JS570F Final Project: Round Midnight, Bud Powell

Kevin Sun
12.11.14
Round Midnight, recorded live at Birdland, NYC, May 15-16-17th, 1950 (exact date disputed),
featuring Charlie Parker (alto saxophone), Fats Navarro (trumpet), Bud Powell (piano), Curly Russell
(bass), and Art Blakey (drums).
A Brief Historical Sketch
Bud Powell met Thelonious Monk in 1942 when Powell was only 17 years old1. They
were fellow Harlemites, and Monk quickly took Powell under his wing. As Monk recalls, Powell
was undoubtedly talented but hadnt yet refined his raw potential into what would later make
him famous: When I met him, he did not know much on the piano. He had a very distinct
style, but he didnt know much about harmony. I had to teach him about it.2
The year after the pianists met, Monk completed a ballad that hed been working on for
about a year. He tentatively titled it I Need You So, based on lyrics written by a neighbor,
Thelma Elizabeth Murray, which would later be known as Round Midnight.3 Powell, not
Monk, however, would be the first to record the composition; Powell played piano on the 1944
recording of the piece with trumpeter Cootie Williams, and Monk wouldnt record it until three
years later on his dbut release, Genius of Modern Music (Blue Note).
By the time Powell was recorded playing Round Midnight with Charlie Parker at
Birdland in 1950, hed been familiar with the composition and the music of his mentor for nearly
a decade. The band on the live recording is one of the high watermarks of the bebop era, as well
as a representative example of what pianist Ethan Iverson calls High Bebop.

1

Kelley, Robin D. G. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. New York: Free, 2009. 79.
ibid. 81.
3
Ibid. 88.
2


To wit:
Bebop uses an ornamented, accented eighth-note line to thread chord changes. The
more discontinuous the line the better, although that line must retain folkloric
authenticity.
The performances of Charlie Parker and Bud Powell have the maximum amount of
folklore and the greatest level of discontinuity. After you really learn what Bud and Bird
played, almost all other bebop players seem a little obvious or easy. They are an elect of
two that I call High Bebop.4
Powell, 25 at the time, is the youngest member of the band; bassist Curly Russell is the
oldest at age 33. Less than two months after this date, trumpeter Fats Navarro would be dead at
age 26 from complications resulting from tuberculosis and heroin use. The youthful energy on
the recording is unmistakable, and there is the sense that no other group of musicians would play
quite like this ever again. Iverson also suggests that musical rivalries are audible on this recording:
On One Night Bird sounds disgusted with Bud. He plays atonal phrases over Bud on
The Street Beat and Round Midnight. The pice de rsistance is the cutting off of
Buds sensational intro on Ornithology. Bud is just too powerful and interesting, so
Bird brings in the tune in the wrong place.5
Bud Powell takes one solo chorus on Round Midnight, and it is extraordinary, filled
with rhapsodic melodic ideas, supremely expressive microrhythms, and impeccable voice leading.

Analysis & Overview of Major Features

To start, the composition itself6 provides plenty of material to work with:

4

Iverson, Ethan. ""High Bebop"" Do The Math. N.p., 25 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
Ibid.
6
Transcribed by Steve Cardenas, Thelonious Monk Fakebook, Hal Leonard, 2002. 60.
5


Round Midnight is a 32-bar AABA composition that is mostly in Eb minor, although
each 16 bar section ends on the parallel major. In the broadest terms, the first two A sections are
centered around i/I, with a detour to the V and other passing chords during the bridge before a
return to i/I in the last A.
A key feature of the composition as played by Powell on this recording is the half-step
ii-Vs on the 4th bar of the A sections (Monk didnt play these changes on the original recording,
but they have become part of the standard lexicon for this composition). For the purposes of
voice leading, Powell often plays melodic sequences that take advantage of the half-step motion
of the chord sequence:

Another technique Powell employs to generate interest melodic motion that emerges
from voice-leading principles is sideslipping. In this example, notice how beat three of the first
and second bar prepares the repetition of the same phrase, which is left unfulfilled by the fourth
beat of the second bar, a transposition up a half step from the fourth beat of the first bar:

The interesting rhythmic dimensions of this solo lie not in Powells interactions with Art
Blakey (Blakey on the whole seems notably reserved in his comping, cf. drum and bass
4


accompaniment transcription) nor in any particular rhythmic implications, although Powell does
play one particularly Chopin-esque line suggesting (and also perhaps a polonaise or a
mazurka) at the top of the second A section (which is then symbolically answered with a blues
line):

The truly extraordinary component of this solo, aside from the arresting melodic ideas
and overall swagger of the performance, lies in the way that Powell expressively stretches,
compresses, bends, flattens, and straightens the time conveyed by his lines. Notation is
remarkably limited for conveying this parameter of expression, but among the most memorable
lines that appear to defy the grid or basic rhythmic substructure of 4/4 include the following:

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Powells performance is his sheer fluency with the
language, contested only by Bird. Phrases like these are effortless but not at all glib, and the
overall impact is to remind us, looking and listening back over half a century, that the original
beboppers were on to something, which nobody has since been able to recreate convincingly.
5