The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 3: Bud!

Bud Powell's first two Blue Note volumes, BLP 1503 and 1504, held the sides he had made for the label from 1949 to 1953. The years since had been hard ones, with illness and time in hospital. Leonard Feather, in the original notes, admits he had his doubts about Powell, and says his recent nights at Birdland proved him wrong. This was his first Blue Note date in four years.

The session was Saturday, August 3, 1957, at Van Gelder's in Hackensack, with Alfred Lion producing. Paul Chambers played bass and Art Taylor drums. For part of the day there was a guest, the young Detroit trombonist Curtis Fuller, who had made The Opener for the label that June.

J.J. Johnson steered Fuller to Alfred Lion, and Lion in turn pointed him at Bud for a guest shot on this session.

Leonard Feather, original liner notes

Nine takes were logged, and eight made the record. An alternate of "Blue Pearl" stayed in the vault and came out years later.

Side one has no horn. It opens with "Some Soul," a blues. Then come "Blue Pearl," moody and harmonically rich by Feather's account, and "Frantic Fancies," a fast bop line. Next Chambers and Taylor step out, and Powell plays alone.

This was a piece called Solfeggietto which I played when I was a child.

Bud Powell, in Leonard Feather's original liner notes

"Bud on Bach" begins as that keyboard piece, by C.P.E. Bach, before Powell bends it into syncopation. Dom Cerulli, reviewing the record in Down Beat, called it "THE track in the set." The trio comes back to close the side with another blues, "Keepin' in the Groove."

Side two brings in Fuller. "Idaho" gives him room right away. "Don't Blame Me" runs three slow choruses and is mostly his showcase, though Cerulli singled out Powell's ballad solo. The record ends with Charlie Parker's "Moose the Mooche," Powell and Fuller playing the theme in unison.

Not every critic liked the second side as much. Martin Williams, in the American Record Guide, found the trio side the more convincing of the two.

The sleeve is Reid Miles's design, with a photograph by Francis Wolff.

The next day Fuller, Chambers and Taylor were back at Van Gelder's for Fuller's Bone & Bari. Powell returned to Blue Note ten months later with a trio.