Bud Powell
American jazz pianist and composer
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Why Is Bud Powell Influential?
(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American jazz pianist and composer. A pioneer in the development of bebop, jazz critics have commented that his compositions and playing style "greatly extended the range of jazz harmony," and his application of complex bebop phrasing to the piano influenced both his contemporaries and later pianists including Walter Davis, Jr., Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Barry Harris. Although a severe beating by police in 1945, followed by years of electroconvulsive therapy treatments and hospitalization, impacted his health during the latter half of his career, he continued to compose, record, and perform until shortly before his death in 1966. In the decades following his death, his career and life story became the inspiration for films and written works, including Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight. Many Powell compositions, including "Un Poco Loco", "Bouncing with Bud", and "Parisian Thoroughfare", have become jazz standards.
