1. Mel Powell served as a music educator for over 40 years, first at Mannes College of Music and Queens College, then Yale University, and finally at CalArts.
16 Facts About Mel Powell
1. 2.
Mel Powell was born Melvin D Epstein on February 12,1923, in The Bronx, New York City, the second of Russian Jewish parents Milton Epstein and Mildred Mark Epstein's three children.
3.
Mel Powell began playing piano at age four, taking lessons from, among others, Nadia Reisenberg.
4.
Mel Powell changed his last name from Epstein to Powell in 1941 shortly before joining Benny Goodman's band.
5.
Mel Powell's style was rooted in the stride style that was the direct precursor to swing piano.
6.
Mel Powell played himself in the movie A Song Is Born, appearing along with many other famous jazz players, including Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.
7.
Mel Powell was reliant on a wheelchair for some time, then walked with aid of a cane.
8.
At first sticking to neoclassical styles of composition, Mel Powell increasingly explored atonality, or "non-tonal" music as he called it, as well as the serialism advocated by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg.
9.
Mel Powell composed several electronic pieces in the 1960s, some of which were performed at the Electric Circus in New York's East Village, a venue that saw performances by groundbreaking rock music acts like the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead.
10.
Mel Powell composed for orchestra, chorus, voice, and chamber ensemble throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
11.
In 1987, Mel Powell joined other musicians for a jazz festival on the cruise ship SS Norway, playing alongside Benny Carter, Howard Alden, Milt Hinton, Louie Bellson and others.
12.
The recording includes 20 minutes of Mel Powell discussing his life and his reasons for leaving jazz.
13.
In 1990, Mel Powell received his highest career achievement, the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his work Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.
14.
Mel Powell died at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, on April 24,1998, from liver cancer.
15.
Mel Powell was survived by his wife, actress Martha Scott, two daughters and a stepson.
16.
Mel Powell was buried in the Masonic Cemetery in his wife's hometown of Jamesport, Missouri.