Search - Bud Powell :: Live in Lausanne 1962

Wanna know what swing really is ?? Listen to this !!!

JEAN-MARIE JUIF | BESANCON France | 07/29/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A million thanks to Chick Corea for producing this "new" record of Bud Powell.A million thanks to Celia Powell,Bud's daughter,for giving these tapes to Corea and letting him issue them.
Who said that Bud couldn't anymore play in the sixties ? This unissued broadcast recording,made in Lausanne,Switzerland,January 31,1962, and recorded live,will surely demonstrate that Bud ,at the beginning of this year,was in perfect health,and still able to play like mad.Bud's terrific,incredibely swinging style,with strong influences of Bird,and Bach too,allways gives me a feeling of total happiness.Seriously,I don't know if another jazz musician,even Louis,or Lester,or Billie,or Bird or Hawk,never swang this way.Simply terrific.
1962 seems to have been a good year for Bud.On April,he recorded a colossal album,"Bouncing with Bud",with NHOP;three months before,he was in Lausanne,and this exceptionnal concert was recorded.The sound quality is rather good,not great,but as good as many studio sessions,so don't worry about it.The bassist and drummer probably are swiss musicians,and they manage to do a very correct job.And there is Bud.Bud ,the magnificent one.And the repertoire : there is no composition by Bud,and it's very rare;only great bop tunes,and a few standards.And Bud,playing with total mastery.Just listen to Bud's introduction to "all God's children got rhythm";or to "Billie's bounce";this is Bud at his highest level,a level never reached by any other piano player.If you don't tap your foot while the music goes on,then stop listening to jazz,this music is not for your ears.
The four standards palyed are great ones: "lover,come back to me" by Hammerstein,"how high the moon" by Hamilton, "just one of those things" by Porter, and "all God's children" by Kaper.The other tunes were written by Bird ("Billie's bounce","Ornithology","Confirmation"),Monk ("Round midnight","Evidence"),Pettiford ("blues in the closet"),Golson ("I remember Clifford",written after Clifford Brown's tragic death at 25,in a car crash,in which Bud's brother,pianist Richie Powell was also killed),Gillespie ("woody'n'you"),and Bird/Dizzy/Bishop ("Anthropology").Sixty five minutes of joy with imperial playing by Bud Powell.Fourty years after it was recorded,this very great concert is available,so don't miss it.It sure will rank among the indispensable records of the great Earl "Bud" Powell."

Supreme Bud Powell. From his final years.

JEAN-MARIE JUIF | 08/15/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This legendary (but previously long out of print) live date, universally coveted by collectors, is proof that even in his later years, Bud Powell was the greatest pianist on earth. Here, he is inspired, brilliant, fresh, lighting fast, and his solos are long, bursting with ideas. This is prime Bud Powell, among the finest recorded."

Nothing less than a miracle

jive rhapsodist | NYC, NY United States | 01/11/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What happened in Lausanne on Jan 31, 1962? This is nothing less than one of Bud Powell's greatest performances. Yes, there are moments on some of those preserved Three Bosses (Powell, Pierre Michelot, Kenny Clarke) gigs where Bud plays with this kind of demonic intensity. But not consistently. Here, however, with an absolutely journeyman rhythm team, he turns in one masterpiece after another. Listen to the flow of invention on Billie's Bounce. OK, it's played nowhere nearly as fast as it would've been ten years earlier. But really, so what? It's scaled perfectly to what Bud is capable of in '62, and blows nearly every other Jazz pianist out of the water. This performance alone is great enough to change the received wisdom about Bud's later career. And, anyway, a few of the tracks are fast enough for anyone - All God's Children Got Rhythm is stunning. The swing is intense, and Bud seems to enjoy riffing more than he did in early years, to great effect.

I love that he quotes a large swath of Dizzy's solo on the original 1944 recording during Woody n'You - his musical memory was clearly intact. And his slightly labored chops on that track actually add to the poignancy of this performance - a little resistance gives something to the lyricism. Confirmation (Track 8) is just masterful. The weight and swing of Bud's touch are just so beyond what any of his disciples in the world of "Bop Piano" are capable of. The lines just SING. After a very moving performance of I Remember Clifford (Track 9), a piece which must have had particular weight for Powell, since his brother Richie was killed in the same car crash that took Clifford Brown's life, the rest of the concert is a little anticlimactic: Just One Of Those Things is a little phoned-in virtuosic and Evidence doesn't really address the composition - Monk's rereading of Just You, Just Me - preferring instead just to safely run the changes. After a lovely, relaxed performance of Pettiford's Blues In The Closet, the concert came to an end (or at least the recorded portion did). And I really hope the good people of Lausanne knew just how good it all was."