:''This article refers to volume 1 of the 5-volume series'' The Amazing Bud Powell''. For the full catalog of Powell recordings for Blue Note, see The Complete Blue Note and Roost Recordings.'' ''The Amazing Bud Powell'' is a ten-inch LP by American jazz pianist

Bud Powell Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Along with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a leading figure in the development of modern ...

, recorded on August 8, 1949, and May 1, 1951, and released on

Blue Note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical co ...

in April 1952. In the first session, Powell performed in quintet with

Fats Navarro Theodore "Fats" Navarro (September 24, 1923 – July 6, 1950) was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, including Cl ...

Sonny Rollins Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a ...

Tommy Potter Charles Thomas Potter (September 21, 1918 – March 1, 1988) was an American jazz double bass player, best known for having been a member of Charlie Parker's "classic quintet", with Miles Davis, between 1947 and 1950. Born in Philadelphia, Penn ...

and

Roy Haynes Roy Owen Haynes (born March 13, 1925) is an American jazz drummer. He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 80 years, he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a pioneer of jazz ...

, and in trio with Potter and Haynes. In the second, Powell performed in trio with

Curley Russell Dillon "Curley" Russell (19 March 1917 – 3 July 1986) was an American jazz musician, who played bass on many bebop recordings. He was born in New York, United States. He was nicknamed "Curley" for his curly hair. A member of the Tadd Damero ...

and

Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz Jazz drumming, drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in h ...

, and solo.

Release history

All eight original cuts (four from each session) were originally released as 78 rpm singles in 1949 and 1951: "You Go to My Head c/w Ornithology" (BN 1566), "Bouncing with Bud c/w Wail" (BN 1567), "Over the Rainbow c/w A Night in Tunisia" (BN 1576), and "Un Poco Loco c/w It Could Happen to You" (BN 1577). Blue Note discontinued their 10" Modern Jazz late 1955. The following year, the label recompiled Powell's first three sessions as ''The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume 1'' (1956; BLP 1503) and ''The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume 2'' (1956; BLP 1504). In 1989, the album was digitally remastered and released on CD with the tracks listed in session chronological order, leaving five tracks from the 1951 session on the second volume. When

Rudy Van Gelder Rudolph Van Gelder (November 2, 1924 – August 25, 2016) was an American recording engineer who specialized in jazz. Over more than half a century, he recorded several thousand sessions, with musicians including John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Theloni ...

remastered the pair of the 2001 RVG edition, he placed the first two sessions on ''Volume 1'' and the third session on ''Volume 2'', mirroring the original 10" releases. Prior to this, on all releases bar the first, the album also contained a number of tracks from sessions originally on '' The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1''.

Reception

The album is rated highly within Powell's musical library, described by ''All About Jazz'' as "among the pianist's most important recordings" and by '' The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jazz'' (in conjunction with volume two) as "a great introduction to this awesome pianist". Jazz critic

Scott Yanow Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author.Allmusic Biography/ref> Biography Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles an ...

characterized it in his book ''Jazz on Record'' as "full of essential music". ''

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' included the album in its suggested “core collection” of essential recordings. In ''Bebop: The Best Musicians and Recordings'', Yanow identifies among the highlights of the album "Bouncing with Bud", "52nd Street Theme" and "Dance of the Infidels," performed by the "very exciting quintet" of 1949, and also the 1951 trio's "three stunning versions of 'Un Poco Loco'". Barry Kernfeld in ''The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Jazz'' notes with regards to "Un Poco Loco" that "the three takes

f the song F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

..enable us to hear the evolution of a masterpiece", a label with which a critic at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' concurred. The album is critically prized among Powell's releases. Among the more discussed of the album's tracks is the pianist's composition "

Un Poco Loco "Un Poco Loco" is an Afro-Cuban jazz standard composed by American jazz pianist Bud Powell. It was first recorded for Blue Note Records by Powell, Curly Russell, and Max Roach on May 1, 1951. Musical characteristics "Un Poco Loco" is in thir ...

" ("A Little Crazy"), which has been singled out by critics and cultural historians for its musical and cultural significance. While the song "Un Poco Loco" has been identified as musically outstanding, it has also been discussed as culturally significant. According to ''Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop'', although

Afro-Cuban jazz Afro-Cuban jazz is the earliest form of Latin jazz. It mixes Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban music has deep roots in African ritual and rhythm.{{cite web, Cuba: Son and Afro-Cuban ...

had been introduced in the 1940s by such artists as

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...

and

Machito Machito (born Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, December 3, 1909 – April 15, 1984) was a Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music. Ginell, Richard S. ''Biography''. Allmusic, 2011/ref> He wa ...

, "Un Poco Loco" is a significant marker in the establishment of this musical genre, as it revealed "the Afro-Cuban turn settling into bebop's acceptable field of rhetorical conventions". More than Afro-Cuban, the authors of that book detect what they describe as a "Pan-African" musical influence in the composition's repetition, harmony and cyclic solo that, while not as obviously Afro-international as Gillespie's "

A Night in Tunisia "A Night in Tunisia" is a musical composition written by Dizzy Gillespie around 1940–42, while Gillespie was playing with the Benny Carter band. It has become a jazz standard. It is also known as "Interlude", and with lyrics by Raymond Leveen w ...

', "certainly signaled a 'blackness' that became part of the language of subsequent expressions of modern jazz." The book ''Jazz 101'' indicates that Powell's performances of this material in 1951 was "all the more astonishing" in its "level of creativity, and even authenticity" because little was known at the time of

African music Given the vastness of the African continent, its music is diverse, with regions and nations having many distinct musical traditions. African music includes the genres amapiano, Jùjú, Fuji, Afrobeat, Highlife, Makossa, Kizomba, and others. The ...

or how

Latin music Latin music (Portuguese language, Portuguese and es, música latina) is a term used by the music industry as a catch-all category for various styles of music from Ibero-America (including Music of Spain, Spain and Portuguese music, Portugal) ...

(aside from the Cuban influence) could be applied to jazz. According to Yanow, in ''Afro-Cuban Jazz: The Essential Listening Companion'', this composition was Powell's only involvement with Afro-Cuban Jazz.

Track listing

Original release

2001 RVG edition

Personnel

Musicians

August 8, 1949

– piano *

– trumpet (except "You Go to My Head", "Ornithology") *

– tenor saxophone (except "You Go to My Head", "Ornithology") *

– bass *

– drums

May 1, 1951

* Bud Powell – piano *

– bass (except "Over the Rainbow", "It Could Happen to You") *

– drums (except "Over the Rainbow", "It Could Happen to You")

Technical personnel

Alfred Lion Alfred Lion (born Alfred Löw; April 21, 1908 – February 2, 1987), was an American record executive who co-founded the jazz record label Blue Note in 1939. Lion retired in 1967, having sold the company, after producing recordings by leading music ...

– producer * Doug Hawkins – recording engineer * John Hermansader – design *

Francis Wolff Francis Wolff (April 5, 1907 – March 8, 1971) was a record company executive, photographer and record producer. Wolff's skills, as an executive and a photographer, were important contributions to the success of the Blue Note record label. Care ...

– photography *

Leonard Feather Leonard Geoffrey Feather (13 September 1914 – 22 September 1994) was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer, who was best known for his music journalism and other writing. Biography Feather was born in London, England, into an u ...

– liner notes

References

External links

NPR Basic Jazz Record Library entry
with audio samples. * Bud Powell a
jazzdisco.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Amazing Bud Powell, The Bud Powell albums 1952 albums Albums produced by Alfred Lion Blue Note Records albums Albums produced by Michael Cuscuna