Army Times
Tom Scanlan : 04/06/1957

Liner notes by Leonard Feather claim that Powell is “the most respected and most imitated pianist alive.” Whether this is true or not, it is certainly true that Powell has influenced innumerable young pianists. In any event, this isn’t one of Powell’s best records although the boppy Coscrane, There’ll Never Be Another You, and Lush Life are worth hearing. When soloing with his right hand, his left hand remains monotonous to me, but it is a matter of taste, I suppose. On I Cover the Waterfront Bud plays quite differently, indeed it sounds as though he was deliberately trying to imitate Teddy Wilson. Bass by George Duvivier is superb throughout. Generally, this is an unexciting LP.

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Fort Lauderdale News
Ted Gore : 03/17/1957

With the death of the unique Art Tatum, Bud Powell today must be reckoned the most respected and most imitated jazz pianist alive. This becomes apparent through listening to RCA Victor’s new orthophonic high fidelity album, Strictly Powell, another in the Birdland Series.

Though still relatively without honor in his own country, Powell toured with tremendous success throughout Europe last fall. now for the first time, he is brought into direct contact with the vast jazz record audience of RCA Victor long play fans.

Though the tortures of emotional frustration led to years of intermittent mental illness for Bud, they never blunted the incisive touch of his fingers, the magic and ethereal communication between hands and brain.

Powell today is capable of the inspirational peaks that astonished jazzmen when, as a teenager, he first sat in on a series of experimental sessions at a New York club called the Play House (better known as Minton’s) and became a pioneer of the much-maligned but ineluctable jazz form known as bebop.

George Duvivier, who has worked with Bud off and on for years, played bass on this date. A conservatory-trained musician who has made his living mostly in rhythm unites accompanying singers, he is among the few who can follow the varagaries of a Powell bass line with the accurarcy of a mind reader.

Drummer Art Taylor has worked with Coleman Hawkins, Buddy DeFranco and George Wallington.

This program includes five Powell originals, most remarkable of which is Blues for Basie, a completely spontaneous improvisation from start to finish and a cogent reminder of Bud’s link with such jazz roots as the 12-bar blues tradition.

Coscrave is a boppish theme; Topsy Turvy more conventionally melodic; Elegy, an attractive work that scales up and down little ladders of fourths, and Jump City, a happy, downward-phrased melody that could even be converted into pop-song material.

Of the six standards, Lush Life is perhaps the most surprising. The first piano version of Billy Strayhorn‘s 1938 composition is treated by Bud with respect and yet with a high personalized feeling. On the revival of the 1914 melody They Didn’t Believe Me Bud plays chord-style while in I Cover the Waterfront his runs have a Tatum-like quality.

Time Was, a 20-year-old popular song, shows effective spread chords in a generally moody and introspective treatment of this superior song. Other standards in the series include There’ll Never Be Another You and Over the Rainbow.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 03/17/1957

Inimitable is a dangerous word to use, but I’m forced to when writing about Bud Powell. The pianist has been a big name with the jazz labels for years. Now RCA-Victor has fallen in line with an album called Strictly Powell. It’s trio music with George Duvivier on bass and Art Taylor on drums.

Powell lets the uninitiated know right off that he is a piano master. The opener There’ll Never Be Another You demonstrates how Powell can carry a big melodic line. His own Elegy is a warming thing, with the bass playing tag with the weaving piano. Duvivier is an exceptional musician. And there must be a kind word for Taylor’s discreet, but authoritative work.

I enjoy the way Powell overpowers a ballad with his rolling chording. He doesn’t kill, mind you, but masters it completely. He seems always to come up with a new look for the stalest tune.

Highly recommended.

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Providence Journal
Philip C. Gunion : 03/10/1957

In every field there has to be a master and when it comes too jazz piano that master may well be Bud Powell, whose new RCA-Victor album is called Strictly Powell.

Bud Powell is an erratic genius who has shaped a whole generation of pianists with his almost flawless technique and ability to improvise.

He is accompanied by his trio associates in this album, George Duvivier, bass, and Art Taylor drums, but the album title tells the story; Powell stands alone.

The program ranges from bop to almost straight renditions of ballads such as I Cover the Waterfront, They Didn’t Believe Me, There’ll Never Be Another You and Over the Rainbow. Powell is able to display most of his varied talents in this collection, the best of which is Blues for Bessie, a complete improvisation from start to finish, with a great deal of charm.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 03/17/1957

The first LP pianist Powell (one of the jazz greats) on RCA is a disappointment in that it sounds like a deliberate attempt not to be jazzy. There are a couple of original tunes, Coscrane and Jump City which are good however. For the rest it strikes these ears as watered-down Powell.

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Washington Post
Paul Sampson : 03/17/1957

RCA-Victor, which has had a faltering jazz program in the past, now seems to be developing a well-balanced, imaginative, catalog of both new recordings and reissues.

A splendid LP, Strictly Powell, by the Bud Powell Trio, heads Victor’s recent releases. Powell emphatically proves he still is the superior of his many imitators by playing piano with the assurance, control and imagination of a master. For proof, listen to Elegy and Jump City, in which he plays up-tempos with a light, yet forceful, touch without ever hammering, and his quietly moving Blues for Bessie.

George Duvivier and Art Taylor supply expert rhythm. It’s the best new Powell LP in years.

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Wichita Falls Times
Bob Herdien : 03/03/1957

Five stars – or however many it takes to symbolize the best – goes to Bud Powell for his Strictly Powell. Powell is another early disciple of the almost-forgotten bebop school. A tremendous flow of hypnotic original ideas and perfect phrasing make Powell tops among piano men.

Five of the 12 tunes are Powell originals, with Coscrane, a boppish effort, the most interesting. With Bud are George Duvivier and Art Taylor. It’s different – and it’s good.

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Down Beat : 04/04/1957
Ralph J. Gleason : 2.5 stars

Although there are moments of delight and moments of depth in this album, it is on the whole disappointing. However, to those encountering Powell for the first time, it may serve as a sugar-coated introduction to his stronger work.

The best sides are the originals Coscrane and Elegy and the Billy Strayhorn ballad, Lush Life. In the former two, Powell plays with considerable spirit, with flashes of brilliance in technique and ideas, and with an overall sense of completeness to the numbers. Lush Life is a very moving, warm, and emotionally rewarding number, the best side in the album.

On the others, there seems to be a holding-back and, especially in parts of Blues for Bessie, a disinclination to take pains, that makes one wonder if this record is not a deliberate attempt on someone’s part to make a “commercial” Powell LP.

If so, it is disgraceful. If not, then it is not one of the better Powell LPs, the strength, virtuosity, and fire of his previous pace-setting efforts being strangely lacking. On The Blindfold Test, one could say “five stars because it’s Bud.” Here, that isn’t possible.

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Liner Notes by Leonard Feather

“Speak, History! Who are life’s victors? Unroll thy long annals and say: Are they those whom the world calls the victors, who won the success of a day?” asked the nineteenth-century pot William Wetmore Story. In many of the arts, of course, the answer must be a decisive negative; in jazz, as most of its cognoscenti realize, the “success of a day” belongs to the popular pianists you see and hear constantly on TV, in the swankier night clubs and on the vaudeville stage. But there can be little doubt that history, in writing the final answer, will award the deserved homage to Earl “Bud” Powell, who in the opinion of the inner circle of jazz elite is indeed one of life’s victors. (Now, we may happily add, he is also one of RCA’s victors.)

Though the tortures of emotional frustration led to years of intermittent mental illness for Bud, they never blunted the incisive touch of his fingers, the magic and ethereal communication between hands and brain. Bud Powell today is capable of the inspirational peaks that astonished jazzmen when, as a teenager, he first sat in on a series of experimental sessions at a New York club called the Play House (better known as Minton’s) and became a pioneer of the much-maligned but ineluctable jazz form known as bebop.

Bud, born in New York City September 27, 1924, was one of three brothers. (Richie, also a pianist of considerable endowments, was killed last year in an automobile crash.) As early as 1943, touring with Cootie Williams‘ band, Bud showed evidence of a keyboard style that was developed along harmonic and melodic lines paralleling the contemporaneous experimentation of John Gillespie‘s trumpet and Charlie Parker‘s alto saxophone.

By 1945, when he suffered the first of a series of nervous breakdowns, Bud was a new force to be reckoned with along 52nd Street. he colleagues included Don Byas, Allen Eager and others who had become aware of a revolution now afoot in improvisational techniques. It was not long before other pianists began to follow his spartan single-note lines, though few could approach the fantastically dynamic energy, the incredibly fast flow of original ideas, the tonal crispness, the perfect timing and phrasing.

With the passing of the unique Art Tatum, Bud Powell today must be reckoned the most respected and most imitated jazz pianist alive. Though still relatively without honor in his own country, he toured with tremendous success throughout Europe last fall. Now, for the first time, he is brought into direct contact with the vast jazz record audience of RCA Victor Long Play fans.

George Duvivier, a thirty-six-year-old New Yorker who has worked with Bud off and on for years, played bass on this date. A conservatory-trained musician who has made his living mostly in rhythm units accompanying singers (Nellie Lutcher, Pearl Bailey and most recently Lena Horne), he is among the few who can follow the vagaries of a Powell bass line with the accuracy of a mind reader and the precision of a metronome. Drummer Art Taylor, also a native New Yorker, is twenty-seven and has worked with Coleman Hawkins, Buddy DeFranco and George Wallington.

This program includes five Powell originals, most remarkable of which is Blues for Bessie, a completely spontaneous improvisation from start to finish and a cogent reminder of Bud’s link with such jazz roots as the twelve-bar blues tradition. Coscrane is a boppish theme, Topsy Turvy more conventionally melodic, Elegy an attractive work that scales up and down little ladders of fourths, and Jump City a happy, downward-phrased melody that could even be converted into pop-song material.

Of the six standards, Lush Life is perhaps the most surprising. The first piano version of Billy Strayhorn‘s 1938 composition (usually thought of in term’s of Billy’s lyrics rather than his melody), it is treated by Bud with respect and yet with a highly personalized feeling. On the revival of the 1914 melody They Didn’t Believe Me Bud plays chord-style, in a manner calculated to fool anyone on a blindfold test, while in I Cover the Waterfront his runs have a Tatum-like quality. Time Was, a twenty-year-old popular song, shows effective use of spread chords, in a generally moody and introspective treatment of this superior song.

In short, these sides should provide a dramatic demonstration of a style that has earned for Bud Powell neither piano-shaped pools nor pool-shaped pianos, but merely the worshipful respect of thousands of musicians all over the world.