The O'Zone | Un Poco Loco: The Influence of Bud Powell
“Every jazz pianist since Bud either came through him or is deliberately attempting to get away from playing like him.” — Herbie Hancock
THE FATHER OF MODERN JAZZ PIANO:
Bud Powell had a reputation for being an “oddball” but he was more known for his towering influence and musical skills. Many cite Bud as the prime influence on the entirety of modern jazz piano (myself included).
“No one could play like Bud; too difficult, too quick, incredible!” — Thelonius Monk
Powell’s father was a stride pianist, but Bud began piano lessons at age 5, studying classical music. At 10 years old, he showed an interest in swing music and started adapting Broadway songs to jazz improvisation.
A natural prodigy, he would often jam with close friend Elmo Hope. Eventually, Thelonious Monk and Bud became very close friends.
“He could play Monk better than anyone I knew. Bud, Elmo Hope, and Monk were the Three Musketeers; they found each other’s company around the piano to be the greatest fun, each eager to see what they could do with each other's ideas.” — Mary Lou Williams
Monk mentored Powell and much later took a rap for Bud that cost Monk his cabaret card (so that Bud could continue to do shows in New York). Monk also wrote the classic “In Walked Bud” for his friend. Here is the original version.
A Racial Profile, A Beating, A Lifetime of Misery
At the age of 20, Bud was at Philadelphia’s Broad Street Station while on tour with Cootie Williams. While there, he attracted the attention of a squad of brutal transit police who profiled the young man as deserving their attention.
They beat the young man senseless. Sources maintained that it was an incident of racial profiling that led to a severe head injury. Years of pain and misdiagnoses dogged the genius throughout his career (alongside the psychological pain of arrest and brutality). To reconcile his anxieties and pain, he started drinking and taking medication. The drinking and subsequent mental illness exacerbated by his abuse caused Bud years of hospitalizations.
He was hospitalized at Bellvue after complaints of headaches from his beating, subsequently winding up at Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital in Queens, where he was given electroshock treatments for 11 months until his 1948 release. Most people who knew him claimed he was never the same after that.
Elmo Hope visited Powell regularly while he was institutionalized and was concerned about the forced tranquilizers and sleeping pills given to Powell.
In his autobiography, Miles Davis expressed his fondness for Powell but also “lamented his health and mental issues” and referred to Powell as “tormented.”
In 1956, Bud’s younger brother Richie died in a car crash along with Clifford Brown. Saddened by the loss, he fell from the public view among musicians and the jazz public for a period. But despite chronically ill health, he continued to perform, record and tour almost to the very end.
Bud Powell was ultimately placed under a guardianship that took control over his life. He left this earth on July 31, 1966, succumbing to malnutrition, tuberculosis and alcoholism; but his impact lives on, particularly among his fellow musicians.
“He was a tragic genius, his torment, poverty and struggles contrasted sharply with the beauty and innovation of his music.”-- Jason Moran
“He was like a mad genius; he was like Beethoven, playing with him was a heady experience! We all looked up to him. He was one of the gods to young musicians.
The great professor of music playing the piano, he was able to articulate so much of the be-bop language.” — Sonny Rollins
“He loved a fast tempo, his was the most brilliant that a spirit might be, a unique genius in our culture.” — Max Roach
As I did the research for this piece, I found myself feeling equal parts heartbroken and angry at how things today and yesterday are so terribly similar. Does being intoxicated warrant a beating?
But also was left realizing that, despite this, what we are left with is a legacy of music that is dazzling and ingenious.
As I looked at Bud’s life, the same sentences appeared, “after a brief hospitalization,” “following medical evaluation,” “upon his release,” but the one that stuck in my heart referred to his stay at Creedmore…Attempts to tell the hospital staff he was a pianist who had “made records” led to his dismissal as a fantasist, and in psychiatric interviews, he expressed feelings of persecution founded in racism.
Sit with that for a minute, and then remember those words led to electroconvulsive therapy.
What snaps me out of it is that Bud was beloved by his many friends and peers. His discography is vast: with almost a hundred recordings as a leader and dozens of dates as a sideman. Live at Massey Hall is one of the most revered recordings in jazz history; he drives that band of all-stars: Bird and Diz and Roach and Mingus. Historic!
The triumph of jazz music stands tall over abuse, beatings, shock treatments and racism. Powell’s immense significance as the influence of modern jazz piano has been the North Star for post bop piano.
“Bud was an important influence for me…he had such a sense of the form. If I had to choose one single musician for his artistic integrity and the grandeur of his work, it would be Bud Powell.” — Bill Evans
Think of the dozens of contemporaries directly influenced by Powell and the dozens from the next generation of players like Bill Evans or Chick Corea, and the hundreds of ongoing who have been influenced subsequently. What Bud did was shift the piano from the role of an accompanist into that of a soloist. Oh yes, there were soloists, great ones!
Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Earl Fatha Hines… but Bud even influenced those giants.
“Bud is a genius.” — Charlie Parker
“Bud is a genuine genius.” — Duke Ellington
“He laid down the basis of modern jazz piano.” — Dizzy Gillespie
Bud also impacted artists internationally via his extensive touring overseas. He toured Europe frequently, eventually moving to Paris, where he lived until the summer of 1964. There, he made dear friends and influenced the jazz scene in Europe. There is a song that we finish with…picture him walking the streets of Paris with his composition “Parisian Thoroughfare,” my favorite tune by Bud.
"Bud Powell" — Poem by Andy O’
A rainy Sunday Night on city streets
They called you crazy
It must have broken your heart
The piano splashes up
An Uber girl listening, driving
The windshield wipers
Can’t keep up with you
She smirks a smile at that
and says
Crazy…
Picture of Bud Powell courtesy of Jazz Piano School - Bud Powell Transcriptions
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