Art Tatum

[KDawg]

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i'm not hugely into jazz piano either,with some notable exceptions,but i absolutely love this album and would highly recommend it to anyone with even the slightest interest in art
tatum



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I fully second this. This is an album with two masters of their instrument playing together in an atmosphere that IMO created one of the truly few 5* albums of all time. That version of Night and Day is just Ben Webster at his finest. Both players integrate so well with each other and Red Callender and Bill Douglass are so smart in letting themselves stay off to the side while Tatum and Webster do their thing. I hate myself for not recomending this album. This album is just straight up worth buying as it provides so much joy on every listening

[trumpjosh]

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If you like Art Tatum, listen to all the Thelonius Monk you can get your hands on. Next level.

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And then you can go to Bill Evans. Next level yet again.

[invisibleleadsoup]

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I hate myself for not recomending this album.

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easy there tiger.

[invisibleleadsoup]

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If you like Art Tatum, listen to all the Thelonius Monk you can get your hands on. Next level.

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And then you can go to Bill Evans. Next level yet again.

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i know nothing really about the technical side of music,but i was under the impression that tatum was considered the most technically accomplished jazz pianist of all?

i mean i really like evans and monk but i always got the impression tatum was considered in a class of his own,sort of like with coltrane and the saxophone.

[amplify]

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i mean i really like evans and monk but i always got the impression tatum was considered in a class of his own,sort of like with coltrane and the saxophone.

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This is hovering around the same point that I was trying to make earlier. You are exactly correct, there is no techinical level of playing higher than Tatum, just as there is none with Coltrane. But other people have a whole different approach to the instrument that reveals things about it that even the most technically sophisticated virtuoso cannot express.

Monk plays with his hands splayed out like he's having a seizure and stabs at the keys like they are trying to attack him, but he plays like his mind is on a different level than Tatum's. I don't know if I can say this properly. That somehow the one perfect note that Monk plays is more revealing musically and emotionally than 100 notes from Tatum. That it is more challenging to the listener. I love Oscar Peterson for example but his music isn't going to challenge your ear in that way, it's going to fit into the notions that you already have about what jazz sounds like. And I like Bill Evans but I don't get that super-genuis sensation when I listen to him.

Perhaps there is some difference bewteen players who are trying to entertain you, and those that are consciously attempting to create art or express ideas.

[ofdabeat]

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This is hovering around the same point that I was trying to make earlier. You are exactly correct, there is no techinical level of playing higher than Tatum


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Hum what about cecil taylor or in a more straightforward style jean michel pilc?
The piano playing techniques have evolved i don't think you can consider tatum to be at the top anymore, of course if you are talking about "his style" of ultra technical stride he is the best but all the greats are the best in their own styles.

[amplify]

ofdabeat,

Cecil Taylor is insane, and not something that I like to listen to. It's also difficult for me to judge the technical sophistication of someone who abandons all the conventions of playing their instrument.

Pilc I haven't listened to, I know almost nothing about current players unless I have met them. So my evaluations are probably 40 years old.

[Dominic]

thanks for those links, Andy....pretty cool. I had never heard of Art Tatum until now....this is why The Lounge is so great!

[jzpiano]

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thanks for those links, Andy....pretty cool. I had never heard of Art Tatum until now....this is why The Lounge is so great!

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uh....this isn't the lounge... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[jzpiano]

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i mean i really like evans and monk but i always got the impression tatum was considered in a class of his own,sort of like with coltrane and the saxophone.

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This is hovering around the same point that I was trying to make earlier. You are exactly correct, there is no techinical level of playing higher than Tatum, just as there is none with Coltrane. But other people have a whole different approach to the instrument that reveals things about it that even the most technically sophisticated virtuoso cannot express.

Monk plays with his hands splayed out like he's having a seizure and stabs at the keys like they are trying to attack him, but he plays like his mind is on a different level than Tatum's. I don't know if I can say this properly. That somehow the one perfect note that Monk plays is more revealing musically and emotionally than 100 notes from Tatum. That it is more challenging to the listener. I love Oscar Peterson for example but his music isn't going to challenge your ear in that way, it's going to fit into the notions that you already have about what jazz sounds like. And I like Bill Evans but I don't get that super-genuis sensation when I listen to him.

Perhaps there is some difference bewteen players who are trying to entertain you, and those that are consciously attempting to create art or express ideas.



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I agree that with Tatum you can't get any higher "technically" on the piano. Has anybody else seen his playing written out, cause I have. I've played a lotta hard stuff on the classical side including Rachmaninoff concerto, along with other concerto, liszt etudes, etc.

With that said, I can't even being to play some of Tatum's stuff even if I have the music in front of me, it's just that ridiculously hard. He is on a whole different level than Evans, Peterson, and Monk. I'm not saying that any of them arn't as great, because that's not true, but it would be like saying Bach is greater than Beethoven. You can't compare them because of the different style's they specialized in. It's a case of apples and oranges here.