Bud Powell, the pianist most identified with bebop, and a musician who deserves much of the credit for setting modern jazz’s high technical standards, was generally considered to be in steady decline after several mental health crises in the late 1940’s and early ’50’s. Powell had burst on the jazz scene as a 16 year-old […]
(left) Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, 1947 and (right) Lennie Tristano’s band, about 1949. (continued from part 1) In 1948, Miles Davis began jamming with baritone saxophonist and arranger Gerry Mulligan, just freed from the Gene Krupa band, alto player Lee Konitz, late of Claude Thornhill’s Orchestra, and Thornhill’s arranger, Gil Evans. They formed the […]
New York City, while always the main mecca of jazz, enjoyed a period of full flower during World War II that will likely never be seen again in any genre or town. Prior to the war, jazz had been an uptown thing, flourishing in small, integrated Harlem clubs, segregated cabarets and black dance palaces like […]