Track Listing

1. Tempus Fugue-It (Tempus Fugit)
2. Celia
3. Cherokee
4. I'll Keep Loving You
5. Strictly Confidential
6. All God's Chillun Got Rhythm
7. So Sorry, Please
8. Get Happy
9. Sometimes I'm Happy
10. Sweet Georgia Brown
11. Yesterdays
12. April In Paris
13. Body And Soul

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30760 in Music
• Released on: 2001-02-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Album Description
The complete album Jazz Giant, widely regarded as one of the best of Bud Powell’s career. As a bonus, a complete 1951 piano solo session featuring two of the Powell’s best known compositions: Hallucinations and Parisian Thoroughfare, plus some more extra numbers.

Amazon.com
This CD combines trio sessions from 1949 and 1950, a time when Bud Powell was at the brief peak of his powers, creating some of the definitive piano recordings of modern jazz. At its best, Powell's work represented one of those rare moments when technique, creative vision, and the historical situation combined to create masterpieces. Drawing elements of his inspiration from Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk, Powell was the one bop pianist able to hold his own as a soloist with the greatest horn players. The earlier recordings have Powell accompanied by Ray Brown on bass and Max Roach on drums, and as potent a rhythm section as that is, Powell provides much of the momentum. Ideas fly from the pianist's fingers on standards such as "Cherokee" and his own "Tempus Fugit." It's apparent from "Celia" and the moving "I'll Keep Loving You" that Powell is one of the neglected composers of jazz. On the later session, with Roach and bassist Curly Russell, there's more emphasis on Powell's ballad playing, and while the shifting approaches can suggest Tatum, there's a depth to "Body and Soul" that is Powell's alone. Shades of Monk's skewed rhythms appear in the bounce tempo "So Sorry, Please," but they arise in the midst of Powell's distinct linear invention. Jazz piano has rarely reached these heights. The Verve Master Edition presents these essential recordings with sparkling 24-bit remastering and adds new liner notes by Powell biographer Peter Pullman. --Stuart Broomer

Customer Reviews

All the stars of the Universe
All the stars of the Universe is my rating for this album from Bud. Bud together with Monk and probably Tadd Dameron, is bebop piano. Period. This album shooted Bud on the top stairs of bebop pantheon. I can't judge this album ... it's a masterpiece of the twenthieth century, how could you rate it simply "five stars". We are way over here. In this album you'll find some of Bud wildest interpretations of standard tunes and some of his wonderful compositions such as Celia or The Fruit. This is something that has to be pointed out clearly, Bud was not only the greatest bop pianist but a fantastic composer too. He has been one of the few who has equalled Parker and Dameron in the bop lines writing. Bouncing with Bud, Dance of the infidels (not presented here), Hallucinations, Tempus fuge it, Celia, The fruit and many more form alltogether the picture of an impressive composer with an unlimited fantasy and creativity (not mentioning the monster chops Bud had at the piano). I can suggest this album to every jazz lover, but in particular to those so in love with the new generation of pianists ... all the Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett "alumni" from scandinavia. Come back to the root. Bud is the man. A strange fact. I have a version of this album made for the sudamerican market which has 20 tunes. There are 7 more tunes after Body and soul, they are taken from different sessions and actually they are published in the "The Genius of Bud Powell" album on Verve. Those tunes are: Oblivion, Dusk in sandi, Hallucinations, The fruit, A Nightingale sang in Berkley square, Just one of those things, Last time I saw Paris. The booklet doesn't say almost anything about these tunes (some of them are Bud alone), but the quality of this music I can Judge by myself .... stellar. Jazz giant is a masterpiece, buy it don't esitate.

The best Powell in the studio
This is music that sounds better every day. Mysterious, elemental, intellectual.

Tempus Fugit and So Does Bud
It would be difficult indeed to think of a jazz piano tune as exciting as the principal track on this CD, "Tempus Fugue-it." If there was ever any doubt in anyone's mind about Bud Powell's position in the jazz piano pantheon, this track should clear that up. It is simply a perpetual motion cascade of ideas presented with crystal clarity. It is as stirring a performance by a jazz pianist as you will ever hear.

As an observation, compare the track with Horace Silver's "Safari," also a magnificently moving solo piece, on his first Blue Note album, "The Horace Silver Trio," which captures a similar mood through a different approach, that is part barrelhouse, part Bud. In the end, Bud was, and is, the man!