Billboard : 04/02/1955

The title aptly describes Bud Powell, who is a prime influence among progressive musicians, and whose disks have a substantial-enough hard-core market. This particular collection, like most of his work, is highly uneven in inspiration and technique. In some instances he’s spectacular. Cover is a striking, sweating photo portrait of the artist.

-----

Jazz Monthly (UK)
Max Harrison : 04/1957

This is an important disc for regular students of Powell’s work, but in view of the extremely varied quality of the performances should be approached with some caution by others. This variability is indicative of the unreliable state of Powell’s mental health.

The least rewarding track is Like Someone, which is made to sound like the theme from a typical romantic film concerto. The introduction of Deep Night is fumbled and the choruses that follow lack sufficient continuity of thought. The theme of Magic is badly articulated and Powell has few ideas on this piece. Roach’s sympathetic drumming is the most attractive aspect of these performances. Quite different are Lover and Tenderly, which show Powell near his best. At exactly appropriate fast and medium tempos respectively, they are perfect examples of his style. An endless series of ideas flows from his seemingly inexhaustible imagination and everything is perfectly played and phrased (note the delicate skeins of sound of the filigree embroideries on Tenderly). Powell in this mood is stunning. Someone to Watch is very nearly as good, being more lyrical though less exciting. Thou Swell is another fast improvisation in the same manner as Lover but here the ideas are of lesser quality. How High is also in the same mould, but is a very inferior performance with little continuity in the right hand figurations and is poorly executed for a man with Powell’s technical accomplishment.

Best of all is ‘Round Midnight which, together with Lover and Tenderly, makes this my record of the month. Midnight is one of the most distinguished modern jazz compositions and Powell makes it the very sombre expression of a mood of loneliness and desolation. This is achieved without any aridity of phrasing or harmony, notes are employed economically and the texture is mainly light and clear. A great weight of emotion is felt throughout and this must be one of the best things Powell has done. Indeed it seems to me a masterpiece.

-----

London Daily Herald (London, England)
Disc of the Day : 03/26/1957

Schizophrenic piano from Bud Powell, the eccentric young Negro who pioneered a new approach to the keyboard. He plays through well-known tunes with a wealth of ideas and brilliant technique, but his wild imagination often causes him to grope along a musical cul-de-sac.

-----

Palm Beach Post (Palm Beach, FL)
Joey Sasso : 07/30/1955

The giant of the jazz keyboard displays his finger genius on virtually every tune in this grouping. Powell’s technical mastery, his perceptive feeling, his uncanny ability to sustain an otherwise-exhausting rhythm pattern, and his probing mood pictures are all here. His translation of How High the Moon comes in for special notice, as do That Old Black Magic and Lover Come Back to Me.

-----

Down Beat : 04/20/1955
Nat Hentoff : 4.0 stars

Title of this collection is Bud Powell: Jazz Original. On the first three and the fifth, Bud is backed by Percy Heath and Max Roach. On the rest, his support is Lloyd Trotman and Art Blakey. Roach occasionally gets too loud here, as in Magic. The set is a strange one. Here is a man who finds it difficult to adjust to the world around him. The only terrain that gives him any real confidence is the piano. Yet inevitably, his playing mirrors many of the tensions and many of the fearful perspectives that are with him in his more difficult times.

It is hard to tell (for me, anyway) how deliberate some of his more percussively dissonant and melodically abstract passages are – some of them seeming to be torn in fragments from his fingers. And yet, much of his playing in this set makes consecutive sense, judged in the context of Bud’s powerfully individual, angular approach through the years. And it’s all intensely emotional.

As a whole, this is not one of his better or more cohesive LPs, but even at its more perplexing, the music is always a challenging experience to hear. Set is recommended as another document in the difficult career of a pianist who has become so major an influence but whose future is a question mark.

-----

Liner Notes by Unknown
(Transcribed from 1957 reissue)

Once, in replying to one of Leonard Feather’s “Blindfold Tests” in Down Beat, pianist John Lewis offered this interesting statement in his “Afterthoughts”: “There aren’t any original styles any more. They sound like Bud Powell or someone, while Bud himself didn’t sound like anybody else… you can’t expect everybody to be that original, but you can expect them to do something, to try to develop a style…”

This is eminently true, of course, and it is a point upon which most pianists of the first rank are in agreement. Billy Taylor, himself a keyboard master, once observed, “The Bud Powell influence is… one of the most commonly encountered ones in modern jazz piano…” Individuality is always a recognizable thing, but the characteristics that bring it about are not always easy to isolate. In the case of Bud Powell the flow of ideas is quite incredible and his interpretations fresh and intriguing. He meanders, of course; but in his meandering you find the oddly placed rhythms and constructions and a tonal individuality that lift Powell into the realm of the particularly rewarding jazz creators. This is, in short, not at all “music to relax to”; it is music to hear with a full ear alert to all the subtleties. Although it is true that his left hand plays what might be termed a subordinate role, Powell puts a tremendous load on his right, now swinging out along unpredictable lines, now creating moods through musical colorations.

Although Powell has gained a reputation as a composer of many unusual melodies, in this album he concentrates on the older standards, including several from the 1920s: Someone to Watch Over Me (1926), Thou Swell (1927), Lover Come Back to Me (1928), Deep Night (1929).

Born into a musical family in New York in 1924, Earl “Bud” Powell was one of the principals in the bop movement of the early 1940s and the bop approach – with its odd intervals and phrasing – has since remained a vital element in the Powell style. Throughout his career he has worked with topflight jazzmen, including John “Dizzy” Gillespie, Don Byas and Cootie Williams.