"Time Flies: The Life And Music Of Bud Powell, Part 1"

[ghost of miles]

Last week's Night Lights episode, "Time Flies: The Life And Music Of Bud Powell Part 1," with special guest and Powell biographer Peter Pullman, is now archived for online listening:

http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/tempus-fugueit-life-music-bud-powell-part-1/

"The Scene Changes: The Life And Music Of Bud Powell, Part 2" is airing this week; you can stream it tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 6 a.m. EDT on WBGO (http://www.wbgo.org/) and Sunday evening at 10 p.m. EDT on Blue Lake Public Radio (http://www.bluelake.org/radio/index.html). I'll have that episode archived on the Night Lights website as of Monday morning.

From the archives, there's also "Burning With Bud: Bud Powell Live, 1944-1953":

http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/burning-bud-bud-powell-live-19441953/

[ghost of miles]

We re-aired Time Flies: The Life and Music of Bud Powell, Part 1 last week, and it remains archived for online listening.

[blind-blake]

Thanks! Will definitely be checking these out!

[ghost of miles]

Up for Bud's centennial this Friday, and also because we re-aired the program last week:

Time Flies: The Life and Music of Bud Powell, Part 1

[AllenLowe]

always glad to see something about Bud, but I am not a fan of Pullman's bio. Aside from one very bizarre discographical error  (he is definitely wrong about some performances which he claims were not recorded in '47 - and clearly they were), he does not write very well. I don't think I ever finished the book, and I am a Bud fanatic.

[Gheorghe]

On 9/25/2024 at 7:16 PM, AllenLowe said:

always glad to see something about Bud, but I am not a fan of Pullman's bio. Aside from one very bizarre discographical error  (he is definitely wrong about some performances which he claims were not recorded in '47 - and clearly they were), he does not write very well. I don't think I ever finished the book, and I am a Bud fanatic.

Well, I read the book because I didn´t know nothing about Bud´s live other than all the things Paudras wrote which are not always the truth, since Paudras didn´t mention that he knew Bud personally only for maybe 2 years. So Mr. Pullman´s book gave me more infos about what I didn´t know, if there is more to know for a man who is interested almost exclusivly in the music itself....

So I never had known anything before  Mr. Pullman did his  researches. 

Maybe, all them hospital records is a bit too much for me and my English is not that good to read much non-musical stuff.....
But you know, I have been mostly interested in what Bud played, and to learn something about his marvelous touch, and that stuff you can´t read in books. 

I know about that discussion whether Buds first record was in ´47 or ´49´ but personally I don´t care.... it sounds good, though I prefer the periods when drummers where better recorded, I mean to have Max Roach on record and can´t hear him.....that´s almost zero to me. No drums heard, no real musical thrill and pleasure for me....

This lack of recording tehnique would have been in 1947 as well as in 1949, so if the stuff was done 2 years earlier or 2 years later is not important to me. 

What sounded interesting is that it is more possible that Bud was the one who really had the idea of "Conception" and that Shearing had stolen that idea from Bud. As Mr. Pullman told me personally this was what no one less than Al McKibbon had told him, and Al McKibbon had played with Shearing when he altered sets with Bud at Birdland or where it was...., and McKibbon has played with Bud as well. 

[AllenLowe]

On 10/3/2024 at 1:50 AM, Gheorghe said:

Well, I read the book because I didn´t know nothing about Bud´s live other than all the things Paudras wrote which are not always the truth, since Paudras didn´t mention that he knew Bud personally only for maybe 2 years. So Mr. Pullman´s book gave me more infos about what I didn´t know, if there is more to know for a man who is interested almost exclusivly in the music itself....

So I never had known anything before  Mr. Pullman did his  researches. 

Maybe, all them hospital records is a bit too much for me and my English is not that good to read much non-musical stuff.....
But you know, I have been mostly interested in what Bud played, and to learn something about his marvelous touch, and that stuff you can´t read in books. 

I know about that discussion whether Buds first record was in ´47 or ´49´ but personally I don´t care.... it sounds good, though I prefer the periods when drummers where better recorded, I mean to have Max Roach on record and can´t hear him.....that´s almost zero to me. No drums heard, no real musical thrill and pleasure for me....

This lack of recording tehnique would have been in 1947 as well as in 1949, so if the stuff was done 2 years earlier or 2 years later is not important to me. 

What sounded interesting is that it is more possible that Bud was the one who really had the idea of "Conception" and that Shearing had stolen that idea from Bud. As Mr. Pullman told me personally this was what no one less than Al McKibbon had told him, and Al McKibbon had played with Shearing when he altered sets with Bud at Birdland or where it was...., and McKibbon has played with Bud as well. 

well, that's not a good idea, to think differentiating the time period is unimportant. Bud was an amazing figure, and his development as a musician is an amazing and essential thing to witness - and he was a different player in 1947 than in 1948 through, perhaps, 1953, which were his peak years. To say the time period is unimportant is like also saying it might as well have been 1956, when he was audibly deteriorating.  Or that what a writer wrote is unimportant to recognize, even if his early work is different than the later.

In 1947 Bud is playing great, but he does NOT have the depth to his playing that he has in '48 and '49. How can this be unimportant? It is important because Bud is changing, deepening, expanding. BUT MOST IMPORTANT: How can you trust a writer who cannot differentiate between different sounds and approaches, especially one as clear as this? To me this shows how poor Pullman's judgement is, and it tells me NOT to trust any other musical observations he makes - because the difference in  Bud's playing is plain and obvious. And if you yourself don't make the distinction, you should go back, because it is so artistically blatant, and it will lead you to appreciate Bud even more.

As for Paudras, I knew him a little, and you seem to be dismissing him. He was a great guy who really saved Bud's life. He deserves better treatment.

Edited October 11 by AllenLowe

[John L]

Thanks, Allen.  That is interesting.  So you believe that the first Roost session was from 1947 because Bud was playing in a clearly different manner than on his Blue Note and Clef sessions from 1949?   

[AllenLowe]

1 minute ago, John L said:

Thanks, Allen.  That is interesting.  So you believe that the first Roost session was from 1947 because Bud was playing in a clearly different manner than on his Blue Note and Clef sessions from 1949?   

Yes - but it is because of the ballads (I Should Care, for example) - his ballad approach is significantly different than what it would become in the next year or two, a little more decorous and even lush. Compare a ballad from '47 to those from '49 and I think you will hear the difference.

Also - and it is less scientific - but I had some long talks with Curley Russell about these sessions, and though I did not ask about the year (this wasn't an issue back in the 1970s when I knew him) he always sounded like those Roosts were from the same session.

 

[John L]

1 hour ago, AllenLowe said:

Yes - but it is because of the ballads (I Should Care, for example) - his ballad approach is significantly different than what it would become in the next year or two, a little more decorous and even lush. Compare a ballad from '47 to those from '49 and I think you will hear the difference.

Also - and it is less scientific - but I had some long talks with Curley Russell about these sessions, and though I did not ask about the year (this wasn't an issue back in the 1970s when I knew him) he always sounded like those Roosts were from the same session.

 

Thanks, Allen.   From the same session as what?  

[AllenLowe]

6 hours ago, John L said:

Thanks, Allen.   From the same session as what?  

as all the 1947 Roost recordings - with Curley and Max Roach.

[John L]

OK.    I don't think there was ever a question about there maybe being more than one 1940s session released by Roost.  There is a very different second session released by Roost (this one actually recorded by Roost) from September, 1953 with George Duvivier and Art Taylor.  The 1940s session, which you argue is from 1947 and Pullman argues is from 1949, was apparently obtained by Roost from another source. 

[Chuck Nessa]

FWIW, the Blue Note box assembled by Cuscuna (pictured below) dates the early Roost session as recorded on January 10, 1947 - my wonderful wife's 4th birthday.

[AllenLowe]

12 hours ago, John L said:

OK.    I don't think there was ever a question about there maybe being more than one 1940s session released by Roost.  There is a very different second session released by Roost (this one actually recorded by Roost) from September, 1953 with George Duvivier and Art Taylor.  The 1940s session, which you argue is from 1947 and Pullman argues is from 1949, was apparently obtained by Roost from another source. 

I wasn't aware of that, thanks, I just have to insist, on aural evidence, that what Pullman thinks was '49 sounds, ballad-wise, nothing like Bud from that year.

Edited October 12 by AllenLowe

[Gheorghe]

Well thank you Mr. @AllenLowe, I was not so much aware of it. 
I have not listened to Bud Powell records for many years, I did when I was a teenager and remember I had such a 2 LP album titled "Best Years" and it was the greatest.

It had one side from 1947, one from 1953, one from 1960 in Paris, and one from 1964 again in N.Y.

The first one, well I always have a little problem if I don´t really hear what a drummer like Max Roach does, on those old records they always underrecorded....
About the ballads...... yeah but really the best ballads I heard from Bud are much later. 
On the second side that says is from 1953 (which by the way has a wonderful "Woody´n You" and "Bean and the Boys", the ballads on that, especially "My Devotion" I like much better than on Side A. 
Side C is very nice and sounds very fine, though Clarke plays only brushes, you really HEAR him and that´s best for me. 

On Side D I find the most lovely ballads, "Someone to watch over me", "If I´d love you" and "I remember Clifford" are superb, those chords man, it´s sooo deep that stuff ! 
And it has a wonderful version of "The Best thing you have is me" or how it is called. Guys tell me it´s "hard to play" but what´s hard, well it has 12 bars in the A section and 8 bars the bridge, so what ? "Conception" also has that form and you play it easily...

What I try to say, I read the book of Pullman just as a guide line what really was the live of Bud about. That´s nothing you read for information, it´s what you read if you relax at the pool or before sleeping.... but special years if this was in this year or that year is not the really point for me, I just try to pick up the best from the music. I´´m not a collector but I have also stuff from let´s say 1955 1960 or 1965 and it sounds good, maybe not like the young Bud, maybe the very last records have one or two fluffs, but who cares? It all is Bud.

By the way: As I get older, my hearing is not good and high frequencies don´t reach my ears, so on all those early stuff on let´s say Verve, those many tracks of some Get Happy or Tea for Two, I don´t hear that high note shit , those runs in the upper registers, but one octave more down, like let´s say the same stuff 10 or 15 years later maybe does not have that speed , but I can hear it and enjoy it..... and I like the touch of the keys from later Bud Recordings more than on the early stuff....

[mhatta]

Kinda off topic...

I went to Paris last week, so I visited Rue de Clichy. According to Peter Pullman's ‘Wail’, the Francis Paudras family lived with Bud Powell at 64 Rue De Clichy. Now there is a bistro or sports bar on the ground floor, but it looks like the upper floors are still residential. I wonder what floor they lived on.