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This week Kate Molleson explores the life and work of a jazz giant in his centenary year: the amazing Bud Powell, in the company of Powell’s biographer Peter Pullman. Focusing on Bud Powell as a performer, prioritising his own compositions but also appreciating the art of improvisation as spontaneous composition.

Bud Powell was born in 1924 and grew up in Harlem, against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance. He was a gifted pianist from a young age and became a pioneer of bebop. But he was a troubled soul and the great paradox of Bud Powell is how there could be such joy and expression in his music while his life was so painful.

Today Kate Molleson and Peter Pullman explore the period of Powell’s arrest alongside Thelonious Monk in 1951, and his subsequent psychiatric incarceration. In December 1952, the Birdland club in New York City managed to secure two days release for Powell in order for him to give concerts with his trio. They had to promise to have him back the moment he’d played his last note. He was actually escorted to the piano by hospital staff, who stood on either side of the stage for the entirety of the sets and promptly whisked him away at the end of the night. An awful image – and the start of Powell being considered incapacitated and being variously cared for, controlled and downright abused.

Peter Pullman's deeply researched biography of Bud Powell is called Wail: the Life of Bud Powell.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say: "Ask ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sounds to play Composer of the Week."

Music featured:
Un Poco Loco (from the Amazing Bud Powell)
Over the Rainbow (from the Amazing Bud Powell)
A Night in Tunisia (from the Amazing Bud Powell)
Dance of the Infidels (from the Amazing Bud Powell)
So Sorry Please (from Jazz Giant)
Glass Enclosure (from the Amazing Bud Powell, vol 2)
Lullaby of Birdland (from Inner Fires)
Sure Thing (from Inner Fires)
Parisian Thoroughfare (from the Genius of Bud Powell)
Polka Dots and Moonbeams (from the Amazing Bud Powell, vol 2)
Hallelujah (from Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings)
Hot House (from Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings)