Bud Powell with the 'Birth of the Cool' nonet

Bud Powell at Birdland

One the many discoveries made by Peter Pullman in his definitive biography of Bud Powell is that the pianist sat in once with Miles Davis's short-lived Nonet, of "Birth of the Cool" fame. 

We know the regular pianist was John Lewis, who also contributed a number of arrangements ("Move", "Budo", "Why Do I Love You") and compositions ("Rouge", "S'il Vous Plaît") and is present in all the recordings except the first studio session, where he was replaced by Al Haig. 

According to Pullman, Powell's sitting in took place some time in 1950 at Birdland. In his book (pp. 138-139) he quotes extensively from budding pianist Sy Johnson, then just about 20 years old and living in Connecticut, for whom the trip to New York City to see and listen the Miles Davis Nonet (and the Lennie Tristano Sextet) must have been a special occasion, even though it wasn't remembered by any of the musicians Johnson spoke to years later.

Johnson tells a detailed tale of the evening, from Bud Powell's triumphant and acclaimed interventions,  to Billie Holiday's cat-calling Miles while he was on stage or Gary Cooper and James Stewart being turned away at the door because the place was packed. Interestingly, he also remembered that

Herman [Leonard] was over there [trying] to take pictures. He was leaning over the railing, getting closeup pictures of Bud with his Rolleiflex. Bud was all sweaty.

The photograph above is one of Leonard classics from the era. What I had not realized myself until know, is that it must come from the time when Powell sat in with the Nonet. Bear in mind that the the resolution of the images I have is not good enough.

First of all, who else is in the picture?

Art Blakey

A young Art Blakey right behind Powell. Pullman's biography gives Max Roach as the drummer, but I don't think this is too important. Johnson might have misremembered, or Blakey might have sat in at some point. Interestingly, although the drummers on the recordings are Max Roach and Kenny Clarke, at some point Blakey was mentioned as having recorded with the Nonet.

More significant is...

Bill Barber

That is Bill Barber on tuba. He was on all the Birth of the Cool recordings, he was a member of the Claude Thornhill orchestra, and he would go on to play on all the recording sessions Miles and Gil Evans did together for Columbia, from Miles Ahead to Quiet Nights. 

Finally, a one-off gig with a band playing a particular and heavily arranged repertoire may be the explanation for the amount of paper on Powell's piano. The resolution of my pictures is not good enough, but a proper hi-res scan of the negative would undoubtedly show the chords and notes on the papers.

In sum: that picture of Bud Powell was most likely taken at his one-off gig with Miles Davis's Nonet, but confirmation, and proof that Powell performed with the Nonet, will only come when we can read the music properly.

Update (May 8, 2021): When I said that my images weren't good enough to make out what was on the piano, I should have said "not good enough for me", because they are good enough for eagle-eyed drummer and scholar George Schuller, whose father, among very many other things, played French horn in Miles Davis's Nonet. George has seen this poorly pictures, and (drum roll), what Powell has in front of him is the original piano part for "Jeru":

(Click on the image to enlarge it)

And he adds that he can also see part of the first page of George Wallington's "Godchild":

(Click on the image to enlarge it)

The images supplied by George are from the original parts currently housed at the Library of Congress. Yes, children, those pieces of paper in front of Powell still exist.

This is proof that the Bud Powell not only played with the Nonet, but also that he was photographed. I do hope, though, that George Schuller and other capable scholars will be able to get hold of high resolution excerpts of those pictures in order to study them.

PS: Two more pictures from the same night (source: Herman Leonard's website).

"Bud was all sweaty..."