Complete Bud Powell on Verve
Bud Powell was a jazz genius, arguably the most creative and influential pianist the music has ever known. But like such legendary figures asCharlie Parker,Lester Young, andBillie Holiday, he was a profoundly troubled genius. Those troubles began at the age of 21 with head injuries inflicted in a police beating in 1945, and his life became a litany of arrests, hospital stays, shock treatment, over-medication, and self-medication, until he finally left America for France in 1959.This five-CD set compiles Powell's sessions for Norman Granz's Clef and Verve labels between 1949 and 1956. Like other recent Verve "completes" (Parker,Young,Holiday), it's a "warts and all" documentary of Powell's times in the recording studio, complete with false starts and unissued performances. A listener experiences both the grandeur of Powell's creativity and occasionally the sheer pathos of his inability to function at the keyboard--whether triggered by a bad day, an inadequate sideman, or unfamiliar repertoire.Disc one, with five trio and solo sessions from 1949 to 1951, presents works of unalloyed genius, with Powell defining the limits of bop piano in technique, intensity, and invention. There are treatments of some of his finest compositions, including solo versions of "Parisian Thoroughfare" and "Hallucinations." At the opposite end of Powell's personal spectrum, there's the 1955 trio session that begins Disc Three, in which he is clearly struggling to play at all. Other performances fall in between, from one in which Powell makes 10 attempts at "Star Eyes" to a concluding 1956 trio session in which he somehow summons his original technique and fire for a collection of bop tunes.This is an extraordinary document, including both great music and painful drama. It's also a handsome and well-researched package. The five CDs are bound into a book that includes overviews by pianistBarry Harrisand interviews with some of the musicians closest to Powell, likeMax Roach,Jackie McLean, andJohnny Griffin. The four-CDComplete Blue Note and Roost Recordings, with recordings from the same era, is an essential companion.--Stuart Broomer