And THAT LP is also amazing. You know, it's funny, but when I first picked up "Time Waits", it was early on in my listening experience. I liked it, but I didn't realize how profound it was until years later. A friend of mine in college had Bud's Verve stuff, things like "Celia", "So Sorry Please", and "Cherokee". I love all that as well, but at the time, I was under the impression that it alone, represented Bud's best recorded playing. There is a florid, youthful quality to what he does on those recordings. His technique is "rounder". He is at the height of his technical command. He's in the springtime of his life and career.
But then as we know, he went through things. Verve put out a couple of double LPs back in the 70's, the first of which, featured the material I was talking about above. But the second one, the way it was reviewed, seemed to be making the statement that the material on the LP was not on a musical par with the earlier stuff. But the thing is, over the years, Bud's technique CHANGED. He got a different sound out of the piano. I first heard it on the second volume of that Verve double LP - or if you like, his later Verve recordings. When I was younger, I thought a lot of that music was great, but that there was decline in his technical prowess. WRONG. Bud was doing things with music that were just so...beyond. It's not written in any book. His technique has a different feel to it. And I love it, really more. The MUSIC he was playing. Those chords he got to. When he played a run, there was a vulnerability to it. Let some young technical player play a run perfectly with technique to spare in music school. Powell's runs, maybe were uneven, they were delicate...you're listening...is he gonna make it...YES. Wow!. MUSIC. They were the runs, people in music school study, if they are smart. The point is, Powell grew profoundly as a musician and player. Everything he did, throughout his career, was on the highest musical level - those earlier recordings are fantastic. But what he got to on "Time Waits" and the "Live in Paris" LP...on the Paris LP, just listen to the ballads, "Body and Soul", and "I Can't Get Started". What a sound he got, what a feel he has...what music he made.