Record of the day: Bud Powell Trio, “Round about Midnight…”

Bud Powell Trio, “Round About Midnight at the Blue Note” (Cd Dreyfus FDM 36500-2)

The recording production of Bud Powell, one of the greatest pianists in the history of jazz, during the 1960s was extremely discontinuous due to the mental problems (now incurable in those years) that afflicted the musician, further worsened by treatment that was nothing short of criminal by doctors who considered electroshock a universal panacea and forced Powell to undergo authentic torture sessions, permanently ruining his brain. Miraculously his creative abilities, although weakened by so much unnecessary cruelty, managed to survive and Bud sporadically found himself able to play at the levels that had made him famous throughout the world.

Having moved to Paris in the late 1950s, Bud managed to find some peace and when he felt like it he appeared (often unannounced) on the stages of jazz clubs, welcomed as a legend. This superb CD documents, fortunately in excellent audio quality, one of the best evenings (in 1962) that saw Powell together with two musicians with whom he had a long working relationship: Pierre Michelot (double bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums). The intimate, family atmosphere of the Blue Note Club as well as the closeness of these friends put Powell at ease, and the quality of the evening further benefited.

In these years Powell no longer wanted to play new compositions, relying on consolidated standards or the key pages of bebop, to whose birth he had contributed in a fundamental way, finding a particular spiritual affinity with Thelonious Monk of which four pieces are proposed, including a ‘unforgettable version of “Monk’s Mood”.

It is truly a joy to listen to Powell again in form after the disappointing recording efforts of a few years earlier, and even if the executive brilliance of his historic recordings for the Blue Note label is no longer achieved, we are still faced with a genius with an unmistakable and overflowing with imagination. The angular melodies, the originality of the piano language, the ability to create always unexpected harmonic situations and the swing that naturally shines through from any of his phrases are all fingerprints that Powell leaves on every single track of the album, while the rhythm follows him lightly and total artistic empathy.

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.