Billboard : 03/31/1956

This is the most illuminating set to date exploring the art of this current leading influence in piano jazz. Original melodic and harmonic ideas flow a mile a minute, and to show how Powell works up to his definitive “take,” there are three successive tries at one number, Un Poco Loco. On four numbers, Powell works with a bop group that includes the late great Fats Navarro on trumpet, and Sonny Rollins on tenor sax. On most of the piano solos, Max Roach is his drummer. This is a milestone in progressive jazz recording, and as issued now on 12-inch, it should sell to all progressive jazz collectors.

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Down Beat : 04/18/1956
Nat Hentoff : 5 stars

In view of the importance of this album historically, and the fact that four of its tracks have never been released previously, this part-reissue set gets listed here. Loco, one of Bud‘s most striking performances, is shown here in genesis. Infidels, never released on LP before, has Fats Navarro, Sonny Rollins, Tommy Potter, and Roy Haynes. Like Theme, Wail, and Bouncing with Bud (which have the same personnel and were previously on 10″ LPs), Infidels was recorded in 1949.

It Could Happen is a hitherto unreleased alternate master as is the first Tunisia. Both, like Loco and Parisian Thoroughfare, were cut in 1951 with Curley Russell and Max Roach. Ornithology with Potter and Haynes dates back to 1949. Thoroughfare, never released before, is an earlier version of the original Bud recorded for Clef. This is the first volume of two Blue Note 12″ Powell LPs. Blue Note has also repacked in 12″ form albums by Sidney Bechet (BLP 1201), Jay Jay Johnson (BLP 1505) and Miles Davis (BLP 1501). All are recommended. Remastering has been done by Rudy Van Gelder.

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Liner Notes by Leonard Feather

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.

Born Earl Powell in New York City on Sept. 27, 1924, he is one of three brothers; Richie Powell, who is a few years older, plays piano with the Max Roach–Clifford Brown combo. Bud gained his early experience playing teen-aged gigs around Manhattan and Brooklyn; some of his earliest jobs were with Valaida Snow and the Sunset Royal Orchestra, and at the late Canada Lee‘s Chicken Coop.

A frequent denizen of the Play House (better known as Minton’s) during its years as an incubator of new jazz talent, Bud first showed signs of an incipient bop style before the word bop itself was coined, as can be confirmed by some early recordings with Cootie Williams‘ band in 1943-4. During the rest of the 1940s he was a part of that loosely-knit clique of restless souls with something new and exciting to tell the world and few places in which to tell it but the smaller and smokier night clubs and the growing world of combo recording. It was during this period that Bud’s rocket-swift, indomitable single-note lines and moody, mordant harmonic inventions made so deep an impression on Alfred Lion of Blue Note that starting in 1949 a series of wonderful recording sessions took place. All of these, in addition to some takes never before issued, have now been made available in Blue Note’s first 12-inch Bud Powell LP releases.

BLP 1503

“The Birth Of A Masterpiece” is the title Hollywood would probably give to the fascinating story told by the three takes of Un Poco Loco heard here. The first cut shows the composition at a stage somewhat before Bud has quite settled down to a definitive interpretation; it bogs down. Bud senses it and stops short, just as the driver of a smooth-running limousine might pull up on hearing air escape from a tire. The second take, though more or less complete, still lacks something of the conviction of the third, which is the one originally released on a 78 rpm disc. Un Poco Loco has always been, for me, an indescribably exciting experience and certainly one of Bud’s greatest compositions. To hear it as it is presented here is pleasure thrice compounded.

Dance Of The Infidels opens with a staccato intro by the trumpet of the late Fats Navarro and the tenor sax of Sonny Rollins, mostly in thirds, leading into a theme that makes use of a favorite rhythmic device of bop: the two-bar phrase with a “hesitation” accent before the third beat of the second bar. Bud, Fats and Sonny have solos before the theme, mostly in unison, returns. This piece, incidentally, has not been issued on LP previously.

This is the first of four numbers on BLP 1503 on which Bud has a quintet instead of a trio. The presence of the Immortal Fats Navarro, whose elegance of execution and brilliance of tone and conception made him the nulli secundus trumpet star of his day, lent additional luster to the date. A typical bop combo performance that shows Fats, Sonny and Bud to advantage is 52nd Street Theme. This Monk tune, to which I gave its title when the little groups along that thoroughfare were using it to open and close each set, is mainly a simple two-bar riff, which the participants throw around polytonally, as if for laughs, in the opening chorus.

It Could Happen To You is an alternate master of one of Bud’s best ballad interpretations, differing in content though not in mood from the previously released take, and originally rejected only because of a slightly marred ending. The same may be said of the alternate take on A Night in Tunisia, in which Bud’s weirdly delayed ending resulted in the decision to make another take (heard on the next track). Wail and Bouncing With Bud, both Powell originals, are both happy tunes with an exultant rhythmic feel throughout.

Ornithology is Bud’s version of Charlie Parker‘s version of How High The Moon, so to speak. The tempo is moderate, the style a melodic single-line groove that might be called a contemporary parallel for Earl Hines‘ “trumpet style piano.” (Just listen and imagine Diz and/or Bird playing those some notes.)

Parisian Thoroughfare is a surprise. Never previously released, it is an earlier incarnation of a number Bud recorded for Norman Granz‘s Clef label some years later. Its delicate, lacy lines have a pristine charm that differs greatly from the more conventional patterns of the typical wailing Powell originals.