[Dixielandjazz] Bud Powell

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

It's very interesting to go through a lot of Bud Powell recordings, especially solo ones and some of these from his Paris time, and hear evidence of his various appropriations from and appreciations of pianists more central to the music which preoccupies members of this group. 

There is the Hinesian attack and precision of timing as well as the reference to Stride notable on his BlueNote Borderick.  Some time ago I was listening to the Bill Coleman LP Four Generation Jam, which ought also to have inclouded Dexter Gordon in the band, but for some reason didn't -according to what the pianist, Michael Garrett (not to be confused with the late Michael Garrick) told me. I thought Maestro GarrETT's playing on that date indicated he had been listening to Earl Hines, who was in the UK quite a bit around the time the recording was made, but he told me he was  a Bud Powell man (though later he asked me to help him replace a Hines band recording from around 1950, which he also liked a lot. Maybe Hines was influenced by some aspects of bop, Powellesque playing, in timing and attack? 

Oddly enough I hear some Hines in another recording of the same period, in Johnny Guarnieri's work on a quartet date with Vic Dickenson. But Guarnieri was well-known as a deliberate mimic of other pianists, though not from any want of originality. There is some recorded evidence of his impersonations, and somewhere before he had recorded all that much one reviewer was silly enough to suggest that that was all there might be to him. 

I do remember Jake Hanna saying that when long ago he had a gig with Toshiko Akiyoshi there were never any problems because he had a perfect preparation in listening to Bud Powell records. Of course playing very like Powell isn't reprehensible, it's just very, very difficult!

Robert R. Calder