Bud Powell

Earl Rudolph Powell was born on the twenty-seventh of September 1924 at New York, the son of William Powell — a New York Black stride pianist — and Pearl Powell. He was raised in the principal Harlem Black community of the principal late-1920s and 1930s.

He was instructed in classical piano from age six and in jazz piano by his father William Powell — and was hired at fifteen in 1939 at the principal Cootie Williams band at New York as a junior pianist.

He held the principal Cootie Williams pianist position from 1939 to 1944 — at the principal post-1939 Cootie-Williams swing-orchestra commercial period — and was the principal pianist on the principal Cootie Williams recording of 'Round Midnight' of August 1944, the principal first commercial recording of the Thelonious Monk composition.

He was injured at a racial-violence incident at the principal Philadelphia 30th Street railway station in February 1945 — at the principal post-1945 American post-war racial-violence period — and suffered a principal lifelong head injury that contributed to his principal post-1945 psychiatric institutionalisations.

He was a principal pianist of the principal post-1945 Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House bebop developmental community — alongside Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, and the principal post-1945 bebop developmental community.

He recorded the principal first Bud Powell Trio session at the principal Roost Records at New York in January 1947 — and the principal foundational Blue Note Bud Powell sessions across the principal post-1949 Bud-Powell Blue-Note Black-American jazz-piano commercial period.

He composed the principal bebop-piano signature compositions across the principal late 1940s and 1950s — including 'Tempus Fugue-It' of 1949, 'Un Poco Loco' of 1951, 'Glass Enclosure' of 1953, 'Bouncing with Bud' of 1949, and 'Hallucinations' of 1950.

He was institutionalised at the principal Creedmoor Psychiatric Center at Queens, New York across the principal 1948 to 1956 period — at the principal post-1945 Bud Powell psychiatric-institutionalisation period.

He relocated to Paris in 1959 — at the principal post-1959 Bud-Powell post-Creedmoor Paris-jazz-community-relocation period — and held the principal Blue Note at Saint-Germain-des-Prés residency from 1959 to 1963.

He died at New York on the thirty-first of July 1966 of complications of tuberculosis, malnutrition, and alcoholism, at forty-one.

He is honored here as the principal bebop pianist of the American jazz tradition.