I cannot list all of the friends and family who have made my life richer and, in turn, my work more enjoyable. My parents, Guthrie Ramsey, Sr., and Celia Ramsey Wynn, together with my wonderful siblings and beautiful children, have shared with me many experiences and memories to cherish outside my professional life, all of which have made the writing easier. The young ones coming along particularly inspire me: E. J., Zoe, Lyberty, London, Jada, Myles, and Levi. They touch my life in amazing ways. My in-laws, an extraordinary group of writers and thinkers, have kept me on my toes, always pushing me toward new ideas and ways of doing. I particularly thank Hettie Jones for reading a draft or two and for readily offering me her ideas about craft and clarity. And to Amiri Baraka, I extend thanks for clearing the philosophical and political space many years ago for the kind of work this book represents.
Although I’ve had many mentors along the way, I must make special note here of Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., and Richard Crawford, two gentlemen who have had and will always have the greatest influence on my work as a scholar. Their standards of generosity and rigor have made me the scholar I am today. I don’t have the words to fully express the depth of my gratitude to them. I owe thanks as well to the trailblazers of the particular brand of jazz studies to which I aspire, one that seeks to understand how the details of sound organization signify in the social world. For providing excellent examples before me, I acknowledge Mark Tucker, Robin D. G. Kelley, Ingrid Monson, Scott DeVeaux, Farah Griffin, Jeffery Magee, David Brackett, George Lewis, David Ake, Eric Porter, Tammy Kernodle, Robert Walser, Ronald Radano, and many more too numerous to name here. My editor, Mary Francis at the University of California Press, is the best in the business and continues to be an ideal partner in this process because of her intellectual gifts, experience, drive, and “cool breeze” manner. I’m looking forward to working on more projects together.
Musician, engineer, and producer J. Anthony Thompson has helped me to stay in the groove for the past few years, collaborating on various musical projects and providing a great example of how to push things to the finish line. My big “Cuzzo,” Ernest Perry Lyles, never leaves my side in whatever endeavor I take on. He’s always there, providing whatever is required, be it motivation or productive distraction. My friend and brother Tukufu Zuberi, a scholar of many talents, has been a constant source of inspiration and support through the years.
This book is dedicated with humble appreciation to the “eye-minded” one, Kellie Jones, an astonishing partner, friend, and scholar who continually brings much knowledge, light, sweetness, and power to the world, and to whom I extend gratitude for sending some my way every day.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Introduction
In August 1966, William Powell, Sr., found himself speaking to the press about times past as he prepared to bury his son, the gifted jazz pianist, Bud Powell. He reminisced about giving a four-year-old Bud his first piano lesson after being cajoled by his wife, Pearl, to provide some instruction to keep the child from banging on the piano, something Bud enjoyed doing. “That started it,” he told the New York Amsterdam News. As he recounted memories for the reporter, William expressed pride in his son’s accomplishments, no doubt to fend off his sense of loss and regret. He ticked off a list of his son’s accomplishments, from his diligent study of classical piano as a child to his years as a teenage titan in jazz. Powell, Sr., wanted the world to see Bud as he himself recalled his son in early life: “We used to call him ‘happy’ because he was always laughing and was a healthy youngster.”1
At press time, his son’s remains had been held in New York’s Kings County Morgue for more than forty-eight hours since his passing on July 31. Awaiting legal permission from his next of kin to carry out an autopsy, hospital authorities tried to reach out to his estranged wife, Audrey Hill, then living in California, but their efforts apparently failed, since Bud’s father had to send the morgue a telegram that would allow his body to be released shortly thereafter.
By the time of his death, Powell’s health struggles were well known throughout the international jazz world. Before he had come back to New York in August 1964 (he had lived in Paris since 1959), the press had hailed his impending homecoming with enthusiasm, despite reports of his life-threatening illnesses and hospitalizations in Europe. Powell recuperated and aspired to make a comeback in the United States. When he arrived in New York, “cured of TB and fat as a Bürgermeister,” he was immediately booked at Birdland for an extended engagement, for which he received favorable reviews.2 Powell’s former manager, Oscar Goodstein, no doubt planned the appearance with high hopes that the pianist could return to one of his old gigs in grand form. Could he recapture some of the magic of years past now that he was well and had the added mystique of a Parisian pedigree?
How the engagement went depended on whom you asked and which night they saw him. Greeted by a seventeen-minute standing ovation when he first took the stage, the night of August 25 was filled with promise. But when he didn’t show up for the gig one night in October and went missing for two days, it became clear that returning to New York was perhaps not the best idea for his health. Powell was fired from the gig, and things would get worse. His devoted friend and caretaker Francis Paudras—the man credited with saving Powell’s life, who had accompanied him to New York—returned to Paris without him. Powell would now have to work out his life and career issues without the benefit of his trusted “supervisor.” When he had first landed in New York, Powell declared that he was looking forward to managing his own finances. That time had come.
Money turned out to be just one of his many challenges. If Powell planned to get solvent by jumpstarting a recording career, his discography tells of the bleak results. He recorded only sparingly between September 1964 and January 1966. Beyond the first album, titled The Return of Bud Powell, on the Roulette label, the rest were recordings that lacked the necessary quality to be released to the public. The recordings have, however, inspired lots of debate, detective work, and speculation among Powell discographers as they’ve tried to figure out the who, what, when, and where of these scant, intriguing unissued records. Everyone agrees on one thing: Powell only hinted at the virtuoso prowess he had once flaunted with ease.
These final contributions to his body of work were a far cry from the high hopes he and Paudras had held as they planned their stateside trip: “Bud was going to be back on top, buoyed by the certainty that he has recovered all of his powers, ready to plunge into a new life, freed from the spectres of the past.”3 But as Paudras’s copious, personal, and poetic account of Powell’s last days in his book The Dance of the Infidels details, the misfortunes of the pianist’s past were always close at hand, ready to swallow him whole. Indeed, as Paudras points out, more often than not Powell’s psychological issues positioned him on the weaker side of interactions with the businessmen, police, psychiatrists, attorneys, and even journalists with whom he had to contend throughout his entire adult life. When all was said and done, and as Powell and Paudras would soon learn, the mid-1960s New York jazz scene could not offer him the new life of prosperity, calm, and artistic acclaim he so desired.
Reality hit as soon as he stepped off Air France flight 025. With all of the excitement generated in the press and by Birdland’s publicity machine, Powell’s upcoming residency was eagerly anticipated. However, as Paudras would learn, the American way of jazz business was stark, unglamorous, and undignified. Goodstein had booked them into a rundown, roach-infested single hotel room with a kitchenette for the entire stay. The advance consisted of the following, according to Paudras’s dramatic account: two one-way plane tickets, thirty dollars between them for immediate expenses, nine hundred dollars for back dues he owed the musicians’ union, room and board deducted from Powell’s future earnings, and seven hundred dollars for an attorney to clear up various legal actions before he had expatriated himself. And then there were the narcotics testing, fingerprinting, and police notification that would all verify that he had been cleared to receive a cabaret card, which would in turn allow him to perform in a New York nightclub. That engagement, of course, was the reason for the business trip.4 It had to work.
There was much to cheer them on. Time, Newsweek, Down Beat, and the New Yorker covered Powell’s return to the American stage and praised him with solid, enthusiastic reviews. Musician friends offered