RSSBud Powell [extended]
- Jazz at Massey Hall [Original Jazz Classics, 1991] A
- Eight Classic Albums [Real Gone Jazz, 2011] A-
- Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings [Craft, 2023] A
See Also:
Consumer Guide Reviews:
The Quintet [Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie/Bud Powell/Charles Mingus/Max Roach]: Jazz at Massey Hall [Original Jazz Classics, 1991]
Date: 5/15/53. Length: 47 minutes. Place: Toronto, Ontario. Band: Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charlie Mingus, Max Roach, and clandestine alto saxophonist Charlie "Chan." Never mind the apparently similar Diz N Bird at Carnegie Hall (24 minutes of a quintet that adds John Lewis, Al McKibbon, and Joe Harris to the two horns before turning into a big band record) or the hosannahed Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (38 Bird-Diz-Roach minutes substituting Parker's studio-favored Al Haig-Curly Russell piano-bass combo). Without question, this is live Bird numero uno even though the setlist belongs to Dizzy, including the inevitable (and dandy) "Salt Peanuts" and "Night in Tunisia." Parker's relaxed, bluesy mood is epitomized by a seriously interactive "All the Things You Are" that shifts bar-by-bar between virtuoso phrases and soulful here's-the-melody before dissolving into a "52nd Street Theme" breakdown. Gillespie is lyrical and incisive, Powell brings his A game, Roach thunders like no post-swing drummer working, and Mingus's bass is the most expressive in classic bebop. O Canada! A
Eight Classic Albums [Real Gone Jazz, 2011]
Poking around Amazon I came across this compact, unannotated, four-CD, 74-track set for 13 bucks and said what the hell--I'd never investigated Powell and Carola can't get enough jazz piano. When it arrived I was alarmed to discover that among the P's and R's hidden behind my office door resided the equally compact, richly annotated, five-CD, 101-track 1994 The Complete Bud Powell on Verve, '40s-heavy material that I was relieved to learn shares not a single recording with this set and bemused to learn remains in print for, well, 70 bucks. Unsystematic comparison listening indicates that you might as well start with these '50s sessions. Personally Powell was a wreck--his pal Thelonious once took a heroin rap for him. But more than Monk, whose deepest musical commitments were to his unimaginable melodies and implacable left hand, Powell was a pure bebop improvisor. Only one of the eight full albums here is a full classic: 1951's The Amazing Bud Powell, with drummer Roy Haynes and, crucially, Fats Navarro and Sonny Rollins's horns. Except for 1957's The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 3, where Curtis Fuller's trombone adds color, the others are trio jobs, with Art Taylor usually on drums as the bass passes from George Duvivier to Paul Chambers to Sam Jones to Ray Brown. My favorite is 1958's The Scene Changes--The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 5--hear Chambers rise to the surface of the eight-minute "Comin' Up." For sheer piano, check out the title track of Time Waits--The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 4. And the thick, speedy, bop-infused "Bud on Bach" reminds me to specify that never as I've ranged unsystematically through this bargain has a single track riled my tinkle-averse side. A-
The Quintet [Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie/Bud Powell/Charles Mingus/Max Roach]: Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings [Craft, 2023]
Somewhere in my unkempt trove of Charlie Parker CDs gather large portions of this legendary May 1953 bebop showcase, most of it recorded at 2753-capacity Massey Hall in Toronto's toddlin' town--not to a full house, especially with Joe Walcott defending his heavyweight championship against Rocky Marciano in Chicago the same night, a piece of history Dizzy Gillespie elected to follow on a backstage TV whenever he could grab the chance. The rest of this never again duplicated ensemble comprised doomed eternal bebopper Parker on alto, indomitable Max Roach on drums, a zonked Bud Powell replacing originally scheduled Lennie Tristano on piano, and Oscar Pettiford's replacement on bass Charlie Mingus, who when he discovered that some of his music had gone unrecorded that night absconded with the tapes so he could dub his own parts onto them. If this reads like some kind of mess, in some respects it was. For years when I wanted to hear some bebop I'd return not to Massey Hall however legendary it was but to the aforementioned Charlie Parker trove, especially his Dial sessions and the de facto Bird showcase Now's the Time. But given the historic weight of this event I'm definitely not done with Hothouse. And just for the record, whether those are the right Mingus bass parts doesn't seem to matter that much. A