Art Tatum is the greatest pianist of all time

Anyone who disagrees, please listen to the The Best of the Pablo Solo Masterpieces. Holy crap. I have never heard piano playing like that before. Combines the technique of the best classical pianists with the improvisatory skills of the best jazz pianists, wrapped in a style that is like no one else. Takes Tin Pan Alley songs and converts them into something entirely different -- you haven't lived until you hear what he does to Crazy Rhythm or Stardust. Surely there must be other Tatum fans around these parts?

oh yeah, he's beyond incredible. the hendrix of the 88s...check out the group masterpieces as well. especially the one with ben webster

Yeah definitely need to check out the Pablo group masterpieces also; I can only imagine what the interplay between Tatum and Webster would sound like.

I think I read somewhere once that Vladimir Horowitz was floored by Tatum; anyone know more of this story?

Strongly Agree

Critic Gunther Schuller declared "On one point there is universal agreement: Tatum's awesome technique."[24] That technique was marked by a calm physical demeanor and efficiency. He did not indulge in theatrical physical or facial expression.[25] The effortless gliding of his hands over difficult passages puzzled most who witnessed the phenomenon. He especially mystified other pianists to whom Tatum appeared to be "playing the impossible."[26] Even when playing scintillating runs at high velocity, it appeared that his fingers hardly moved. Using self-taught fingering, including an array of two-fingered runs, he executed the pyrotechnics with meticulous accuracy and timing. His execution was all the more remarkable considering that he drank prodigious amounts of alcohol when performing,[27] yet his recordings are never sloppy. Tatum also displayed phenomenal independence of the hands and ambidexterity, which was particularly evident while improvising counterpoint. Ira Gitler declared that Tatum's "left hand was the equal of his right." [28] Around 1950 when Bud Powell was opening for Tatum at Birdland, Powell reportedly said to Tatum: "Man, I'm going to really show you about tempo and playing fast. Anytime you're ready." Tatum laughed and replied: "Look, you come in here tomorrow, and anything you do with your right hand, I'll do with my left." Powell never took up the challenge.[29]

from the great Wikipedia entry...I LOVE the Bud Powell bit at the end. Hah!

I've always quoted that Fat's Waller statement as true testament.

I think I read somewhere once that Vladimir Horowitz was floored by Tatum; anyone know more of this story?

― medelman, Tuesday, May 4, 2010 10:12 PM Bookmark

There's an urban legend about Horowitz skipping his own concert to see Tatum. I find this somewhat implausible, however I definitely believe that Horowitz was a fan. It actually makes a lot of sense considering what a romanticist Horowitz was - their playing styles aren't as far off as one might think.

I've always quoted that Fat's Waller statement as true testament.

― PappaWheelie V, Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:45 AM

Oh yes, the last word.

Numerous stories exist about other musicians' respect for Tatum. Perhaps the most famous is the story about the time Tatum walked into a club where Fats Waller was playing, and Waller stepped away from the piano bench to make way for Tatum, announcing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKb0Sc2lYVU

I generally prefer some of his earlier recordings over the Pablo (which are still marvelous). Check out The Standard Transcriptions (solo pieces from 1935-43). Another very interesting one is 20th Century Piano Genius on Verve, a 2-CD set of informal recordings made at a Hollywood home in the 1950s. The owner had an excellent recording system, the piano sounds great and Tatum was in top form ("Love for Sale" is jaw-dropping). If you want to hear how Tatum would have sounded with today's technology, check out Piano Starts Here: Live at The Shrine Zenph Re-performance.

"If you want to hear how Tatum would have sounded with today's technology"

What, like with wah pedals?

Ha, no I meant recording technology. Probably not for purists, the album is a digital stereo recreation of old Tatum recordings.
http://www.zenph.com/PianoStartsHere.html

Oh yeah been reading about that technology.

Speaking of recreations, I saw Johnny O'Neal, the piano who recreated Art Tatum in the movie Ray, perform last week. He's been based in Detroit but apparently is moving to NYC.

I'm beginning to believe he remains the greatest musician of all time. Seriously.

Count me among those who find him a little cold, despite the obvious virtuosity. I'm certainly floored and impressed on nearly every listen, but he never amuses me as much as Earl Hines does, and I prefer the eccentricity and imagination of Monk. I think at the end of the day, Tatum is just a tad too pretty, sumptuous, beautiful, and romantic - in contrast, Monk liked pretty, but he liked ugly and funny and sloppy on purpose too, and as such just seems so much fuller than Tatum. But admittedly, I've listened to a lot more Monk than Tatum, and I'm temperamentally inclined to accept the boilerplate technique versus expression arguments that regularly get trotted out against Tatum. But the Horowitz story makes sense to me precisely because Tatum can sound a little too redolent of concert hall fetishisms.

I'd hesitate to call him the greatest, actually. Greater than any number of classical pianists, greater than Earl Hines as a jazzer? Technically, amazing, but so was Oscar Peterson. Not saying he isn't great in his way or that he could execute that stuff, but what he's saying...beyond technique...I just don't know. There's more to music than technique. Room for discussion here, I'm sure, and right, those Pablo solo things are something else for sure.

Early Peterson is pretty reminiscent of Tatum, and he's warmer in those first few pre-Plays Pretty albums.

I read somewhere that Tatum fired Slam Stewart for being too ostentatious - not necessarily just on his bass, because I presume that Tatum would know the kind of work he did, the bowing, the speed, and the technical virtuosity, but for being a goof and a showman.

Forties solo Tatum might seem cold, but if you have a clean disc and you turn it up right you can get lost in it like anything else. I half imagine being a little marble gliding up and down the runs. I like to listen to the Clef album he did with Benny Carter for the weird way it's mixed.

I dunno about my comment about Peterson; you could probably accurately say he aped Tatum his whole career. Sometimes I think Peterson is someone I'll start enjoying in my old age, and once in a while I'll try to see what's up, but I gave all my records to some kid about 5 years ago and he probably feels the same way I did about them, that they're too cerebral and prissy.

Wanna say steer toward later Tatum. 30s Tatum doesn't integrate his fills and flourishes well, doesn't make it all whole.

The Tatum Group Masterpieces w/ Ben Webster album is just exquisite, they both should have lived longer for the sake of music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7gc7pULmO4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rIiCXsDI0k

Nice, got to get that Tatum-Hampton-Rich one for def!

those records of that trio are WAY up there for me.

went to a cd sale right after posting this stuff and got two tatum 4cd boxes for a buck each. group and solo boxes.

actually got two 3-disc complete group masterpiece sets and one 4-disc solo masterpieces set. pretty great for 3 bucks.

and got all 4-discs of the complete candid cecil taylor box for four bucks total. without the box. but i don't need the box. the box sells for like a hundred bucks.

I think Webster was a musical genius marvel as well, he could be really brutal or fragile/beautiful to perfection and was similarly steeped in blues. People like him and Tatum must have cast gigantic shadows back in the 50's.

I downloaded The Complete Pablo Masterpieces from the torrentz today, sorry I'm probably shit for your line of work - but it's hard times, or not so hard when you just nick everything:p

i sold art tatum records today. more than one even.

he was really one of a kind. he can be a little overwhelming. not overbearing, but overwhelming. i feel that way about charlie parker sometimes. like it's almost too much for me to take in sometimes. this isn't the case with someone like bud powell or monk. speaking of genius. but tatum and parker just had so much in them. and it all came out. charlie parker washing dishes at jimmie's chicken shack listening to art tatum play all night. only in america.

I know what you mean. I find his playing jaw-dropping for sheer technical ability, but I agree with Mumbles further up that the performancs can leave me a little cold at times. So many arpeggios it wears you out. Ever see film of him playing, though? The guy never broke a sweat — so effortless.

— so effortless.

― Jazzbo

Exactly. Amazing how many true masters appear the same way. Saw a blugrass show on tv a few years back that had a slew of featured fiddle players each of whom took a quick solo. Most were recognized virtuoso's and played with aplomb, but Vassar Clements was the last guy in line -- his economy of movement was staggering when compared to the others who apparently needed to contort their bodies and shred their bows to achieve a fraction of what Vassar could.

the stuff with buddy defranco - two amazing virtuosos - and the trio with buddy and lionel, that's the stuff i go back to again and again. i LOVE buddy in small groups. and lionel on that stuff - yeesh, just so great. and just listening to what art tatum does BEHIND someone else's solo is completely ridiculous.

Maybe his legacy suffers from him not living into the album era where he might have had Gil Evans production or been coerced into more suitable collaborations where he wasn't necessarily the star - but still would have enhanced his legacy. But I still like listening to loads of recordings of raw talent from that era (see also Ben Webster), it still burns like hell with me, faults and all. But when it comes to desert island discs Bud Powell, Duke Ellington and Monk are still way in front of the queue.

speaking of trios and buddy and great pianos, been playing the hell out of the old norgran LP comp of the lester young/buddy rich/nat cole trio recordings and man oh man i can listen to that forever. nat cole on that stuff is just !!!!!!

I totally always forget what a smokin world-class piano player he was (I know, duh)

art fucking tatum

weirdly I was listening to him recently after not really having thought about him for a very long time. He is definitely an all-time pianist regardless of genre. I also feel like you find traces of some pretty "out" harmonic ideas in there, the same way that there are some very "modern" sounding bits in Bach. He was pretty musically adventurous, but crammed so much into so little space temporally that you could almost miss it.