BLP 1598

 The Amazing Bud Powell - Volume 4: Time Waits

Released - November 1958

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 24, 1958
Bud Powell, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

tk.5 Sub City (alternate take)
tk.8 Sub City
tk.9 John's Abbey
tk.10 Buster Rides Again
tk.11 Dry Soul
tk.12 Marmalade
tk.14 Monopoly
tk.16 Time Waits

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Buster Rides Again	Bud Powell	24/05/1958
Sub City	Bud Powell	24/05/1958
Time Waits	Bud Powell	24/05/1958
Marmalade	Bud Powell	24/05/1958
Side Two
Monopoly	Bud Powell	24/05/1958
John's Abbey	Bud Powell	24/05/1958
Dry Soul	Bud Powell	24/05/1958
Sub City (Alternate Master)	Bud Powell	24/05/1958

Credits

Cover Photo:
Cover Design:	ANDY WARHOL and REID MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	ROBERT LEVIN

Session Photos

Liner Notes

The line that separates the jazz instrumentalist from the jazz composer is thin, nebulous and easily negotiable. In the chapter of The Book of Jazz devoted to the composers and arrangers I opened with this quotation from Tony Scott: "It all starts with the soloist. What he plays today the arranger writes tomorrow." Just as the arranger imprints his own musical identity on any work he orchestrates and is thus in effect a composer, it is no less firm a rule that the composer in jazz, more often than not, is simply a soloist documenting his improvisations.

We have seen examples throughout the history of jazz. Early in Ellington's career, solos created spontaneously in his band evolved into full-scale compositions. Parker's unforgotten Anthropology started life as the final ad lib chorus on a Bird record of a different tune. By the same standard it is a matter of record rather than of theory that Bod Powell has been essentially composer as long as he has been a creative jazz pianist.

The role of the jazz pianist as composer has been recognized more completely in some performers than in others who may have spent less time composing in the formal sense of the term. Art Tatum, technically the best-equipped pianist in jazz, almost never recorded a composition bearing his own byline, not because melodic invention was outside his scope but because he preferred to improvise within the framework of a known standard theme on which his variations, all melodic entities themselves, thus had an easily discernible point of reference. In the so-called modern jazz era Thelonious Monk was the first to earn dual recognition and is today perhaps even better known as composer than as soloist. Horace Silver has worked his way into this twofold acceptance from the other direction: once thoroughly adopted as a pianistic force he was able to stress his writing ability and soon was exercising it with fast-increasing frequency and effectiveness.

Bud Powell, perhaps because of the extraordinary degree of his dominance as a solo influence in the first years of bebop, never was primarily thought of as a writer; yet those who have followed his career and development must know that in two of his most memorable recordings, "Un Poco Loco" and 'Glass Enclosure." both on this label, the roles of improviser and composer were invaluably intermingled; in the latter work improvisation was, in fact, only present in the sense that Bud's personal touch and phrasing lent the performance an extemporized quality; the work was one that he had been preparing and developing for some time.

The present album is the first for which Bud formally composed all the tunes; all the opening-closing themes were set on paper before he entered the studio, though in some cases the harmonic line was given to the bassist verbally. Of course everything in between the slices of prepared toast in these sandwiches is strictly improvised meat.

I have written, in annotating earlier Powell albums for Blue Note, of Bud's sensitivity, of his emotional problems and of the importance he attaches to every factor attending a recording session — the accompanying musicians, the freedom to choose his own material and take his own time, and perhaps most important of all, the need to feel wanted, understood and appreciated by those for whom he is working. Perhaps it is because the first great solo sessions he recorded almost a decade ago were made for Blue Note before the sympathetic ears of Alfred Lion (and the camera eyes of Francis Wolff) that Bud has remained curiously capable of reserving his best efforts for Blue Note.

Of the two musicians working with him on this occasion it need only be observed that this was, for both Philly Joe and Sam Jones, their first record date with Bud, an event for which they had waited as a young supporting actor might hope some day to be seen on Broadway with the Lunts. Because Philly Joe is a drummer long associated with a highly virile and extroverted style, it is essential to add that his discretion in underlining Powell's performances do him special credit on these sides.

"Buster Rides Again" is a Latin-tinged blues, with a melody that evokes the mood of the Afro-Cuban bands, making extensive use of tonic, dominant and flatted seventh. Sam Jones establishes a rhumba beat, Philly Joe makes intricate use of cross rhythms and in his solo instills something of the occult, mysterious aura of a tribal message. Bud's blowing on this track maintains a firm grip on two concurrent realities: the necessity to lend authenticity to the Latin flavor and the need to keep swinging.

"Sub City", a medium-bright 32-bar theme, uses a pedal point not (on the dominant) as an important accent in the exposition of the melody. On his solo work here Bud maintains a mood of fiery, dynamically subtle single-note lines in which the sense of a process of immediate creativity is constantly present; not only can one not predict where the next note will fall (as one can too often with so many of his imitators) but it is equally impossible to forecast the particular manner in which he will strike it - staccato or legato, syncopated or as part of a group of even eighth notes or of some other rhythmic conformation. Unpredictability may not be an essential of jazz genius, but it certainly helps. In one passage Bud plays locked-hands chords in a manner more associated with George Shearing (with whom, perhaps surprisingly to some, Bud has a mutual admiration society, each having respected and recorded compositions by the other). Actually, neither Powell nor Shearing originated the style, which began with Milt Bucker in the 1940s but Bud, one need scarcely add, molds it to his own completely personal use.

Sam Jones's solo is underlined by Philly Joe's brushes swinging evenly; Philly has a solo, including a striking six-against-four passage, before the theme is brought back.

"Time Waits," the title song of the set, is the only ballad of the set, a melodic vehicle played with firm yet somehow gentle emphasis in a manner that draws attention to its attractive chord changes perhaps even more than to the melodic line. This track presents an aspect of Powell as composer that has rarely been heard. It is the kind of theme that could bear the addition of lyrics and commercial exposure along the lines successfully tackled by "'Round Midnight," "Midnight Sun" and other jazz instrumentals.

"Marmalade" recalls the mood of some of Bud's earlier efforts as a composer. A boppish 32-bar line, it is a launching pad for medium-bright cooking on the part of Bud and Sam. Note the tremolo chord effect and the factious quote from Raymond Scott's "Toy Trumpet" in the chorus before the bass solo.

"Monopoly," with its repeated tonic against changing chords, is somehow reminiscent of Thelonious in its thematic conception, there is no evidence that Bud was not composing and/or improvising in this manner at least as early as Monk. Bud's work on this track is a model of rhythmic as well as melodic and harmonic ingenuity: for variety's sake he even incorporates a brief passage of stride left hand, a gambit to which he has resorted before, but more often when not accompanied a rhythm section. Sam Jones's solo, perhaps his most successful of the whole set displays smooth continuity of phrasing abetted by facile technique. Philly's brushes, both in solo and background roles, are an agile asset.

"John's Abbey is a fast-tempo original with lines that recall some of the Parker works of the 1940s. The blowing choruses by Bud typify the style of his earlier recordings, his bass line punching out accents, somewhat as one would use the space bar on a typewriter while the upper register spells out words in fast-moving clusters of single notes. The tempo is cut in half surprising!y at the end for an eighteenth-century coda complete with final tonic.

"Dry Soul," though at times unmistakably Powell, is at once something else again. The tempo is very slow, the theme a 12-bar blues, and the mood, particularly in the opening and closing theme choruses, may remind some listeners of the Avery Parrish "After Hours" cut many years ago with Erskine Hawkins's band, a blues that predated bop by a few years. Whatever the influence or intent, this one came out strictly funk, all the way to the final blue ninth.

The side closes with a second take of "Sub City," shorter than the track on the A side and without the bass and drum solos. Bud was in such exceptionally good shape on the day of this session that the inclusion of another take brings a welcome additional glimpse of his never-static invention and infinite capacity for taking choruses. As the last sustained chord trails off into space to bring the Time Waits album to an end, the listener, along with this writer, will be thankful that time waited to bring Bud, Philly Joe and Sam Jones together, and waited far Blue Note to produce the best Powell performances to be placed between covers in recent years.

-LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The Book of Jazz, Horizon Press Inc.)

Alfred Lion of Blue Note extends special thanks to Oscar Goodstein, the genial manager of "Birdland", for his cooperation in making this recording possible.

Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

The special relationship that Alfred Lion enjoyed with Bud Powell created an atmosphere in which the brilliant, troubled pianist created some of his finest recorded music; yet every time I see this point made in print (and Leonard Feather's original notes to this album were neither the first nor the last instance), I feel compelled to insist that the situation is not that simple. Powell's genius simply burned too bright in his early years to limit his greatest recordings to those made for Blue Note, while the fragility of his temperament even at his peak left all of his producers with moments of inconsistency. My idea of a truly essential Bud Powell box would include all of the music issued under his name between 1947 and '53, which takes in performances released by Roost, Debut and the Norman Granz labels as well as Blue Note, and already reveals moments where the musical focus wanders to the point of disappearance. By 1954 the results tum far more spotty, and even the strongest music of his three 1957-8 Blue Note LPs is a cut below the supreme achievements of his earlier years.

That said, Time Waits is as successful as any of the sessions Powell cut in the final decade of his life. On this occasion, Lion successfully navigated the twilight world of the pianist's psyche and legal competence. (The acknowledgement of "genial" Oscar Goodstein at the end of the notes refers to the Birdland manager who, in Lion's words, kept Powell in an apartment "under house arrest" when the pianist had to fulfill bookings at the club.) Lion placed Powell among admirers and supremely talented accompanists when he hired Sam and Philly Joe Jones to complete the trio. This was clearly a piano player's rhythm section, to judge from the pair's work in the same period on Riverside with Bill Evans (on Cannonball Adderley's Portrait Of Cannonball and Everybody Digs Bill Evans) and Thelonious Monk (on Clark Terry's In Orbit). Bassist Sam Jones was just beginning to establish himself, and was working with Dizzy Gillespie's post-big band combo, while drummer Philly Joe Jones (a year older than Powell, lest Feather's "young supporting actor" allusion suggest otherwise) had recently completed his historic stay with Miles Davis. Both are totally supportive, and also contribute to the excellence of the album with their solo contributions.

Time Waits also stands apart for its exclusive program of Powell compositions. It reminds me of the claim by Bertrand Tavernier, the director and co-writer of the film 'Round Midnight, that "Bud is the most unjustly neglected composer in jazz history." Tavernier may have overstated the case (there are, after all, an awful lot of musicians who play Powell's tune), but he had a point when he noted that a key difference between Powell and Thelonious Monk was that "Monk would write great tunes, then play them again and again until eventually the audience caught up with him, while Bud wrote great tunes, recorded them once and that was it." This album contains one exception to Tavernier's rule — "John's Abbey," which became a signature piece during Powell's years in France and is heard here in its two earliest versions. The rest receive their only reading by the pianist here. Taken together, the seven originals confirm the quality and range in Powell's writing, with touches of his mentor Monk on "Monopoly" and the rich if deliberate title ballad, which might be an answer to Powell's earlier, more hellbent "Tempus Fugit. " The Latin drum patterns on "Buster Rides Again" recall Philly Joe's playing on "Stars Over Marrakesh" from the 1953 Blue Note debut of another member of the Powell/Monk piano circle, Elmo Hope. The pieces make room for a variety of devices (including stride interludes, tremolos, mambo vamps, unison octaves and ringing dissonances) that had grown more prominent in Powell's playing. Only "Dry Soul" (which, pace Feather, recalls "Walkin'" more than "After Hours") sounds tailored to current tastes in things funky.

One point that Powell's Blue Note sessions frequently make concerns the value of alternate takes from a true improviser. Brief versions of both "John's Abbey" and "Sub City" were cut at the start of this session, prior to the longer master takes that include a full round of solos. The alternate "Sub" was actually included on the original LP, while "Abbey" two (actual "Abbey" one in sequence of recording) first appeared in the '70s. They reveal just how much genius, even in its diminished state, remained in the mind and under the fingers of the man Blue Note so rightly dubbed The Amazing Bud Powell.

- Bob Blumenthal. 1999