“Bud Powell had numerous admissions to psychiatric hospitals and was diagnosed as having schizophrenia. Many musician colleagues believed that his illness was triggered after he was beaten over the head by police when he was 21 years old. Although he exhibited schizophrenia-like symptoms such as possible paranoid delusions (fear of being attacked and murdered), possible auditory hallucinations (laughing inappropriately to himself) and inappropriate affect (fatuous smile, grimace, fixed stare), throughout a 10-month hospital admission in 1945 it was reported that ‘he talked garrulously to all who would listen and was generally over-active… his thoughts were flying away with him’ (Reference GitlerGitler, 1966) and, therefore, a more accurate diagnosis may be one of schizoaffective disorder, because schizophrenia was grossly overdiagnosed and mania was under-diagnosed around the middle of the 20th century. To complicate the picture further, one medical researcher suggested that Powell might have developed epilepsy as a result of his beating. These issues will not be resolved fully until the Powell estate releases the medical records.”
This recording is from later in his life, after moving to Europe, where he felt his music more appreciated:
