Wail - Bud Powell Biography

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  • aka Calum Da Jazbo
    Late member
    • Nov 2010
    • 9173

    Wail - Bud Powell Biography

    website is here

    For seven years I was part of a small creative team at Verve Records that produced, for issue on CD, that label's classic LP releases.

    Among the more ambitious projects was a five-CD set of Bud Powell's music. For it, I wrote and edited a 150-page booklet about him. I conducted more than a dozen interviews, some with those who had played alongside him and others with those who derived their inspiration from a distance. My work was cited by NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences), in the form of a nomination for a Grammy award.

    I then looked to how I might expand that work into a biography. The research ended up comprising more than three hundred formal interviews and more than five hundred informal ones.

    I went to Europe several times to do interviews, and other research, and I wound up moving to Paris. (Okay . . . but only in part to live the charmed life of an expatriate writer.) In 2004 I returned to live in Brooklyn, New York, with Joan, the woman whom I then married. We live with two beautiful cats and a lot of LPs and books.

    As time has passed, my sense has grown more certain, that Bud Powell was among a select group and at the forefront of a unique artistic movement—and that nothing like him or it will ever be seen again. It has been my greatest honor to learn what I could of his life and his art, and to write his biography.
    Peter Pullman The Author


    see also
    According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.
  • Alyn_Shipton
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 778

    #2
    Glad to see that Pullman's biography has finally come into being. I spoke to him about it when he was starting in NY in 1993 or so. Meanwhile, although I know his book will superseded mine in almost every respect, I should point out that Alan Groves and I published our biography of Powell twenty years ago. http://www.alynshipton.co.uk/about/w...ass-enclosure/

    Comment

    • Alyn_Shipton
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 778

      #3
      PS what is it about Powell enthusiasts that makes them retreat into a world where Powell is the central figure? (Francis Paudras being the other most significant example.) I just looked at Pullman's preface on the link you posted. Where he says:
      He did rise quickly to preeminence among modern-jazz pianists, attaining stardom in the prominent midtown nightclubs within four years of his first professional appearances in Manhattan. And within just two more years, he had recorded as the leader of his own trio with the two companies with which his repertoire’s legacy is most secure. No performing artist created as enduring a legacy within a shorter time.
      So obviously Cilfford Brown doesn't count? And he also says
      no one’s company gave him more pleasure (as well, of course, as direct inspiration) than did Thelonious Monk’s.
      I simply don't hear the inspiration/influence of Monk in Bud's playing (and I have listened to just about all of it). Yes they were friends, but as a keyboard player, harmonist, melodist, I don't hear as much Monk in Powell as I do Tatum, or Wilson, or Kyle, or Kersey...

      Comment

      • Serial_Apologist
        Full Member
        • Dec 2010
        • 38184

        #4
        Originally posted by Alyn_Shipton View Post
        PS what is it about Powell enthusiasts that makes them retreat into a world where Powell is the central figure?
        They're Powellites?

        Comment

        • Beef Oven

          #5
          Preference

          I prefer Melonious Thunk anyway.

          .

          Comment

          • aka Calum Da Jazbo
            Late member
            • Nov 2010
            • 9173

            #6


            yep you can hear the two handed style in there but the right is the magic and the chords the two handed chords ...
            According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

            Comment

            • charles t
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 592

              #7
              I actually heard Bud Powell, when underaged, I snuck in Birdland.

              Only thing I can say is:

              "If you are a 17-year old kid, never look into the eyes of Bud Powell!"

              Comment

              • BLUESNIK'S REVOX
                Full Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 4353

                #8
                elmo hope lives!

                bn

                Comment

                • aka Calum Da Jazbo
                  Late member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 9173

                  #9
                  mebbe

                  According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

                  Comment

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