Steve Ash
Piano Solo on
Celia

About

Steve Ash's piano solo opens the improvisation on this 2018 live performance of Bud Powell's "Celia" at Smalls Jazz Club. He takes three choruses of the 32-bar AABA form at 189 BPM in B-flat, the tune being a rhythm changes composition built on the chord structure of "I Got Rhythm." At 60 to 61 years old, Ash brings decades of experience to Powell's bebop vehicle, his playing reflecting the harmonic vocabulary and rhythmic drive that the rhythm changes tradition demands. He is the first of three soloists, followed by Julieta Eugenio on tenor saxophone and Paul Gill on acoustic bass.

Steve Ash was 60 to 61 years old at the time.