Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was an American jazz pianist and composer. A pioneer in the development of bebop and its associated contributions to jazz theory, Powell's application of complex phrasing to the piano influenced both his contemporaries and later pianists including Walter Davis Jr., Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Barry Harris.
Born in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance to a musical family, Powell, during the 1930s, developed an attacking, right-handed approach to the piano, which marked a break from the left-handed approach of stride and ragtime that had been prevalent. Upon joining trumpeter Cootie Williams's band in 1943, he received attention from the broader musical community for his fluency and advanced technique. In 1945, he suffered a severe beating by police, followed by several years of intermittent institutionalizations. His recordings and live performances with Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, and Max Roach during the late 1940s and early 1950s played an important role in the development of modern jazz piano technique.
Following the release of his guardianship and a partial health recovery in the mid- to late 1950s, Powell's relocation to Paris, France, in 1959, contributed to the community of African-American expatriates fleeing racism and barriers to a higher standard of living. He returned to a regular recording schedule, toured across Northern and Central Europe, and made records, before becoming ill with tuberculosis in 1963.
Despite the friendship and protection of French jazz aficionado Francis Paudras, ill health and an alcohol addiction following a troubled return to New York hastened Powell's death in 1966 at the age of 41. The decades following his death saw his career and life story become the inspiration for films and written works, including Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight. Many Powell compositions, including "Un Poco Loco", "Bouncing with Bud", and "Parisian Thoroughfare" have become jazz standards.
Powell was born in Harlem, New York, United States, in 1924. The birthdate on his birth certificate was incorrectly listed as 1922. Zachary, his grandfather, was a flamenco guitarist and Spanish-American War veteran. His father William was a stride pianist.
Powell began taking classical piano lessons at the age of five. His piano teacher, hired by his father, was a West Indian man named William Rawlins. As Powell was an altar boy at a Catholic church in Harlem, he also learned to play church organ. At 10 years of age, Powell showed interest in swing music, and he first appeared in public at a rent party, where he emulated the playing styles of Fats Waller and Art Tatum, (the latter of whom became Powell's idol). He 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. His father made private tape recordings of him from 1934 to 1939; for these he played classical music and jazz standards. According to Francis Paudras, a friend of Powell's who heard the recordings, he had already developed his characteristic right-hand-focused approach to piano by that point.
Bud became a friend of fellow jazz pianist Elmo Hope during his childhood. Powell and Hope performed hymns and Bach compositions for Hope's mother, who had a piano at her home, but also experimented with harmonic ideas such as flattened fifths. Powell's younger brother by seven years, Richie Powell, learned piano as well. The nickname "Bud," given to him by Richie, was a corruption of "brother".
Older brother William played trumpet and violin and brought Bud, by now 15 years old, into his band. With this experience, Bud began a professional career; his first gig was as an accompanist for jazz singer Valaida Snow. Powell also appeared in performances at Coney Island and Canada Lee's Chicken Coop and played with a group known as the Sunset Royals.
1943–1945: Cootie Williams's band
In his youth Powell listened to the adventurous performances at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, a venue near his home. This was where Charlie Parker first appeared as a solo act when the saxophone player briefly stayed in New York between stints with swing bands. Thelonious Monk played at Uptown House. When Monk met Powell he introduced Powell to musicians who were starting to play bebop at Minton's Playhouse. Monk was a resident pianist, and he presented Powell as his protégé. Their mutual affection grew, and Monk wrote "In Walked Bud" as a tribute to their time together in Harlem. Monk, Powell, and Hope held jam sessions together at Monk's home in San Juan Hill, but as they only had one piano, they had to alternate playing.
Powell worked as a pianist for dance bands, his incubation culminating in becoming the pianist for the swing orchestra of trumpeter Cootie Williams. 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. Among the tracks released was the first recording of Monk's "'Round Midnight", a tune Powell requested that Williams's band play. 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. By the end of his time with Williams, Powell was the musical director and arranger for the trumpeter's band.
After a 1945 performance with Williams's band, Powell wandered near Broad Street Station in Philadelphia and was apprehended, drunk, by the private railroad (Pennsylvania Railroad) police. He was badly beaten 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. He suffered constant pain from his head wounds and turned to alcohol to relieve the pain, developing an addiction that haunted him for the rest of his life. After Powell's mother and his girlfriend Frances Barnes tried to treat his severe headaches, he admitted himself to Bellevue Hospital.
Following medical evaluation at Bellevue, he was transferred to Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens, New York, and institutionalized with alcoholics, drug addicts, and permanently institutionalized residents. Fellow pianist and composer Elmo Hope, who visited Powell regularly while he was hospitalized, became concerned by Creedmoor's forced administration of tranquilizers and sleeping pills and their impact on Powell's health. Hope arranged for his medical care to be transferred to a jazz aficionado who let him play piano regularly and even perform a concert to show his lucidity. After the concert, he was released and resumed playing in Manhattan.
In 1945–1946 Powell recorded with Frank Socolow, Sarah Vaughan, Dexter Gordon, J. J. Johnson, Sonny Stitt, Fats Navarro, and Kenny Clarke. Powell became known for his sight-reading and his skill at fast tempos. In an incident in 1945, Monk falsely confessed to using drugs Powell had used in order to protect his friend from losing his cabaret card.
In January 1947, Powell recorded the first volume of his 10" album Bud Powell Trio for Roost Records with Curley Russell and Max Roach; both musicians would play in his trio regularly during succeeding years. Charlie Parker chose Powell to be his pianist on a May 1947 quintet Savoy Records recording session with Miles Davis, Tommy Potter, and Max Roach; this was the only studio session intended for release in which Parker and Powell played together. The two did reunite, however, in late 1947 with fellow saxophone player Allen Eager at Milton Greene's studio for an informal recorded jam session that was released under Eager's name.
In November 1947, Powell had an altercation with a customer at a bar in Harlem. In the ensuing fight, Powell was hit over his eye with a bottle. He 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. He spent eleven months at Creedmore. Attempts to tell 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. He received electroconvulsive therapy while institutionalized, but was released after eleven months. Jackie McLean, a young alto saxophone player who admired the pianist's ability and helped protect him, befriended Powell around 1947.