1953 - August 14

Bud Powell Trio – August 14 1953 

 

Leonard Feather: The Amazing Bud Powell Liner Notes BLP 5041 – 1954 

Between these covers lies the harvest of a journey through the mind of Bud Powell. It is a journey in which beauty and darkness, pleasure and sorrow are to be gleaned along the way; for this mind is a strange land, endowed with a glow of genius yet beset by illness and deprivation. 

Bud Powell's career has been an erratic one, gregarious months along 52nd Street alternating with lonely months in the hospital. For all the inconsistency of his march to fame, he has managed to earn the unanimous admiration of his contemporaries and to forge an ineradicable place for himself in the international hall of jazz fame. 

A year ago, on his return from a year's absence, he was approached by Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records to make his first return to the recording studios since his illness. Bud at that time was enjoying two weeks' vacation between engagements at Birdland. 

The session that resulted was no hasty, impromptu venture. It was the product of many meetings between Lion, Powell and Duvivier and Taylor. Each tune was selected to show a certain aspect of Bud's style, and the entire set offers a comprehensive picture of this extraordinary talent. 

The choice of a rhythm section for Bud could not have been happier. George Duvivier's superlative sound and beat have graced the big bands of Lunceford and Millinder, the vocal accompaniments of Lena Horne and Nellie Lutcher, the guitar quintets of Chuck Wayne and Johnny Smith. Arthur Taylor, a 24 year old New Yorker, has worked exclusively with small modern groups, rounding out the rhythmic impulses with Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins and others. Taylor complements and "feeds" Bud's solos as every drummer should. 

Reets And I is built on a theme by Bennie Harris, trumpeter and early acolyte of the bop giants, and is named for Bennie and his wife. Its foundation is a chord pattern used for many tunes (such as All God's Children Got Rhythm) but its melody is entirely original and Bud's improvisations on the familiar pattern are suggestive of some of his earlier work. 

Autumn In New York is a remarkable demonstration of Bud's ability to retain the essence of a popular melody while investing it with his own personality. There is no "Martian music", nothing in the way of deliberate attempts to distort the basic harmonic structure of the original piece. An interesting departure, though, is Bud's overlapping of the 24th and 25th measures, which has the effect of telescoping the melody into a 31-bar chorus. 

In I Want To Be Happy Bud changes the melody slightly on the third and fourth measures to make them fit a diminished chord, giving the tune's line a smoother overall quality. Here George Duvivier, who worked closely with Bud in preparing the date, has a remarkable chorus on his own. The protracted ending is a Powell characteristic intriguingly in evidence on this excursion. 

The remarkable cooperation between Bud and George is especially impressive on Sure Thing during the passages on which Bud's left hand and George's bass line are locked in unison. The tune, incidentally, is not Neal Hefti's instrumental, but a 1943 Jerome Kern song from Cover Girl. 

The second side opens with what may soon gain stature as Bud's greatest composition. Class Enclosure was built up gradually from an odd theme that Alfred Lion heard him play one night when visiting his apartment off Times Square. Greatly impressed, Lion asked Bud what he was playing. He replied he had something in his mind he was trying to express. Lion then repeatedly asked Bud and encouraged him to develop the piece; a few days later he heard the idea further advanced, and was asked whether he would care to take a chance on it for inclusion in the record date. By the next time Lion heard it, Powell had worked out the entire pattern and Duvivier, who learned it along with him, put the parts down in writing. 

Glass Enclosure, despite its brevity, manages to display each of Bud Powell's qualities in the areas of melody, harmony and rhythm. The work is more or less divided into four movements: the first somewhat on a maestoso level, the next a swinging fragment on two 10-bar phrases; then a pensive yet flowing movement with a stirring bowed-bass underline, followed by a reminder of the first movement. 

In sharp contrast, the next piece, Collard Greens and Black-Eye Peas, offers something as down-to-earth as that southern dish: the basic 12-bar blues, in a setting first fashioned by Oscar Pettiford (and once recorded by him under the title Blues In The Closet). Here, after playing the theme, Bud is on an ad-lib blues kick for seven choruses, of which the third and fourth are shared with Duvivier, the next two with Taylor. 

There have been many treatments by jazz musicians, especially in the past year or two, of the lovely Johnny Burke-Jimmy Van Heusen melody Polka Dots and Moonbeams, written in 1939. While hugging the melody throughout as closely as if he were Garner, Bud sparks it with that unique incisiveness of touch, that perfect timing and placement of rich right-hand chords, that unmistakable Bud Powell sound. 

Audrey, named for Mrs. Powell, has a theme that is simpler in melodic line than in construction. A careful inspection of the repeated main phrase, which proceeds downward an octave in uneasy stages, reveals a group of two 12-bar stanzas; and indeed, Bud proceeds from there into some choruses on the regular blues. 

If you know Bud Powell only by repute, or through the media of radio and night clubs, this LP is the definitive set to represent him in your collection. If you already have his earlier recordings (such as Blue Note 5003), you will probably agree with me that in this group of performances Bud Powell is at his peak. Let us hope that today, at the age of 30, he may have a future studded with many more such achievements 

Bob Blumenthal: The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 2 RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes – 2001 

Recording logs indicate that all of the alternate takes produced at this session were considered potential choices for initial release. The first alternate of “Autumn In New York,” for example, was originally preferred, then rejected because of its brevity. Both the subsequent second alternate and the master extend the introduction and add a final half-chorus. Alternate number two is the sunniest performance, while the master is delivered with the greatest panache. All three takes feature ingenious counterpoint from piano and plucked bass, with Taylor occasionally joining in; and all three omit the 24th bar of the composition, creating what original annotator Leonard Feather described as a “telescoped” 31-bar chorus. 

We now also have three issued takes of “Reets And I,” trumpeter Benny Harris’s melody on the chord changes of “All God’s Children Got Rhythm.” The master was cut first, and is taken at the slowest pace; the subsequent first alternate is the fastest, and the previously unissued second alternate splits the difference tempo-wise while containing an additional blowing chorus. This smoother, safer final version was initially slated for release, only to be replaced by the edgier earliest take. 

Jerome Kern’s “Sure Thing” is so heavily ornamented that producer Alfred Lion referred to the piece as “Bud’s Sure Thing” in the original session notes. The complex turns of the extended unison passages reveal Powell’s continued interest in the Baroque. The choice here between the previously unissued alternate and the subsequently recorded master is more obvious, given the whirlwind execution and stronger piano solo on the latter take. 

“Collard Greens And Black-Eyed Peas” is a riff blues by bassist Oscar Pettiford that Powell recorded again in 1956 (with Ray Brown and Osie Johnson) under its more familiar title, "Blues In The Closet." The alternate take was recorded first and, though acceptable in terms of the quality of its piano and bass solos, is extremely brief. The subsequent master take is nearly a minute longer, and adds Duviviers eight-bar introduction as well as two choruses of tours between Powell and Taylor. 

“PoIka Dots And Moonbeams,” with its brooding voicings and deliberate tempo, introduces a ballad concept that seems to mirror Powell’s darker moods. The approach produced some particularly desultory performances soon enough, including a remake of “Polka Dots” by this same trio a month later that was issued by Fantasy. Here, enough vibrancy remains in Powell’s attack to transcend the encroaching gloom. 

Things brighten appreciably with the medium-tempo swinger "I Want To Be Happy. Powell turns in his most relaxed work of the session, Taylor gives an early example of his mastery with brushes, and Duvivier’s great sound and note choices are heard to excellent effect behind the piano and in solo. As is the case on “Collard Greens” and the next track, Duvivier’s chorus here is enhanced by Powell’s almost conversational comping. 

“Audrey” is a Powell original constructed of foreshortened phrases that yield a standard blues chorus for the piano and bass solos. Powell is inventive, and at certain moments dazzling; but there is a nervous fragmented quality to his solo that would become the norm as his mental health deteriorated. 

“Glass Enclosure” is the most complex and majestic of Powell's compositions. It began as a fragment that producer Lion heard on a visit to Powell in the apartment where he was kept, and was ultimately titled in reference to that prison-like environment. The bold opening with its strong classical echos leads to a stop-time melody that is stated twice; then a reflective interlude featuring Duviviers bowed bass is heard before the original theme returns. There are few performances as emotional or original in all of jazz. 

A ninth title from the session, the previously unìssued “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,’ concludes the program. Powell had performed the piece at Massey Hall in a trio set with Mingus and Roach that was issued on Debut. This version features a Latin beat from Taylor, and a hint in the brief unaccompanied interlude of Powell’s enduring affection for Art Tatum. 

Down Beat 27 November 1954 Volume 21 Issue 23 

Reviewed alongside Norgran N-23 

On this set, issued by Alfred Lion with the permission of Norman Granz, Bud was backed in August, 1953, by Taylor and the amazing Duvivier (amazing not only in his too long underrated bass artistry but in his ability to communicate so fully with Bud, no matter how rapidly and unpredictably the latter’s musical mind races). Bud involves himself with Autumn and Polka Dots here with much the same measured passion as in the Granz album. 

On the other bands (but one) he is the familiarly unfamiliar Bud Powell at middle and uptempo originals and in reappraisals of standard lines. The one exception is Enclosure, the best and most stimulatingly organized Bud original yet recorded and one that shows in small area the potential of this musician for significant composition as well as influential interpretation. It is to be hoped for himself and for music that Bud soon will come back to health. Good, helpful notes for the Blue Note LP by Leonard Feather. The Blue Note is better recorded and has the better cover. Both sets are worth repeated listening. 

Session Information 

Bud Powell, piano; George Duvivier, bass; Art Taylor, drums. 

WOR Studios, NYC, August 14, 1953 

 

BN510-6 tk.8, Autumn In New York, Blue Note BLP 5041, BLP 1504 

BN509-1 tk.9, Reets And I, Blue Note BLP 5041, BLP 1504 

BN509-2 tk.10, Reets And I (alt), BST 84430 

BN511-2 tk.17, Sure Thing, Blue Note 1629, BLP 5041, BLP 1504 

BN512-0 tk.18, Collard Greens And Black-Eyed Peas (alt), BST 84430 

BN512-2 tk.20, Collard Greens And Black-Eyed Peas, Blue Note 1629, BLP 5041, BLP 1504, BST2 84433 

BN513-0 tk.21, Polka Dots And Moonbeams, Blue Note BLP 5041, BLP 1504 

BN514-1 tk.23, I Want To Be Happy, Blue Note 1628, BLP 5041, BLP 1504 

BN515-0 tk.25, Audrey, Blue Note BLP 5041, BLP 1504 

BN516-0 tk.27, The Glass Enclosure, Blue Note 1628, BLP 5041, BLP 1504 

BN517-0, I've Got You Under My Skin, rejected