Powell’s debt to Tatum is evident in the unaccompanied ballad ‘I’ll Keep Loving You’ but it is his command of the up-tempo material like ‘Tempus Fugue-it’ and ‘All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm’ (a corny vehicle which he turned into a favourite tour de force) which is particularly breath-taking, and nowhere more so than on a fearsome version of that Parker staple, ‘Cherokee’. Many pianists have commented on the sheer strength which the pianist must have had in his fingers in order to play as cleanly as he did at these speeds, especially given that he favoured a Monk-like straight-fingered attack on the keyboard, rather than employing the curved fingers taught in conventional piano-playing, which theoretically allows a greater force to be applied in striking the keys.
Powell’s articulation of fast eighth and sixteenth notes is utterly precise, with a forceful intensity which nonetheless sounds remarkably unforced and thoroughly poised. The internal flow of his playing makes it all sound almost relaxed, even in his most highly-charged inventions. Perhaps more than any other of the great bebop pianists, Powell understood the importance of flow within his music, not simply in his melodic lines but also in moving through the harmony of a tune in a way which sounds both seamless and highly organic. His harmonic movement does not call overt attention to itself by erecting hugely complex chord structures, but rather achieves its effects and resolutions in ingenious but deceptively simple-sounding ways. It is the simplicity, however, of a musical intelligence working at the highest level of sophistication, and when combined with the kind of sure-fingered virtuosity evident in these recordings, the effect is simply unsurpassable. Much of the disappointment in Powell’s playing in his later years can be put down to the standards he set for himself at this time in his career.
If Bud Powell’s career had ended at this point, he would not only have been remembered as the greatest of the bebop piano players, his output would also have achieved a remarkable consistency.
These were the years of his greatest command of instrument, musical thought and his own fragile personality, and while he would reach something approaching these heights in intermittent flashes over the ensuing decade and a half, he would never recapture the full onrushing spontaneity and fabulous technical prowess which pours out from these classic recordings of 1947-51.
The bebop era itself was also in the process of change by this time, but Powell had already made his imperishable contribution to the music.” – Kenny Mathieson – Giant Steps: Bebop and The Creators of Modern Jazz, 1945-65 [1999].