The effects of the bebop revolution in jazz music are still being felt and explored. Of the half dozen true pioneers of the movement, pianist Bud Powell has remained somewhat in the shadows, although his work has become a major touchstone for true devotees of the music and a principal influence for most of jazz's most explorative pianists. // Powell's brilliant original compositions are essential, infinitely listenable but also strangely tricky. Unlike Monk, Parker and Gillespie, the composer neglected to perform them much after their original recordings, so they never became a part of the jazz lingua franca. Pianist and historian Ethan Iverson provides a fantastic validation of Powell's compositional genius on his new recording, Bud Powell In The 21st Century, a reworking of a number of Powell's pieces for big band.
