Born in Harlem in 1924, Powell was a prodigy; he began performing in New York City as a teenager and became friends with fellow pianist Thelonious Monk. Instrumental in the creation of bebop, he recorded with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and other major figures.
Powell suffered from mental illness for many years and spent much of the late 1940s and 1950s in and out of hospitals around the city. He moved to Paris in 1959, but returned to New York in 1964, where he lived until his death from tuberculosis and liver damage in 1966.