All About Jazz is celebrating Bud Powell's birthday today!
Bud Powell is generally considered to be the most important pianist in the history of jazz. Noted jazz writer and critic Gary Giddins, in Visions of Jazz, goes even further, saying that “Powell will be recognized as one of the most formidable creators of piano music in any time or idiom."
His first recordings were made in 1944, when he was a 20 year old pianist in the Cootie Williams Band, and his last recordings were made in 1964 when he returned from several years in Europe to play at Birdland.
Between those dates Bud Powell played with the greatest jazz musicians of his generation... Read more.
