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Art Tatum: great jazz pianist or greatest jazz pianist?

12K views 25 replies 17 participants last post by  Casebearer 
#1 ·
Rachmaninov said that he understood what Tatum played, but was unable to do the same. And also 'If this man ever decides to play serious music we're all in trouble.'

...

Horowitz sat himself at the piano and began to pay "Tea for Two" for his Jazz counterpart. Thunder and lightening, hail and brimstone, Horowitz finished the piece and looks up immediately at Tatum with an eager set of eyes.
"What do you think?" asks the Russian.
"Very good. I enjoyed it." comes the answer. Pause. Tatum continues: "Would you like to hear my version of 'Tea for Two'?"
"Certainly I would. Go ahead."
Tatum gets up and launches into the piece that has always been one of his specialties. Horowitz' mouth drops when he hears what he hears and as soon as the Jazzman finishes:
"My God! That was fantastic! Where did you get that transcription? You must give it to me!"
"Transcription?" answers Tatum, "That was no transcription. I was just improvising!"
 
#2 · (Edited)
I have to say that I don't consider him a great artist, at least for what I've heard. Sure, he had that incredible technique (but I don't see many talking of the technique of Bernard Peiffer or Umberto Cesari) and in the thirties he was also the most harmonically advanced jazz pianist at the time (before people like Tristano or Monk) and I really like that aspect of his playing. But basically he was a shredder of the piano. No melody, pauses, no development of ideas, just those furious runs all over the keyboard, and when he played in bands he didn't play with them, he dominated the band.
 
#3 · (Edited)
I never could get into Art Tatum. But I was never an avid listener of those older jazz styles. Fats Waller is more fun anyway. And Duke Ellington had a beautiful economical style that was instantly recognizable and soulful. Not a big fan of piano shredders. I'd rather listen to Monk, Bill Evans, Kenny Barron, or Herbie Hancock.
 
#5 ·
"No melody" is not an accurate description of Art Tatum's style of playing, in my opinion. His later recordings may rely a bit too heavily on technique, but he's definitely among the piano greats. What was Fats Waller's comment when Tatum showed up at one of his shows? Something like "I play piano, but God is in the house tonight."
 
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#12 ·
The mistake that everybody seems to be making is assuming that Tatum was a jazz player. He was not. He played jazz with no more seriousness than he played classical. Almost nothing of Tatum's style or technique has found its way into jazz even though his style incorporates literally everything that can be found in both the black American and European styles. Picture Tatum's music as a towering skyscraper with only the ground floor occupied. The vast majority of his musical inventory is unexplored, unused. I far prefer his solo stuff to his band stuff because he soars when he's by himself but the trouble is that he is truly by himself. When he's playing with a band, you can hear how restricted he is because jazz can't hold him, can't tame him, can't ultimately use him.

Some of the stuff he does in this clip has never been done by any other pianist in the history of the instrument.



He is no more decipherable to the jazzmen than he is to the classical pianists.
 
#14 ·
The mistake that everybody seems to be making is assuming that Tatum was a jazz player. He was not. He played jazz with no more seriousness than he played classical. Almost nothing of Tatum's style or technique has found its way into jazz even though his style incorporates literally everything that can be found in both the black American and European styles. Picture Tatum's music as a towering skyscraper with only the ground floor occupied. The vast majority of his musical inventory is unexplored, unused.
I'm wondering what it's that you consider unexplored or unused. To me he was without a doubt a jazz pianist, and the most interesting part of his pianism was his harmonic knowledge, that really was ahead of its time. But even in his early day I can think of Clarence Profit or Cy Walter who had a similar language (they were friends and they often played together), and talking of harmonically advanced stuff it could be mentioned also In a mist composed by Bix Beiderbecke.
 
#13 ·
Art Tatum was a genius but not my favorite pianist in jazz for all time.

For me, that award goes to Bill Evans and Cecil Taylor but not both simultaneously :p.

Bill Evans was a sheer master of the fine instrument... composing some of the greatest jazz standards ever.
 
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#15 ·
Warning - layman observations, but:

I´ve got one of those very cheap 10 CD boxes & though I like him & enjoy hearing him now and then, the "too many notes"-remark above also seems relevant from time to time for me; however, the ensemble recordings and their interplay make a better environment for his often restless style (if one could characterize it as that), I think. Also, one could wish for longer, more meditative pieces, like it was the case with Bill Evans, for example, though the recording habits of the day set a limit.
 
#20 ·
If you're looking for transcendent talents that changed Jazz history and produced some of the greatest albums of all time (any genre: Classical, Rock or Jazz), then: Anthony Davis, Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra are probably the greatest ever (each of them a wholly unique style/synthesis of styles). Myra Melford and Lennie Tristano deserve serious consideration too, among several others that have been mentioned such as Ellington, Monk, Evans, etc.
 
#21 · (Edited)
People are so right about Art Tatum. Rachmaninoff and Vladimir Horowitz used to go out at night to hear him. One of my favorites is Tatum's awesome performance of Tea for Two. He was better than just a great jazz pianist; he was one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time - that places him in a much higher dimension where the immortals dwell on Mount Olympus.

 
#23 ·
He is not only one of the greatest jazz pianists, but one of the greatest ever. Horowitz said he'd be out of a job if Art got into classical. His music is kind of boring to me though. The descending right hand runs which sound like glissando's become too repetitive after a while between different songs.
 
#24 ·
He is not only one of the greatest jazz pianists, but one of the greatest ever. Horowitz said he'd be out of a job if Art got into classical. His music is kind of boring to me though. The descending right hand runs which sound like glissando's become too repetitive after a while between different songs.
I've always hated that. I definitely prefer to hear a pianist like Duke Ellington, that with his limited technique always played thinking at the tune. Tatum was always showing his technique, and his right hand was most of the time just playing fast ornaments.
Ellington was a great artist, Tatum a great technician (altough saved by his harmonic creativity).
 
#25 · (Edited)
Well, for a start, when people start with the words: 'greatest jazz pianist' there are going to be other contenders; not least of whom would be Earl Hines who was probably the most influential jazz pianist and is a direct line running between ragtime and bebop. His style not only influenced Tatum, but was a model for Monk (who was essentially a stride pianist).

Tatum was magnificent, but once someone reaches his stature the 'greatness' is always questioned. Most pianists pay homage to him and it's standard etiquette to acknowledge the great pioneers. So when we see someone like Oscar Peterson - who incidentally is very Tatum like - saying Tatum was great/the greatest, we are just seeing gratitude and admiration.

Tatum's Piano Starts Here was among the first jazz albums I ever heard and all these years later I still think it's fantastic. There's a lot of inventive improvisation, not just empty runs and showmanship. His performance of Willow Weep For Me in that album is superlative.
 
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