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.

Kenny Clarke's centenary

Kenny Clarke (source: drummercafe.com)

Kenny Clarke, born one hundred years ago today, is one of the great drummers in the history of jazz. Any reference text will tell you about his role in the development of be-bop, his bomb-dropping, his shifting of the rhythm from the hi-hat to the ride cymbal and all that, which is correct and just fine, but there's much more.

Like Don Byas, he's one of those musicians whose place in posterity has been diminished because they left the US, the "out of sight, out of mind" principle. Before that, he played in the major leagues, he was part of the original line-up of the Modern Jazz Quartet (the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band), with whom he recorded this

which seems to be the basis for what Miles Davis recorded as "Two Bass Hit". Interestingly, in the MJQ's version Milt Jackson quotes Clarke's "Epistrophy", a tune he co-signed with Thelonious Monk with origins in Minton's and the sessions with Charlie Christian (the theme was figured out by Clarke while playing some phrases Christian taught him on the ukulele).

A favourite piece of Clarke is the famous recording of "Topsy" from Minton's, with Christian on guitar, Monk on piano, and Nick Fenton on bass. Clarke's time, swing, and punctuation are flawless, but do listen for the way he interacts with Christian. That's peerless, on the spot creativity.

SALT PEANUTS!!! SALT PEANUTS!!! – Massey Hall, 60 years after

Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker
Massey Hall, Toronto, May 15, 1953
Photo by Harold Robinson

Sixty years ago today, at about 20:30, Toronto time, everything was ready for a historical evening. The best quintet in history, reuniting the founder fathers of bebop, a bunch of jazz revolutionaries, were going to play together in a summit meeting of music. This is the infamous night when a plastic sax had to be borrowed for Charlie Parker, because he hadn't brought his instrument. The night when he and his former soulmate, Dizzy Gillespie, exchanged musical punches. The night of Bud Powell's first appearance after his release from hospital.

You probably knew that. Every jazz fan knows that. However, half of the paragraph above is untrue. Of course, we've read that story many times, and it's very likely that we will read it again. But it is essentially false. Untrue. Even so, it's a story that has been repeated over and over again in the media, either general or specialized, in Spanish and in English.

Music in the air

One of the defining characteristics of jazz music, especially in the first 2/3 of the 20th century, is its mixture of oral and mechanical tradition, so to speak. Oral (aural?) because musicians learnt their craft by sheer listening, and mechanical because that learning was done primarily from records, playing them over and over again till they were worn down. In the case of simple, short phrases, like "Rhythm-A-Ning", records sometimes were not even needed for the music to live on through the years. Some time ago I wrote about Lester Young's pervading influence on subsequent generations of jazzmen. A few months ago, Doug Ramsey talked about the President's closing tenor solo on "Sometimes I'm Happy":

which immediately reminded me of Gerry Mulligan's "Jeru", premiered a few years later by Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" nonet

Mulligan was one of those staunch followers of Lester Young, and it's likely that Lester Young's solo was the inspiration for his composition. What's interesting is where this melody turns out again, practically untouched

I say practically untouched because both (the three melodies, actually) are in the same key, and the contour of "Jeru" and Bud Powell's "So Sorry, Please" are almost identical. The connection between Lester Young and Gerry Mulligan is quite clear, but the link between Mulligan and Powell is more unexpected, and can actually be narrowed down to quite some specific details: we'll be able to read the very likely explanation in the extraordinary biography of Powell by Peter Pullman.

As part of his comprehensive research, Pullman discovered that Powell had actually played on one gig by Miles Davis's Nonet. Given that their repertoire was rather limited, it is safe to assume that they must have played "Jeru". Days after that gig, Powell went into the studio and did a session where he recorded several standards and only one original, "So Sorry, Please". ¿Residual memory from the gig with the Nonet? Possibly.