"Un Poco Loco"
Single by Bud Powell
from the album The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume One
B-side"It Could Happen to You"
Released1951 (1951)
GenreJazz
Length4:42
LabelBlue 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 chords and even uses lydian chords stacked on top of each implying a polytonality (D major 7 over C major 7: CEGBDF#AC#) with the improvisation based on an alternating lydian-ish 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

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ Priestley, Brian (1991). Jazz On Record: A History. New York: Billboard Books. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-8230-7562-1. Retrieved 13 April 2019.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ DeMotta, David J. (2015) The contributions of Earl "Bud" Powell to the modern jazz style. Doctoral dissertation, The City University of New York.
  6. ^ Kastin, David (2011). Nica's Dream (1st ed.). W. W. Norton. pp. 172, 173. ISBN 978-0-393-06940-2. Retrieved 13 April 2019.


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