Bud Powell 1953

[AllenLowe]

to address the question, if I may, I have been a Bud Powell fanatic since about 1968 - and what I love the best is the ballad and medium-tempo stuff, where you can really hear him think - the mediums of the 1946-1949 studio dates (including the Sonny Stitt Prestige and the earlier Bebop Boys); Bud had the most distinctive and amazing time; he was like a high wire walker who seems to falter and stumble but who is really just playing with the audience - it Bud's case he is playing with the time - listen particularly to Somebody Loves Me from '47; for ballads: Polka Dots and Moonbeams and Over the Rainbow (I actually do not think the Bud of 1947 was a good ballad player - that started in about '49) - but what makes him Bud is his time and his touch. He has a sound unlike any other, dark and percussive (not unlike Monk, interstingly). Simply the most profound jazz musician ever, IMHO -

Edited November 13, 2008 by AllenLowe

[bmatt]

I dig Horace Silver, and above all Monk (my wife says: He´s the greatest, because he plays like if he had invented that instrument for his own purpose).

Your wife must have terrific jazz ears to come out with that. Great insight :-)

[bmatt]

He has a sound unlike any other, dark and percussive (not unlike Monk, interstingly).

Young Bud was a disciple of Monk's.

[paul secor]

However, I also revisited the later, brooding stuff which was lost on me before. Approaching it with a new perspective, having absorbed a lot more music and being more familiar with many of the standards, I found some of this music absolutely riveting in a way I'd never gotten before. Some of it admittedly came off as ponderous or unfinished, but I found some of this "later" stuff really fascinating on a soul-bearing level, and dropped all notions of listening to it from my limited pre-conceived notions of "jazz."

I'm curious if anyone has had a similar experience.

Bud's mid-50s recordings contain some of the most emotionally unguarded musical moments I've ever heard. I treasure them for that reason.

[Gheorghe]

He has a sound unlike any other, dark and percussive (not unlike Monk, interstingly).

Young Bud was a disciple of Monk's.

Bud´s Monk-influence became even more profund during later years. He version of "Epistrophy" from 1955 is described as being just "a bit too monkish" even for Bud. Towards the end of his career he played very much Monk tunes and at least two albums a dedicated to Monk ("A Portrait of Thelonious from 1961", and "Tribute to Thelonious" from 1964.

[Gheorghe]

I dig Horace Silver, and above all Monk (my wife says: He´s the greatest, because he plays like if he had invented that instrument for his own purpose).

Your wife must have terrific jazz ears to come out with that. Great insight :-)

She´s not really a jazz lover but I´m often quite astonished how much she know´s what´s going on (tunes etc.). If I tell her she says "it´s just because I hear your stuff so much". Well but Monk, that´s something else. She seems to like him more than others.

[Gheorghe]

welcome!!!!

thank you!