The Amazing Bud Powell. Guthrie P. Ramsey

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СКАЧАТЬ Tests and Triumphs of a Modernist

      He was what you call a real genius. . . . He was something else in his young age.

      Cootie Williams, Institute of Jazz Studies Oral History interview

      When the contemporary pianist Marcus Roberts presented the music of Bud Powell and Earl Hines in the opulent splendor of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater in the spring of 2011, the event boasted all the trappings of fine-art celebration. The repertory-styled ensemble performed Powell’s compositions in a way that intended to showcase the music’s enduring artistic appeal, beyond its moment of inception, a characterization that always accompanies “art” status. There, in the bosom of one of New York City’s premiere sanctuaries for high culture, the inventive Roberts explored Powell’s unmistakable melodies and clever harmonic turns in a way that pleased the knowing audience and would have certainly thrilled the composer himself. Who could have known that the work of a child born in black uptown New York would be contemplated and revisited in the most prestigious circles some eighty-plus years after his birth?

      Any version of Powell’s short life, the contours of which are traced in this chapter, must attempt to make sense of it in relationship to a number of narratives, some dominant and others downplayed in existing accounts. I imbed and interpret his biography’s major elements in several contexts: his family and friends; the sonic worlds that he engaged; the rough-and-tumble, mostly exploitative, emerging business of modern jazz in which he made his reputation; the close network of musicians and members of other art movements who rocked 1940s and ’50s culture in America and beyond; and the difficulties that ravaged the lives of many young African American men of Powell’s ilk: drug and alcohol abuse (or, in his case, self-medication), psychiatric (mis)treatment, and the criminal (in)justice system.

      The story begins modestly. Earl “Bud” Powell was born on September 27, 1924, to Pearl and William Powell, Sr., in Harlem Hospital, in the heart of a neighborhood that was rapidly becoming an enclave of diverse black ethnic groups. In the realm of race politics, times were indeed changing, and Harlem figured prominently in those changes. Harlem Hospital, established in 1887 to provide medical care to poor residents of Manhattan’s growing population north of Central Park, became the first hospital in the city to employ a black physician on its staff in 1920.¹ Beyond this and many other firsts, the neighborhood ultimately would become well known throughout the world as an incubator of some of the most dynamic cultural activities, institutions, and artists of its era, one that shaped African American cultural production for decades to come.

      The 1936 Harlem Hospital mural project certainly was one symbol of the neighborhood’s progressive attitude. Featuring images of black physicians and backed by the Works Progress Administration, it became controversial among white doctors employed at the hospital for being too “Negro.” The mural shows that Harlem’s air was thickening with social change and artistic energy during the early decades of the century. One must appreciate, however, that notions of black empowerment were juxtaposed with another sensibility in Harlem. In this reality, one in which age-old ideas about race and sexuality were rehearsed and reified, well-heeled whites safaried the nightlife “in search of supposedly more authentic black entertainment, crossracial sexual encounters, and the anonymity necessary to allow themselves to indulge in the ‘primitive’ behaviors and desires they associated with blacks.”² When Powell’s parents moved to Harlem while Pearl was pregnant with Bud, they could not have chosen a more exciting place.³ How could the young Powell not soak up all the dynamic and contradictory elements of this atmosphere? Certainly he did, for a few short years later, he would be part of the network of important musicians who extended (and, in some cases, upended) all these social energies into new conceptions of art for a new time and the next generation.

      A family tradition of music making rooted Powell’s muse. His paternal grandfather, Zachary Gregory, it has been reported, learned flamenco guitar in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and fought “side by side” with Theodore Roosevelt.⁴ When he began classical piano The Tests and Triumphs of a Modernist study at the age of six, Powell was taught by a Mr. William Rawlins.⁵ Rawlins, reportedly of West Indian heritage, apparently introduced Powell to classical piano literature. Bebop saxophonist Jackie McLean, a family friend of the Powells’, recalls Rawlins as a diligent pedagogue, “a hidden genius” whose quick raps with a ruler to Powell’s hands encouraged strict observance of the “proper fingerings.”⁶

      As a classical musician of African descent, Rawlins was part of a growing rank and file of black musicians who aspired to the highest level of performance in western art music. This group could trace their existence to the earliest years of the nineteenth century through musicians such as the Philadelphian Francis Johnson (1792– 1844), and when the National Association of Negro Musicians formed in 1919, black classical musicians organized themselves and became evangelists for their work among African Americans. Despite the long history of discriminatory practices in the classical world, many black musicians dedicated themselves to the repertoire and its associated decorum, and Powell himself intended to become a concert musician in this ritualized world.⁷

      Powell’s father appears to have been the first guiding force in his musical life. Powell once stated, in a rare interview with Sharon Pease, a writer for Down Beat, that he had received “much advice, inspiration, and encouragement” from his father, whom he identified as a professional stride pianist.⁸ McLean says that the senior Powell was still playing in the early 1960s, and also working as a building superintendent in Harlem.⁹ According to William Sr., his son was an exceptional and gifted pianist, and by age seven, Bud was being chauffeured from place to place to perform for older musicians.¹⁰ William Sr.’s, circle of friends included musicians who had significant influence on the younger Powell’s musical development. In his father’s report, by age ten Powell was reproducing with ease what he heard, including some of the music of Art Tatum and Fats Waller, a friend and frequent visitor to the Powell home. William Sr., took great pride in his son’s musicianship and supposedly preserved some of his performances for posterity. Francis Paudras claims to have heard in 1964 William Sr.’s homemade recordings, made between 1934 and 1939, which featured Bud as a young virtuoso playing Bach, Chopin, and Debussy, as well as jazz interpretations of “Tea for Two,” “How High the Moon,” and “Honeysuckle Rose.”¹¹

      Powell’s musical activities eventually expanded into his church, school, and social life. In the mid- to late 1930s, Powell served as an acolyte at Harlem’s St. Charles Roman Catholic Church, at 211 West 143rd Street.¹² Reverend Monsignor Owen J. Scanlon remembers Powell singing in the choir and playing the organ for services. He also recalls that while Powell was still in school, the church hired a band that Powell played in for what Scanlon describes as “teen-age dances.”¹³ Bob Doerschuk notes that during this period Powell “tried his hand at playing written pieces on the organ, and with his boyhood friend, Elmo Hope . . . he would pass the hours listening to classical records.”¹⁴ In fact, Hope had begun to win medals for his solo recitals by 1938.¹⁵ Both Hope and Powell would eventually devote themselves to full-time careers in jazz and popular music, perhaps because very little opportunity existed for blacks to work in classical music.

      In his early teens, Powell became more interested in jazz, and according to pianist Walter Davis, a friend of Powell’s, his parents and teacher were let down: “They had been working on him like a Frankenstein monster, perfecting, perfecting, perfecting. They wanted him to be the best classical pianist in the country. That’s why they made him learn all of that music. But Bud broke their hearts going another way.”¹⁶ Powell became enchanted with the work of pianist Billy Kyle (1914– 66).¹⁷ Kyle is best known for playing in the John Kirby Sextet, billed as “The Biggest Little Band in the Land.” He performed with the group from February 1938 until he was drafted into the armed services in late 1942. It was probably during these years that Kyle first caught Powell’s attention. Born in Philadelphia, he studied classical piano and organ in childhood and then branched out into various local bands. Among his СКАЧАТЬ