Rovere and "Kansas" Fields in February and an album with tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon in May The latter became the album Our Man in Paris and received the highest possible ratings from The Penguin Guide to Jazz, The Rolling Stone Album Guide, and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.

Bud Powell completed further recording dates, including two with Paudras on makeshift brushes, during his last year in France; a further live engagement with Griffin in Jullouville was released on Mythic Sound as Holidays in Edenville.

Paudras returned to France on October 27 without Bud Powell, who decided to stay in New York with Frances Barnes, his girlfriend from the late 1940s, and the couple's daughter Celia.

Bud Powell's guardianship was transferred from Paudras to Bernard Stollman of ESP Records upon returning to New York, and with the exception of hospital visits, he remained at Barnes's home until shortly before his death in 1966.

Bud Powell hasn't lost his marvelous touch and sound, and everything he played revealed a sense of balance and proportion.

Akiyoshi noted in a letter to Paudras that Bud Powell played an opening night at Birdland in spring 1965, but remarked that he was unwell.

Bud Powell was admitted to Kings County Hospital in early autumn 1965, where he played a small performance for producer Alan Bates and wrote four compositions, but after his release he became extremely ill.

Bud Powell was hospitalized again in 1966 following weight loss, erratic behavior, and self-neglect.

Bud Powell was given the last rites of the Catholic Church and was visited by his family and Jackie McLean on his deathbed.

Bud Powell's funeral was celebrated on August 8,1966, with several bands playing through the streets of Harlem and arriving at Powell's former church; performers included trombonist Benny Green, trumpeter Lee Morgan, saxophonist Jim Gilmore, pianist Barry Harris, bassist Don Moore, and drummer Billy Higgins.

Bud Powell was one of the key contributors to the development of bebop.

Bud Powell was, in turn, influenced primarily by Thelonious Monk and Art Tatum.

Bud Powell's virtuosity led many to call him the Charlie Parker of the piano, and Bill Cunliffe noted that he was "the first pianist to take Charlie Parker's language and adapt it" to the instrument, although this assessment has been criticized.

Bud Powell's solos featured an attacking style similar to that of horn players, contained frequent arpeggios, and utilized much chromaticism.

Christopher Finch, who heard him play with a young French bassist late 1962, noted that he struggled to play even basic melodies with which the bassist was unfamiliar, but when Bud Powell asked the bassist to pick a tune he knew, his technique immediately recovered.

Bud Powell's comping often consisted of single bass notes outlining the root and fifth.

Bud Powell used voicings of the root and the tenth or the root with the minor seventh.

Tom Piazza noted for The New York Times that Bud Powell played with "a Romantic's imagination [but] a classicist's precision and [with] an awesome, sometimes frightening, intensity" and was a "lifelong Bach devotee".

Bud Powell wrote poems for each of his compositions, but most of his poetry was lost, and many of the poems were neither written on paper nor copyrighted.

Bud Powell influenced a wide array of younger musicians, especially pianists.

Only his old friends and the seasoned jazz fans knew the real Bud Powell, who was warm, witty, and one of the most intelligent persons I ever knew.

Bud Powell was praised by Art Blakey, Don Cherry, Kenny Clarke, Erroll Garner, Hampton Hawes, Freddie Hubbard, Carmen McRae, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Randy Weston, and Tony Williams.