Book cover of Wail: The Life of Bud Powell

Book description

Exhaustive, deeply researched biography of a modern jazz giant.

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Why read it?

1 author picked Wail as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

By the time he became a producer of reissues for Verve Records, Pullman had been immersed in Bud Powell's life and recordings for decades, and produced the best life we have of one of the most important and prodigiously talented pianists who ever lived, and who was one of the inventors of modern jazz. Powell led a chaotic life, complicated by what we would now call a bipolar personality as well as addictions and mistreatment by the law, but Pullman captures it almost day by day, including the club gigs and recording sessions, without ever bogging down in pathos.

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