Un Poco Loco

1951 single by Bud Powell

"Un Poco Loco"

Single by Bud Powell

from the album The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume One

B-side

"It Could Happen to You"

Released

1951 (1951)

Genre

Jazz

Length

4:42

Label

Blue Note

Songwriter(s)

Bud Powell

Producer(s)

Alfred Lion

Bud Powell singles chronology

"Hallelujah"
(1951)

"Un Poco Loco"
(1951)

"Un Poco Loco" is an Afro-Cuban jazz standard composed by American jazz pianist Bud Powell.^[1]^[2] It was first recorded for Blue Note Records by Powell, Curly Russell, and Max Roach on May 1, 1951.^[3]^[4]

Musical characteristics

"Un Poco Loco" is in thirty-two bar form.^[4] It uses the lydian scale, incorporating chords overlapping chords to imply a polytonality (D major 7 over C major 7: CEGBDF#AC#) with the improvisation based on an alternating polytonality and an altered dominant chord. Particularly remarkable to jazz musicians is the placement of C# against a C major 7 chord; James Weidman attributed this to bitonality, while Tardo Hammer attributed it to an extension of the circle of fifths.^[5]

Legacy

In the late 1980s, literary and cultural critic Harold Bloom included "Un Poco Loco" in his list of the most "sublime" works of twentieth-century American art (from his introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow).^[6]

References

^ Yanow, Scott (2000). Afro-Cuban Jazz. San Francisco, C.A.: Miller Freeman Books. p. 188. ISBN 978-0-87930-619-9. Retrieved 13 April 2019.
^ Priestley, Brian (1991). Jazz On Record: A History. New York: Billboard Books. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-8230-7562-1. Retrieved 13 April 2019.
^ Groves, Alan (2001). The Glass Enclosure: The Life Of Bud Powell (Reprinted. ed.). New York: Continuum. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-8264-4746-3. Retrieved 13 April 2019.
^ ^a ^b McCalla, James (1994). Jazz, A Listener's Guide. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. pp. 116, 123, 125, 194. ISBN 978-0-13-097940-7. Retrieved 13 April 2019.
^ DeMotta, David J. (2015) The contributions of Earl "Bud" Powell to the modern jazz style. Doctoral dissertation, The City University of New York.
^ Kastin, David (2011). Nica's Dream (1st ed.). W. W. Norton. pp. 172, 173. ISBN 978-0-393-06940-2. Retrieved 13 April 2019.

Bud Powell

Years given are for the recording(s), not first release. Because Powell's discography features albums with the same title, record labels are identified to avoid any confusion.

As leader
or co-leader