Art Tatum (1909-1956) was born in Toledo and showed musical promise at an early age despite being born nearly blind. At 3, he was already playing piano by ear via listening to his mother’s church choir and then repeating what they sang. Later, he listened to the radio and to player-pianos which were still popular at that time reproducing what he heard. He was sent to the Toledo School of Music where he was deeply trained in classical music in which he excelled but Art wanted to play jazz (fortunately, there are a lot of recordings of Art playing extraordinary classical renditions). By the late 20s, the jazz world was abuzz about the incredible technique of this kid from Toledo. When Art went to New York in 1932, he was set upon by the best stride pianists in the business—James P. Johnson (author of “Charleston”), Fats Waller and Willie “The Lion” Smith. Art blew past them with a blazing rendition of “Tea for Two.” The crowd was speechless, no one had ever heard piano played this way before. Johnson was determined to bring the kid to his knees and played powerfully and masterfully everything from ragtime to stride to boogie-woogie to magnificent classical pieces by Chopin. Waller said he had never heard Johnson play so perfectly and masterfully before or since that night in Harlem. Then Art played “Tiger Rag” with such speed and dexterity that it brought the house down. Johnson bowed out and admitted defeat. Waller recalled, “That Tatum, he was just too good!” Johnson recalled, “When Tatum played ‘Tea for Two’ that night, I guess that was the first time I ever heard it really played.”
Every piece that Art Tatum plays is a lesson in jazz technique and theory. He made use of stride piano techniques invented by powerhouses like Johnson, Waller and Smith and added dense blocks of beautiful chords that he used to erect towering edifices of musical structure like no one else has done before or since. His use of passing notes (notes added to chords from the same scale) were densely packed together into every bar he played with rapid-fire precision in a way no one else had ever conceived. He incorporated classical music techniques (he was a huge fan of Liszt) so that his pieces could be played in small clubs or in concert halls and it would still have the same awesome power. By the time, he was done, he had incorporated into a single system everything that was offered in the African-American and European piano traditions. True jazz piano was born. Art Tatum is in himself an entire school of jazz, an entire genre of music—wider than either jazz or classical. Whether he played solo or with a band, Art was a master of jazz improvisation and technique. No one fortunate enough to play with him ever walked away without having just learned incredible things about music he had never even dreamed about before. Some complain that Art didn’t focus enough on composition and played the Songbook too much but his renditions were SO original that they actually ARE original compositions, new ways of hearing an old standard so that it sounded as though you were hearing it for the first time. His rendition of “I Know That You Know” is played at an astonishing 400 beats per minute!
Art had so thoroughly exhausted everything in jazz piano at that time that other keyboardists from Bill Evans to Monk to Brubeck to Lennie Tristano to Bud Powell had to chart new territory outside of the stride technique to get out from under Tatum’s immense shadow, otherwise risk being labeled as an Art Tatum copycat which is doubly bad because he can’t be copied. No one else can match him. He single-handedly propelled piano to heights it could not have today had he not existed. So ahead of his time was Art that most of the mind-bogglingly vast musical vocabulary that he invented and evolved all by himself remains uncharted, unexplored. Only tiny bits of it are used today by pianists who admit that even the oldest recordings of Art’s playing both thrill and scare them and reduce many of them to tears partly out of awe and partly out of frustration. The vast majority of what Art has left behind for us, his massive legacy, just sits there on the books waiting to be picked up and used by someone bold and dexterous enough to know what to do with it. That has not happened yet.
Art lived here in Detroit for a while and it is he who brought the beautiful Steinway piano that sits in Baker’s Keyboard Lounge on Livernois near 8 Mile from New York. In fact, Art played there the last two years of his short life (he died at only 47). Art’s last live performance was at Baker’s before he flew off to LA to record for jazz impresario Norman Granz and died there. Baker’s is the oldest operating jazz club in the world and it needs your support, your patronage. It’s just a little place because jazz should be heard in small venues but it is going through some hard times right now. So when you’re thinking of some place to go and spend a few hours enjoying life, try Baker’s and see the piano that the great Art Tatum played. You might find yourself going back again and again and again. The current owners (who have vowed to keep the club strictly jazz) will thank you, Detroit will thank you and I will thank you.
Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm:
[video=youtube;GLYT3cPA5T8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLYT3cPA5T8[/video]
Dvorak's "Humoresque":
[video=youtube;lgaOMIAUd0Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgaOMIAUd0Q[/video]
Every piece that Art Tatum plays is a lesson in jazz technique and theory. He made use of stride piano techniques invented by powerhouses like Johnson, Waller and Smith and added dense blocks of beautiful chords that he used to erect towering edifices of musical structure like no one else has done before or since. His use of passing notes (notes added to chords from the same scale) were densely packed together into every bar he played with rapid-fire precision in a way no one else had ever conceived. He incorporated classical music techniques (he was a huge fan of Liszt) so that his pieces could be played in small clubs or in concert halls and it would still have the same awesome power. By the time, he was done, he had incorporated into a single system everything that was offered in the African-American and European piano traditions. True jazz piano was born. Art Tatum is in himself an entire school of jazz, an entire genre of music—wider than either jazz or classical. Whether he played solo or with a band, Art was a master of jazz improvisation and technique. No one fortunate enough to play with him ever walked away without having just learned incredible things about music he had never even dreamed about before. Some complain that Art didn’t focus enough on composition and played the Songbook too much but his renditions were SO original that they actually ARE original compositions, new ways of hearing an old standard so that it sounded as though you were hearing it for the first time. His rendition of “I Know That You Know” is played at an astonishing 400 beats per minute!
Art had so thoroughly exhausted everything in jazz piano at that time that other keyboardists from Bill Evans to Monk to Brubeck to Lennie Tristano to Bud Powell had to chart new territory outside of the stride technique to get out from under Tatum’s immense shadow, otherwise risk being labeled as an Art Tatum copycat which is doubly bad because he can’t be copied. No one else can match him. He single-handedly propelled piano to heights it could not have today had he not existed. So ahead of his time was Art that most of the mind-bogglingly vast musical vocabulary that he invented and evolved all by himself remains uncharted, unexplored. Only tiny bits of it are used today by pianists who admit that even the oldest recordings of Art’s playing both thrill and scare them and reduce many of them to tears partly out of awe and partly out of frustration. The vast majority of what Art has left behind for us, his massive legacy, just sits there on the books waiting to be picked up and used by someone bold and dexterous enough to know what to do with it. That has not happened yet.
Art lived here in Detroit for a while and it is he who brought the beautiful Steinway piano that sits in Baker’s Keyboard Lounge on Livernois near 8 Mile from New York. In fact, Art played there the last two years of his short life (he died at only 47). Art’s last live performance was at Baker’s before he flew off to LA to record for jazz impresario Norman Granz and died there. Baker’s is the oldest operating jazz club in the world and it needs your support, your patronage. It’s just a little place because jazz should be heard in small venues but it is going through some hard times right now. So when you’re thinking of some place to go and spend a few hours enjoying life, try Baker’s and see the piano that the great Art Tatum played. You might find yourself going back again and again and again. The current owners (who have vowed to keep the club strictly jazz) will thank you, Detroit will thank you and I will thank you.
Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm:
[video=youtube;GLYT3cPA5T8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLYT3cPA5T8[/video]
Dvorak's "Humoresque":
[video=youtube;lgaOMIAUd0Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgaOMIAUd0Q[/video]
