I think art Tatum was the only pianist in human history, where the piano had to struggle with the player and not the player with the piano. Unbelievable
I wouldn't have the same opinion. Tatum, even in his most exciting, was generally "cool" and "smooth". Argerich, Cziffra, or Oscar Peterson would be more the ones to set a piano ablaze. :)
That is because Art made it look effortless. Most of these pieces he hardly broke a sweat. Oscar struggled for the level he got to. As Fats said when Art walked in to play, "God is in the house."
What's even more incredible is if you watch any of the somewhat rare footage of him playing, he looks like he's not even breakin a sweat - his fingers move so subtly - they tiptoe across the keyboard and you cant even tell he's hitting the keys
@@opale1572 im having a bad day so.i wont go in details you can find the newspaper article online which was an interview with one of Liszt students i think it was Reisenauer who went to see Anton Rubinstein preform. After the preformance of the Moonlight Sonata he was so amazed at the otherwordly technique and musicality of Rubinstein that he went straight to his teacher (Liszt) to tell him what he saw. Liszt in his youth was known for having the Moonlight Sonata as his "speciality". So the student tells him all about it and that at the end of the preformance Rubinstein was draining in sweat that he porued his heart and soul in to the piano. Liszt after carefully listening sits at an old upright out of tune piano that was basicly abused by the 1000 students he had and preforms the piece for the student. The student then responds that there were no words to describe the playing of old fragile Liszt on that broken piano compared to Rubinstein. In essence Rubinstein preformance simed pale and mediocre in comparission. Also he noted that Rubinstein used alot of his hands and was exhausted after the preformance while Liszt had all the power in his fingers and never ever seemed or was tired..
Something about how aggressive Song of the Vagabonds is, especially with those descending lines, shakes me to my core. I would've probably actually fell out my chair if I had seen it with my own eyes
Hát igen ő egy zseni volt Artitude korát megelőzte jópár évvel amikor hallgatom úgy érzem hogy nem tudok Song arász ni ő egy nagy semmi volt kár érte be city 5:05
Art Tatum is responsible for launching the career of many jazz drummers, jazz guitarists, jazz bassists, you name it... listening to him a humbling experience to say the least!
this is my small tribute to art tatum i know that you know, been working a bit more than 2 weeks on the song i will play the whole thing with some twist and post it in apple music take a look ruclips.net/video/oB9k6mNanjQ/видео.html
There's a story that Count Bassie came through Kansas City one time and decided to give the, then, unknown Art Tatum a shot at playing. Many years later, he said, "I was standing by just in case he needed the help, and I'm still standing by."
@@adamglinka1 my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Quel phrase fabuleuse du grand Basie, qui souligne l'extrême respect et l'humilité authentique et sincère qu'il exprimait devant le génie absolu du piano qu'était Art Tatum.
Few people know that he was from an alien world with a civilization far far in advance of our own and his brain had dolphin like qualities, also his hands had individual brains as well.
@@barracuda7018 my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@Honest Citizen my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Listen for Art’s note lengths, durations. Most jazz pianists can control where the note is played, where it is started. But Art had command of when the note ended. How long the note sounded. The note’s duration. So his release was as much as part of his sound, and swings, as the note’s starting point. Most pianists simply throw themselves at the keys. Not Art, he could control the entire note from start to release.
My God!!! You know why there is no film with this? It's because Art's fingers are moving so fast the film would have been all blurry from the elbows outward!
Dave Brubecks mother was a concert pianist. When he told her that his future lay in Jazz , she was none too pleased. One morning after picking him up to go for lunch , the incredible playing of Tatum was being played on the radio . Thats what I want to play said Dave . If you can play like that then you have my blessing , replied his mother.
i agree, here is my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Hard to believe anyone could play this fast! not only speed, but clarity, accuracy ----I slowed the speed down to.75 and its STILL faster then most pianists could play on their best day. This guy was really something.
Literally true, I reckon. As a pretty good rule of thumb, a really decent pianist can play at about 20 notes per second, flat out. In places I've clocked Tatum, at over 30 notes/sec.
Speed is not the be-all, end all of stride. It is the content combined with the blistering tempos that create the real excitement. Art's solos are really based on his own technical bag of melodic lines and figures. The harmony and rhythm are the real stars here, as they get treated to the hyper-sonic Tatum ride to the stars...MBB
Tatum's piano must have had an automated fire extinguisher. It is good there are many Tatum recordings to be amazed of and to enjoy, otherwise no one would have believed it.
This is really, in my opinion, simply one of the most exciting things about Tatum. Many can play leaps that fast, but to play those leaps IN THE CONTEXT of a complex, CLEAR, and coherent IMPROVISATION with SWING is another matter entirely, something I haven't yet seen any pianist do as well. THAT, and a lot of these leaps have TENTHS as the bass, something very difficult to do. Tatum must really have had exceptionally large hands for such a stretch to be easy.
Yes on several of the AUDIO recordings of Luckey Roberts (and also of Roy Bargy, who was influenced by Roberts) we can hear each of them stretching ELEVENTHS STRAIGHT ON (!!! with the middle notes!!!)
The best part about listening to Tatum is after you get your head somewhat around the fact that there is one person doing all this, you need to realize that he couldn't see as well. Just insane what this man could do. OH! He was also quite a few drinks in most of the time you hear him.
@@khlymore He was from another world. He let America and the world know who he was. Listen and chart His progression to any of the classy train and you will be surprised to find every one come short of duplicating. His technique.
If I were ever tempted to feel bad "because I can't do what Art Tatum did", I would just keep in mind that "neither can anybody else" ... One of my piano heroes!
my tribute to Art Tatum in his 111th anniversary playing the full song i know that you know which is the last one on this video here it is ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Rachmaninov and also Horowitz ,so it’s said, were blown away by Art. They liked his freedom( from Classical restraint,perhaps) I think they needed time off from the constraints of their genre. Have a cocktail,lay back, and simply enjoy
I'm on the floor again and cannot see the screen. It's the Art of Tatum, defying believability,, comprehension, possibility, mortality itself. It remains tear producingly incredible and actually beyond what anyone before or after can do. The GREAT.
What is so delightful about this is that not only was he stunning at stride piano but he was able to play lightning fast parallel tenths and chords so effectively. Indeed, God was in the house.
Indeed. A fast-forwarded Fats Waller of sorts. What's most stupendous is that it is still COHERENT even at such a speed. Few, in my opinion, can achieve that effect.
@@agamaz5650 I think Tatum was a Bösendorfer man. Oscar Peterson certainly was, and Franz Liszt became one simply because they were the only piano he couldn't smash to matchwood.
@@agamaz5650 my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
I play the piano myself and it is hard to imagine how a human can actually reach this level. My hands cramp while listening to this. It is really like sport what he is doing there!
dont say that, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Thank God we have the evidence that there was a man on the Earth that had superhuman abilities, and anyone today can check for themselves. Tatum was beyond imagination. Excellent mix, thank you!
@@brucedavies8154 why the laugh, you have any doubts? (IVAN DRAGO VOICE ROCKY 4)'' I cannot be defeated'' (MCgregor voice) !!! TRUST ME ON THAT !!! lol small data for you, i think i am the first guy on youtube who actually played that song correctly and completely, no 2 i finish 15 seconds or more faster than the fastest version on youtube from the real Art Tatum, so yes i played faster to make it more ridiculous and absurd than already is, no 3 i learned the song and stride parts literally with the lights off, i was not looking at my left hand because you cant is too fast you have to feel, thats why blind players are the ultimate level, and another thing, in 1987 my father had tiger rag on a old cassette and the book of art tatum, i listen to it and i didnt like the song, sounds to me like CIRCUS music, i downloaded a discography of art tatum and listen 5gb of music of art tatum just to make sure that song I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW is the most ridiculous and is my favorite, caravan is on my mind but not art tatum version i was planing to play this version WATCH THIS SHERLOCK ruclips.net/video/HitnXicVRxU/видео.html now tell me which one you prefer? tatum or this one? muhuhahaha it is time to put a side your weak human side and join me in remaking this world!!!!! LOL
I cannot even count the number times Art Tatum made me consider quitting piano. I can play Fats Waller's stride style, but Tatum's playing is criminally difficult.
put some of his music into Audacity and slow it down...I've found that recently to be a good way of understanding what he's doing...still can't play it though, but some of the mysteries have been made more transparent, eg when it sounds like he's covered the whole keyboard, there are gaps in the run
At Tatum is responsible for the invention of the electric guitar: Les Paul gave up the piano and turned to guitar after hearing Mr. Tatum play.... true story.
@@SELMER1947 Ok I stand corrected thanks - I truly thought Les Paul was the inventor. I did see him, on video, talk about switching to guitar after seeing Tatum's overwhelming performance. Did Les Paul invent multitrack recording? i thought so also
@@jimrogers7460 Sort of. Four-tracks were used by Germans in WWII to broadcast Hitler speeches, and the machines were captured by the allies. Les Paul heard of them and the commercial applications, and passed to word to Bing's brother Bob Crosby. Crosby was an early investor.
It's on thing to play fast. It's another to play fast and make it sound like there are several more gears left. It's like he's not even trying... like the end of the Matrix.
This is an important point. The recordings struck me the same way. Like there’s no effort involved so here we are looking at another level of human biology that has implications beyond the piano people listen to Tatum and Marvel, but there’s much more to be investigated here.
Wie die Restauration immer besser wurde, sollte auch ihre Wiedergabe gepflegt sein: Die QualitätsKette ist so stark wie ihr schwächstes Glied! Meine *EMPFEHLUNG* der EQUALIZER *- Anpassung* *'Caruso'* Einstellung (classical modified) -10,9 dB (60Hz) -12,6 dB (230Hz) -14,8 dB (910Hz) -15,0 dB (4kHz) +15,0 dB (14kHz) Der Eintrag wurde ergänzt, weil es sehr unterschiedliche EQ gibt. Profis wissen das. Er bezieht sich hier allgemein auf eine *'Bass Booster App'* 🎧 - ohne das Zuschalten des BASS BOOST. Die meisten gehen wohl heute mit Bluetooth in ihrem Endgerät/Handy richtig um ('Advanced settings' überprüfen, den BBoost selbst vorsichtig verwenden, falls man ihn nutzt). 'Compatibility Mode' der App und 'Sound Field *FLAT'* Ihrer Anlage. So wird die Auswirkung rasch klar: *beeindruckende Brillanz!* A. Tatum hätte seine helle Freude daran. Vergleichen Sie bitte ab 3:27f. mit/ohne o.a. Equalizer-Variation ..... wie ein 'etwas verschwommenes' Foto insgesamt schärfer wird. *Warum* es sich so verhält, kann man an dem *Graph* der Funktion, die aus dieser genauen Einstellung resultiert und eine Crescendo-Verstärkung zeigt, verstehen: er wird auf dem Display sichtbar. (Die Anmerkungen sind KEINE Kritik an der Restauration: nur Vorschläge zum *Anhören* ALTER Aufnahmen!)
Nice transfers. I remember, in the 70's, hearing some of the 1934 material on horrible cassettes and obscure Lp's. They always sounded like they'd been recorded in a waking dream somewhere. These are marvelously clear.
hahaha thast true, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Once in awhile I run into someone who preaches that a person can learn to do anything they want if they just spend 10,000 hours learning to do it. I just tell them that I don't believe they have ever really met a person of great talent.
lets try to find out, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
The 10,000 hour thing I feel is kind of misunderstood. 10,000 hours practicing the most effective material/rudiment building each and every hour, can lead someone to a great place. The problem with the saying is many people don't know or can't figure out the most efficient habits to focus that 10k hours of practice time unto. So you get those 10,000 hours leading somewhere between nowhere and somewhere. That being said, Art Tatum had to have had nearly the highest level of intuition, because he obviously knew what to put his efforts towards to continuously improve year after year.
It's as simple and difficult as this: if you mastered a thing in hour one and are so happy that you do the same stuff in hour two, you can kiss that 10k goal goodbye
@@mlconlanmeister I see it as you won the prize and got the genes. Otherwise, you gotta work your ass off just to approximate something akin to what that gifted asshole can do while barely doing any work at all. I have known several people with amazing gifts. Usually they don't get recognized as having the genius that they have, and not infrequently people think them rather slow until they see what the can really do. Sometimes too, they aren't really interested in their gifts and what can be done with them. But work 10 k hours to catch up them? Not really, but you can try if you want.
@@SRWatcher No serious artist sets his goal to practice for 10,000 hours to be a master, because no serious artist ever considers himself a master. In art there is no limit, no time when one is fully satisfied with himself and says, "I've perfected my craft, time to stop".
How the hell is this possible? Surely it must be two people playing.... You mean to tell me that ONE person is playing all this? I can't even wrap my head around this....
There is a Art Tatum story (true ur not) that younger he listened to a piano track for 4 hands thinking that only one person was playing and he would have developed his style and technique by wanting to actually play it simalar to what he heard.
Yes. Art did this himself. There is video, three clips exist. They show Art at his later best. This is the Real Deal, the greatest technician and the most inaginitive and creative virtuoso of the American music. MBB
@@LuLu-jv3tc That story comes from the true story of a 16-year-old Tatum going to his friend's house in Ohio and listening to rolls on the player piano. Although Tatum laughed and denied the story of playing a 4-hand roll arrangement with 2 hands, he really DID learn a lot from rolls, especially Lee Sims' rolls on U. S. Music and Thomas Fats Waller's rolls on QRS. Check out Sims' 1925 roll of "Sweet Georgia Brown"; though strictly a pop performance and not jazzy or swingy like the widely-reissued QRS Pete Wendling version, Sims introduces some very fast treble runs in the last chorus that would later be copied by Tatum, put in every key and used frequently in many of his later performances.
The great and legendary Oscar Peterson, upon hearing his first Tatum LP, said, "Those guys are great!". His father said, "Not two, ONE person. That's what you've got to be". Oscar went away and wept and didn't play for two weeks! ... but the rest is history
thats right, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
He's playing all these notes in no time at all - and still manages to get them in in the right order. No wonder Fats gave up when Arthur walke into the room
he was no joke, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
thats right, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
My father loved Art Tatum. He would stack his automatic turntable with his LP records, and they would play for hours. As a kid, it was over my head, I must admit.
I am simply reliving my childhood right now. Daddy played like Fats Waller & Teddy Wilson….and had a huge 78 rpm record collection all brilliantly filed with cardboard dividers I remember! Of course the idea of becoming a jazz pianist always deflated me until I heard Dudley Moore and used him and Erroll Garner as my heroic inspiration! Swindon!!
As a piano player, who stands in awe of this man's playing, it is almost unfathomable to hear what is happening. Not just in the sheer technique (which I am sure would have blown Beethoven's mind), but the harmonic imagination he has in his improvising. Quite possibly the greatest piano player who ever lived. Horowitz once said "If Art Tatum ever took up classical music seriously, I'd quit tomorrow". Oscar Peterson also said he "cried himself to sleep for months" when he heard Art Tatum's Tiger Rag for the first time. The left hand is strong with this one...
And after he finished crying, Oscar sat back down at the piano and laid down a legacy every bit as important as Art's. And in modern recording definition. The great tragedy of Art Tatum's life is that he often was forced to perform on pianos with broken keys, missing strings, missing hammers, recorded on the cheapest tape recorders under horrible acoustic conditions. Thank God for Norman Granz, and the complete Pablo Masters, giving Art's genius a worthy hearing!
John Petergal Not sure that Oscar Peterson's legacy was every bit as important as Art's as far as I am concerned!! Taking nothing away from this great pianist, who by the way I heard live in concert playing the piano a mere 5 feet away from where I was sitting! Art Tatum's sheer blazing speed and technical facility and stamina was inexhaustible, not to mention his improvisational skills and harmonics when it came to his left hand voicings was unmatched by anyone!! Yet, from reliable sources are reports that his best playing was done when performing in the wee hours of the night in the most discreet speakeasy clubs of the day!!!
+John Petergal As much as I enjoy the Pablo records, I think they pale in comparison with his earlier stuff. The Complete Capitol Recordings (1949), The Standard Transcriptions (mid 1930s) , Classic Early Solos (mid-1930s) and California Melodies (1940) are among his best work in my opinion. The band albums he did under the watch of Norman Granz are fun, but I find the Pablo solo records slightly underwhelming.
I remember that Oscar used to be arrogant as a child because he was so much better than his teachers. Then his father put on a record and told Oscar to listen to it. Oscar asked who the guys were that were playing, to which his father said that it was all one man: Art Tatum. After that, Oscar stopped playing for months and then turned around and practiced his speed. They also said Oscar refused to play with Art around.
The Horowitz story doesn't have solid first-hand evidence (i.e. Horowitz himself claiming to have met Tatum) to support it, unfortunately. It's more of a legend.
And there's also one in his 1954 "After You've Gone". It impressed me 'cos he didn't usually "display virtuosity" in his last years, especially his "super-stride".
I hate how your clipping everything to the end but I love Art Tatum.His techique is so flawless that no one has ever interpreted Art Tatum like Art freaking Tatum.He's the greatest pianist of all time and it's amazing to hear this.
@@gullivior Well I personally thought that it should showed Arr's inhuman stride all the way throigh.It's only fair to the guy even he's not with us anymore.
The way he's playing on "Song of the Vagabonds", it has all the impact, urgency and dire quality of the climactic point of a thriller movie... like a run-for-your-life chase scene. That and it's also just about the fastest thing I've ever heard.
Vergleichen Sie bitte ab 10:42f. mit/ohne o.a. Equalizer-Variation ..... wie ein 'etwas verschwommenes' Foto insgesamt schärfer wird. *Warum* es sich so verhält, kann man an dem *Graph* der Funktion, die aus dieser genauen Einstellung resultiert und eine Crescendo-Verstärkung zeigt, verstehen: er wird auf dem Display sichtbar.
If Art Tatum had lived another 10 years when the jazz festival venue exploded and television came into its own as a mass communication technology, he'd be a household name!
ltravail Maybe. He never composed a standard (just re-composing existing songs every bar), and his technique was so beyond everyone else he couldn't influence anyone (except to consider another career).
+skierpage Not only do I disagree with you, but so would Oscar Peterson...and Billy Taylor...and Errol Garner...and Billy Strayhorn...and Rex Stewart...and...Roy Eldridge...and...Paul Maclin (classical)...and...Herbie Hancock...and Mel Powell (classical)...and...need I go on?...I don't know how much you know about jazz, or Art Tatum, but he single-handedly elevated jazz to the level of a serious musical art form on a level with European classical music, and changed the way jazz musicians approached that idiom. He even spawned Charlie Parker! The great bebop sax player, Sonny Rollins, called him "revolutionary." The vast majority of jazz musicians (of all instruments) considered him the consummate musician's musician. It was not just his technical brilliance that put him head and shoulders above all other musicians, but the depth of his knowledge of the European system of music theory and its application to jazz as well. It may be arguable, but it is certainly no overstatement to say he was perhaps the most remarkable musician who ever lived.
ltravail You misunderstand me. I completely agree Tatum is a jazz musician without equal. But he did not compose one standard, and he did not lead jazz into lasting new musical directions the way for example Miles Davis did (even though you can find every musical idea under the sun in Tatum's harmonic inventions). That's my explanation for the sad fact that he is not very well-known, and TV of his performances wouldn't change that. I've read "Too Marvellous for Words", have you?
Yes it's fast and all but somehow he makes it sound smooth and reasonable in tempo even though he is playing at great speed.. Maybe it is his shear accuracy? it's like each note is given it's own time and voice evenly...
Look up what a "Tatum" represents in computational music theory. Basically, to paraphrase, it is the shortest possible clean note which can be perceived and distinguished by human ears. www.cs.tut.fi/sgn/arg/music/jams/
Esperanza Spaulding and Wayne Shorter and Brad Mehldau are amazing, and Art Tatum was no more popular than these contemporary geniuses. That said, NO ONE is Art Tatum. Dizzy invented Be Bop by listening to him play. Only musician in history I know of that talented was Mozart.
I just tried to move hands, fingers, arms like this, at that velocity and Cannot. Doing nothing accurate, just movement and Cannot. Art made such joyous music with accuracy, sheer fun, superb harmony, complex but comprehensible rhythm, a total creativity. Oh!!
When Art Tatum was young, he would find a player piano and put his hands on the keyboard, following the keys that dropped. Nobody told him that there were usually four hands doing the rolls, so he found ways to do it all. Nobody told him it could not be done. So the result is that he found a way to do it - we are limited by the ability of people who tell us that is impossible.
Dave Luttinen Mr. Tatum laughed and said this story wasn't true when it was repeated back to him in a radio interview. BUT- when he was 16 he DID play thru lots of player piano rolls owned by a friend in Toledo, Ohio, and copy them. They were mostly "one pianist" rolls with a minimum of added notes, and I can tell you that several of them were by Lee Sims, who Mr. Tatum said he admired. One of the Sims rolls was definitely "Sweet Georgia Brown", from which the young Tatum learned some of his fast runs. You can listen to it here, with dynamics added by pianolist Philip Legg: ruclips.net/video/fGFcqTIXak0/видео.html and many other Sims rolls (not a complete collection yet, but 31 of the rolls he did for U.S. Music in the 1924-1926 period) on Richard Rames' channel. Just search (without quotes) 'Richard Rames Lee Sims'. There are a few other Sims rolls posted by others (both the U.S. Music 88-note rolls and the Ampico reproducing rolls), as well as many of his Brunswick records from c. 1928-1934, and a rare film of Sims and his wife Ilomay Bailey performing in 1934. Finally, some of Sims' compositions (published sheet music) have been digitized and uploaded as MIDI scores to RagtimeDorianHenry's RUclips channel.
Deryck Trahair - The thing is, Art Tatum is all improvisation. There's no going back in improvisation to retry or do over something. Once you hit a tone regardless of what it is, you gotta make it work somehow to keep the piece seemingly coherent. You can't use white-out on it like you could with ink on a page. Now Art Tatum improvises in the spur of the moment (spontaneously) at such blazing tempos most don't even perform actual written works with. Respectfully, just let that sink in for a moment, now do you see it?
@@derycktrahair8108 SLOW IT DOWN to like 50% or 75% speed using your home computer on RUclips (the gearwheel icon in the lower right of the RUclips screen lets you adjust the playback speed). Although this will introduce artifacts into the sound, notice how CLEAN and EVEN his touch is even at 50% speed on most tracks. He hardly ever misses a note, and it is still musical. Now try this with a whole raft of classical virtuosi and you will find that relatively few can match Mr. Tatum with this uncanny quality of touch and tone-production.
Fantástico! É inacreditável o que esse cara tocava!!!! Oscar Peterson foi o seguidor do estilo de Art Tatum. Conta Oscar que quando ouviu ele tocar pela primeira vez, pensou que se tratava de dois pianistas, mas quando soube que era apenas um, conta ele que quase desistiu de tocar piano...(isso no comecinho de sua carreira, ainda sem a fama.)
Two fast recordings I know that aren't in this list (though I'm aware the author says it is "not exhaustive") are the double time section of "After You've Gone" (1954) and "I Wish I Were Twins" (1934), which is an entire two minutes of super stride.
Hey friend, no need to single out that part. The WHOLE thing is the whole thing! Imagine how it must have been for those pianists in nightclubs at the time when Art played for a while between sets (I think I heard about this happening) and after he'd finished, YOU'D have to come back on with the band! That would have been so awful, eh? Back to the scales and the finger exercises...
I don't actually believe that story that much. I don't recall Horowitz ever speaking about Tatum. When someone asked Horowitz's office if he knew Tatum, the office just said, "Mr. Horowitz says he didn't really know Mr. Tatum, but had great respect for him."
I seem to recall an interview with Horowitz in which he provided anecdotal testimony to Tatum's greatness. Horowitz had arranged Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" as an encore piece to express his solidarity with the American war effort. He played the number for Tatum, who was so delighted with what he'd just heard that he sat down at the keyboard and spontaneously reeled off theme and variations of such polished complexity that Horowitz was left deflated and humbled. I'm not sure where I ran across this story, but it may be taken from an interview with Mike Wallace on "60 Minutes". At least forty years have passed since then, and I'm willing to concede my memory could be playing tricks at this stage. But I can still hear that rueful laughter.
Fake news! Fake story! There's no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Horowitz ever met Art Tatum, let alone play for him. seeking his approval There IS however statement in Willis Conover Voice of America interview of Tatum that he (Tatum) was an avid fan of Vladimir Horowitz and devoted collector of his recordings. And on a personal note I would add that no living pianist ever has "deflated and humbled" the great Horowitz, but HE deflated and humbled practically all of them. Please, keep that in mind next time you decide to entertain us with amusing but unlikely anecdotes!
Vladimir Horowitz did in fact meet Tatum. This is well known among pianists who knew both. there is a BBC special with Oscar Peterson and classical pianist Andre Previn where they tell the story of when Horowitz met Tatum and they both played tea for two. Horowitz was taken aback by Tatum’s version which he couldn’t believe was improvised on the spot by Tatum.
I think art Tatum was the only pianist in human history, where the piano had to struggle with the player and not the player with the piano. Unbelievable
my tribute to art tatum in his 111th anniversary playing the superfast song i know that you know ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Well said 👏
Jordan..this is no word to describe this man..it has not been discovered yet..maybe never..peace ✌ ☮
Very well stated, Jordan! I agree!
Word. Same and Kurt Cobain amd Hendrix.
In the absence of accompanying video footage, I visualize a piano on fire.
AECSRQ Best comment ever.
I wouldn't have the same opinion. Tatum, even in his most exciting, was generally "cool" and "smooth". Argerich, Cziffra, or Oscar Peterson would be more the ones to set a piano ablaze. :)
Santosificationable Oscar himself said Tatum was the greatest and a major influence on him. Your comment makes no sense
I agee!
That is because Art made it look effortless. Most of these pieces he hardly broke a sweat. Oscar struggled for the level he got to. As Fats said when Art walked in to play, "God is in the house."
They say speed isn't everything, but, Master Tatum has everything else too!
What an imagination, Pure genius.
yep, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
The man is from another planet.Cannot be compared with anyone. The man is not real, he is beyond any stretch of imagination.
What's even more incredible is if you watch any of the somewhat rare footage of him playing, he looks like he's not even breakin a sweat - his fingers move so subtly - they tiptoe across the keyboard and you cant even tell he's hitting the keys
Just like Franz Liszt:) and the total opposite of Anton Rubinstein...
That's how we all should try to play!
@@dacovaz yeaahh i know the story ablut the moonlight sonata
@@micoveliki8729¿¿¿???
@@opale1572 im having a bad day so.i wont go in details you can find the newspaper article online which was an interview with one of Liszt students i think it was Reisenauer who went to see Anton Rubinstein preform. After the preformance of the Moonlight Sonata he was so amazed at the otherwordly technique and musicality of Rubinstein that he went straight to his teacher (Liszt) to tell him what he saw. Liszt in his youth was known for having the Moonlight Sonata as his "speciality". So the student tells him all about it and that at the end of the preformance Rubinstein was draining in sweat that he porued his heart and soul in to the piano. Liszt after carefully listening sits at an old upright out of tune piano that was basicly abused by the 1000 students he had and preforms the piece for the student. The student then responds that there were no words to describe the playing of old fragile Liszt on that broken piano compared to Rubinstein. In essence Rubinstein preformance simed pale and mediocre in comparission. Also he noted that Rubinstein used alot of his hands and was exhausted after the preformance while Liszt had all the power in his fingers and never ever seemed or was tired..
Something about how aggressive Song of the Vagabonds is, especially with those descending lines, shakes me to my core. I would've probably actually fell out my chair if I had seen it with my own eyes
Hát igen ő egy zseni volt Artitude korát megelőzte jópár évvel amikor hallgatom úgy érzem hogy nem tudok Song arász ni ő egy nagy semmi volt kár érte be city 5:05
Mind-boggling pianist dexterity, tonality, accuracy, and speed
Piano player...
Art Tatum is responsible for launching the career of many jazz drummers, jazz guitarists, jazz bassists, you name it... listening to him a humbling experience to say the least!
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Art Tatum was a true musical phenomenon. Probably one of the greatest Pianists regardless of genre of the 20th Century
this is my small tribute to art tatum i know that you know, been working a bit more than 2 weeks on the song i will play the whole thing with some twist and post it in apple music take a look ruclips.net/video/oB9k6mNanjQ/видео.html
Sergei Rachmaninoff would go up to Harlem and listen, and thought Mr. Tatum the greatest pianist of the time.
@@hostlangrYa salió el sabio de turno.
There's a story that Count Bassie came through Kansas City one time and decided to give the, then, unknown Art Tatum a shot at playing. Many years later, he said, "I was standing by just in case he needed the help, and I'm still standing by."
It was TOLEDO, Ohio...
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@@adamglinka1 my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Quel phrase fabuleuse du grand Basie, qui souligne l'extrême respect et l'humilité authentique et sincère qu'il exprimait devant le génie absolu du piano qu'était Art Tatum.
Few people know that he was from an alien world with a civilization far far in advance of our own and his brain had dolphin like qualities, also his hands had individual brains as well.
Art Tatum cannot be comprehended by human standards.
Kostas ....a very good way to put it
Agreed 100% this is beyond what is humanly possible.. Thats the reason why there will always be one ART TATUM . Only Oscar comes close ..
yep, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@@barracuda7018 my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@Honest Citizen my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
His scales sound like a glissando...mesmerizing!
Listen for Art’s note lengths, durations. Most jazz pianists can control where the note is played, where it is started. But Art had command of when the note ended. How long the note sounded. The note’s duration. So his release was as much as part of his sound, and swings, as the note’s starting point. Most pianists simply throw themselves at the keys. Not Art, he could control the entire note from start to release.
👍👍
My God!!! You know why there is no film with this? It's because Art's fingers are moving so fast the film would have been all blurry from the elbows outward!
Dave Brubecks mother was a concert pianist. When he told her that his future lay in Jazz , she was none too pleased. One morning after picking him up to go for lunch , the incredible playing of Tatum was being played on the radio . Thats what I want to play said Dave . If you can play like that then you have my blessing , replied his mother.
His speed and dexterity is beyond comprehension!
i agree, here is my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Hard to believe anyone could play this fast! not only speed, but clarity, accuracy ----I slowed the speed down to.75 and its STILL faster then most pianists could play on their best day. This guy was really something.
Literally true, I reckon. As a pretty good rule of thumb, a really decent pianist can play at about 20 notes per second, flat out. In places I've clocked Tatum, at over 30 notes/sec.
@@rich8037Paganini can play 150 notes
And at the same time extordinarily creative
Speed is not the be-all, end all of stride. It is the content combined with the blistering tempos that create the real excitement. Art's solos are really based on his own technical bag of melodic lines and figures. The harmony and rhythm are the real stars here, as they get treated to the hyper-sonic Tatum ride to the stars...MBB
Tatum's piano must have had an automated fire extinguisher. It is good there are many Tatum recordings to be amazed of and to enjoy, otherwise no one would have believed it.
One of the greatest pianist of all time in any musical style. A true piano God.
Wow!...no way possible... really unbelievable... two hands? Wow! I was totally disoriented. What an honor to hear. thanks for posting. Truly rare.
This is really, in my opinion, simply one of the most exciting things about Tatum. Many can play leaps that fast, but to play those leaps IN THE CONTEXT of a complex, CLEAR, and coherent IMPROVISATION with SWING is another matter entirely, something I haven't yet seen any pianist do as well.
THAT, and a lot of these leaps have TENTHS as the bass, something very difficult to do. Tatum must really have had exceptionally large hands for such a stretch to be easy.
Oscar Peterson's left hand could stretch an 11th (as can mine), Tatum's a 12th, and Rachmaninov's a 13th. That said, I can't play shit.
Luckey Roberts left could stretch a 14th.
@@musical_lolu4811 hahaha!!!!!!
@@kafenwarEs curioso. ¡Y eso que Roberts era casi un enano!
Yes on several of the AUDIO recordings of Luckey Roberts (and also of Roy Bargy, who was influenced by Roberts) we can hear each of them stretching ELEVENTHS STRAIGHT ON (!!! with the middle notes!!!)
The best part about listening to Tatum is after you get your head somewhat around the fact that there is one person doing all this, you need to realize that he couldn't see as well. Just insane what this man could do. OH! He was also quite a few drinks in most of the time you hear him.
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@@khlymore He was from another world. He let America and the
world know who he was. Listen and chart
His progression to any
of the classy train and you will be surprised to find every one come short of duplicating. His technique.
How can this be? Beyond normal human nature.
FANTASTIC SOUL and FANTASTIC FINGERS
If I were ever tempted to feel bad "because I can't do what Art Tatum did", I would just keep in mind that "neither can anybody else" ... One of my piano heroes!
that's why the rest of us are still alive and playing
Rachmaninoff was impressed by his playing... RACHfukcinMANINOFF of all classic piano gods was impressed.
my tribute to Art Tatum in his 111th anniversary playing the full song i know that you know which is the last one on this video here it is ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Mel Powell was another big Art Tatum fan.
Rachmaninov and also Horowitz ,so it’s said, were blown away by Art. They liked his freedom( from Classical restraint,perhaps) I think they needed time off from the constraints of their genre. Have a cocktail,lay back, and simply enjoy
Rachmaninoff is overrated
@@og-greenmachine8623 By who?
O M G...ART TATUM WAS THE BEST ..creatively, ingeniously, etc,etc, this guy was much more than a monster pianistically.
Maybe too much to say, he is the greatest pianist of all time, albeit ultra-stylized, not just "jazz pianist".
After LISZT ?
After Franz LISZT who is now brother in heaven
Art Tatum: The greatest TWO pianists ever to walk the earth.
👍👍👍
Meilleur pianiste de l'histoire, toutes disciplines confondues (depuis que l'enregistrement existe). Juste intouchable le Art Tatum!
my 2 weeks i know that you know and im rusty ruclips.net/video/oB9k6mNanjQ/видео.html
I'm on the floor again and cannot see the screen. It's the Art of Tatum, defying believability,, comprehension, possibility, mortality itself. It remains tear producingly incredible and actually beyond what anyone before or after can do. The GREAT.
Incomprehensibly amazing. It's actually too good for me to fully appreciate. I am already maxed out with Fats Waller.
I think the title is supposed to be inhuman, not inhumane. Unless it's cruel for people to contemplate the sheer ability of Art.
Sometimes it actually sounds like more than one person is playing piano at the same time.
It is, indeed, inhumane how he treated those keys.
I heard all 88 (white *and* black) pressed charges . . .
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@@itswaaaay2ez you7 are funny!!
What is so delightful about this is that not only was he stunning at stride piano but he was able to play lightning fast parallel tenths and chords so effectively. Indeed, God was in the house.
Indeed. A fast-forwarded Fats Waller of sorts. What's most stupendous is that it is still COHERENT even at such a speed. Few, in my opinion, can achieve that effect.
@@Santosificationable If you take these down to 75% quite a lot of these DO sound like Waller :)
How is the PIANO keeping up with HIM?!!
i know right haha, well it sounds like he is playing top quality steinway
Yes, how?
@@agamaz5650 I think Tatum was a Bösendorfer man. Oscar Peterson certainly was, and Franz Liszt became one simply because they were the only piano he couldn't smash to matchwood.
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@@agamaz5650 my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
I have epilepsy and i am not joking. i almost had a seizure listening to this so many times. my brain got confused trying to take this in, lol
my tribute to art tatum superfast song i know that you know here it is
ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
I play the piano myself and it is hard to imagine how a human can actually reach this level. My hands cramp while listening to this. It is really like sport what he is doing there!
eldar played tiger rag in 8 days this is my 2 weeks old i know that you know and im rusty ruclips.net/video/oB9k6mNanjQ/видео.html
FIREWORKS OF HAPPINESS
Geez, could he pick up the tempo a bit ? Lol..Not only amazing speed but impeccable articulation... does not miss a note or a beat ever .. superhuman
👍👍
I don't think I will ever touch a piano ever again!
dont say that, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
And he was BLIND.
+Sven-Sander Šestakov not totaly
And drunk!
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Thank God we have the evidence that there was a man on the Earth that had superhuman abilities, and anyone today can check for themselves. Tatum was beyond imagination.
Excellent mix, thank you!
yep, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Very well put ….exactly right
Happy feet is simply unbelievable. It has to be one of his most infamous arrangements.
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@@khlymore Checked it out love it. would like to hear your tiger rag or caravan next haha
@@brucedavies8154 why the laugh, you have any doubts? (IVAN DRAGO VOICE ROCKY 4)'' I cannot be defeated'' (MCgregor voice) !!! TRUST ME ON THAT !!! lol small data for you, i think i am the first guy on youtube who actually played that song correctly and completely, no 2 i finish 15 seconds or more faster than the fastest version on youtube from the real Art Tatum, so yes i played faster to make it more ridiculous and absurd than already is, no 3 i learned the song and stride parts literally with the lights off, i was not looking at my left hand because you cant is too fast you have to feel, thats why blind players are the ultimate level, and another thing, in 1987 my father had tiger rag on a old cassette and the book of art tatum, i listen to it and i didnt like the song, sounds to me like CIRCUS music, i downloaded a discography of art tatum and listen 5gb of music of art tatum just to make sure that song I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW is the most ridiculous and is my favorite, caravan is on my mind but not art tatum version i was planing to play this version WATCH THIS SHERLOCK ruclips.net/video/HitnXicVRxU/видео.html now tell me which one you prefer? tatum or this one? muhuhahaha it is time to put a side your weak human side and join me in remaking this world!!!!! LOL
I cannot even count the number times Art Tatum made me consider quitting piano. I can play Fats Waller's stride style, but Tatum's playing is criminally difficult.
put some of his music into Audacity and slow it down...I've found that recently to be a good way of understanding what he's doing...still can't play it though, but some of the mysteries have been made more transparent, eg when it sounds like he's covered the whole keyboard, there are gaps in the run
At Tatum is responsible for the invention of the electric guitar: Les Paul gave up the piano and turned to guitar after hearing Mr. Tatum play.... true story.
uh, no. charlie christian . . . leo fender, merle travis & paul bigsby all beat Les Paul to prototype and production models.
Charlie Christian is the first not Les Paul
Replace “electric guitar” with “the Les Paul guitar” for us guitar nerds please. Thanks!😄✌🏾
@@SELMER1947 Ok I stand corrected thanks - I truly thought Les Paul was the inventor. I did see him, on video, talk about switching to guitar after seeing Tatum's overwhelming performance. Did Les Paul invent multitrack recording? i thought so also
@@jimrogers7460 Sort of. Four-tracks were used by Germans in WWII to broadcast Hitler speeches, and the machines were captured by the allies. Les Paul heard of them and the commercial applications, and passed to word to Bing's brother Bob Crosby. Crosby was an early investor.
It's on thing to play fast. It's another to play fast and make it sound like there are several more gears left. It's like he's not even trying... like the end of the Matrix.
Underrated :)
my tribute to art in his 111th anniversary ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
@@Bruceykeys my tribute to art in his 111th anniversary
ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
the end of the Matrix, i love that ;)
This is an important point. The recordings struck me the same way. Like there’s no effort involved so here we are looking at another level of human biology that has implications beyond the piano people listen to Tatum and Marvel, but there’s much more to be investigated here.
That run at 3:48 🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀
Wie die Restauration immer besser
wurde, sollte auch ihre Wiedergabe
gepflegt sein: Die QualitätsKette ist
so stark wie ihr schwächstes Glied!
Meine *EMPFEHLUNG* der
EQUALIZER *- Anpassung*
*'Caruso'* Einstellung
(classical modified)
-10,9 dB (60Hz)
-12,6 dB (230Hz)
-14,8 dB (910Hz)
-15,0 dB (4kHz)
+15,0 dB (14kHz)
Der Eintrag wurde ergänzt, weil es sehr unterschiedliche EQ gibt. Profis wissen das. Er bezieht sich hier allgemein auf eine *'Bass Booster App'* 🎧 - ohne das Zuschalten des BASS BOOST. Die meisten gehen wohl heute mit Bluetooth in ihrem Endgerät/Handy richtig um ('Advanced settings' überprüfen, den BBoost selbst vorsichtig verwenden, falls man ihn nutzt).
'Compatibility Mode' der App und 'Sound Field *FLAT'* Ihrer Anlage. So wird die Auswirkung rasch klar: *beeindruckende Brillanz!*
A. Tatum hätte seine helle Freude daran.
Vergleichen Sie bitte ab 3:27f. mit/ohne o.a. Equalizer-Variation ..... wie ein 'etwas verschwommenes' Foto insgesamt schärfer wird. *Warum* es sich so verhält, kann man an dem *Graph* der Funktion, die aus dieser genauen Einstellung resultiert und eine Crescendo-Verstärkung zeigt, verstehen: er wird auf dem Display sichtbar.
(Die Anmerkungen sind KEINE Kritik an der Restauration: nur Vorschläge zum *Anhören* ALTER Aufnahmen!)
Nice transfers. I remember, in the 70's, hearing some of the 1934 material on horrible cassettes and obscure Lp's. They always sounded like they'd been recorded in a waking dream somewhere. These are marvelously clear.
Staggering stride from the almost totally blind Art Tatum. Another jazz great who died far too young.
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
I'm incredibly embarrassed to call myself a jazz pianist
my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Alors ne vous torturez plus, car Art Tatum avait tellement d'avance qu'on appelait pas encore ça le jazz à l'époque où il jouait ça ! ;)
@@Elixear ¡Cierto! 👍👍
I grew two extra ears to hear this.
hahaha thast true, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
C'est tout simplement époustouflant j balon
Hahahahahah! That was nice! in accordance with this fantastic music!...
Once in awhile I run into someone who preaches that a person can learn to do anything they want if they just spend 10,000 hours learning to do it. I just tell them that I don't believe they have ever really met a person of great talent.
lets try to find out, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
The 10,000 hour thing I feel is kind of misunderstood. 10,000 hours practicing the most effective material/rudiment building each and every hour, can lead someone to a great place. The problem with the saying is many people don't know or can't figure out the most efficient habits to focus that 10k hours of practice time unto. So you get those 10,000 hours leading somewhere between nowhere and somewhere. That being said, Art Tatum had to have had nearly the highest level of intuition, because he obviously knew what to put his efforts towards to continuously improve year after year.
It's as simple and difficult as this: if you mastered a thing in hour one and are so happy that you do the same stuff in hour two, you can kiss that 10k goal goodbye
@@mlconlanmeister I see it as you won the prize and got the genes. Otherwise, you gotta work your ass off just to approximate something akin to what that gifted asshole can do while barely doing any work at all. I have known several people with amazing gifts. Usually they don't get recognized as having the genius that they have, and not infrequently people think them rather slow until they see what the can really do. Sometimes too, they aren't really interested in their gifts and what can be done with them. But work 10 k hours to catch up them? Not really, but you can try if you want.
@@SRWatcher No serious artist sets his goal to practice for 10,000 hours to be a master, because no serious artist ever considers himself a master. In art there is no limit, no time when one is fully satisfied with himself and says, "I've perfected my craft, time to stop".
It's about time that someone did something like this for Art Tatum on here!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks & Stay Fine As A Porcupine!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i did a tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
God is in the house
How the hell is this possible? Surely it must be two people playing.... You mean to tell me that ONE person is playing all this? I can't even wrap my head around this....
There is a Art Tatum story (true ur not) that younger he listened to a piano track for 4 hands thinking that only
one person was playing and he would have developed his style and
technique by wanting to actually play it simalar to what he heard.
Yes. Art did this himself. There is video, three clips exist. They show Art at his later best. This is the Real Deal, the greatest technician and the most inaginitive and creative virtuoso of the American music. MBB
kingskid1985 and he was blind
It's called Eargasims.....
@@LuLu-jv3tc That story comes from the true story of a 16-year-old Tatum going to his friend's house in Ohio and listening to rolls on the player piano. Although Tatum laughed and denied the story of playing a 4-hand roll arrangement with 2 hands, he really DID learn a lot from rolls, especially Lee Sims' rolls on U. S. Music and Thomas Fats Waller's rolls on QRS. Check out Sims' 1925 roll of "Sweet Georgia Brown"; though strictly a pop performance and not jazzy or swingy like the widely-reissued QRS Pete Wendling version, Sims introduces some very fast treble runs in the last chorus that would later be copied by Tatum, put in every key and used frequently in many of his later performances.
The great and legendary Oscar Peterson, upon hearing his first Tatum LP, said, "Those guys are great!". His father said, "Not two, ONE person. That's what you've got to be". Oscar went away and wept and didn't play for two weeks! ... but the rest is history
thats right, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
He's playing all these notes in no time at all - and still manages to get them in in the right order. No wonder Fats gave up when Arthur walke into the room
he was no joke, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
First time I listened to "I know that you know" I dropped cup of tea when Tatum turns it from "partial" into "full" stride. Just unf...ingbeleivable!
thats right, my tribute to art playing the super fast song i know that you know which is the last song on this video ruclips.net/video/e_562_Y3c6I/видео.html
Ce soir , Dieu est dans la salle 😌
Pero creo que lo dijo con acento de New York.
He has more technique in one hand than I have in two.
My father loved Art Tatum. He would stack his automatic turntable with his LP records, and they would play for hours. As a kid, it was over my head, I must admit.
I am simply reliving my childhood right now. Daddy played like Fats Waller & Teddy Wilson….and had a huge 78 rpm record collection all brilliantly filed with cardboard dividers I remember! Of course the idea of becoming a jazz pianist always deflated me until I heard Dudley Moore and used him and Erroll Garner as my heroic inspiration! Swindon!!
As a piano player, who stands in awe of this man's playing, it is almost unfathomable to hear what is happening. Not just in the sheer technique (which I am sure would have blown Beethoven's mind), but the harmonic imagination he has in his improvising. Quite possibly the greatest piano player who ever lived. Horowitz once said "If Art Tatum ever took up classical music seriously, I'd quit tomorrow". Oscar Peterson also said he "cried himself to sleep for months" when he heard Art Tatum's Tiger Rag for the first time. The left hand is strong with this one...
And after he finished crying, Oscar sat back down at the piano and laid down a legacy every bit as important as Art's. And in modern recording definition. The great tragedy of Art Tatum's life is that he often was forced to perform on pianos with broken keys, missing strings, missing hammers, recorded on the cheapest tape recorders under horrible acoustic conditions. Thank God for Norman Granz, and the complete Pablo Masters, giving Art's genius a worthy hearing!
John Petergal Not sure that Oscar Peterson's legacy was every bit as important as Art's as far as I am concerned!! Taking nothing away from this great pianist, who by the way I heard live in concert playing the piano a mere 5 feet away from where I was sitting! Art Tatum's sheer blazing speed and technical facility and stamina was inexhaustible, not to mention his improvisational skills and harmonics when it came to his left hand voicings was unmatched by anyone!! Yet, from reliable sources are reports that his best playing was done when performing in the wee hours of the night in the most discreet speakeasy clubs of the day!!!
+John Petergal As much as I enjoy the Pablo records, I think they pale in comparison with his earlier stuff. The Complete Capitol Recordings (1949), The Standard Transcriptions (mid 1930s) , Classic Early Solos (mid-1930s) and California Melodies (1940) are among his best work in my opinion. The band albums he did under the watch of Norman Granz are fun, but I find the Pablo solo records slightly underwhelming.
I remember that Oscar used to be arrogant as a child because he was so much better than his teachers. Then his father put on a record and told Oscar to listen to it. Oscar asked who the guys were that were playing, to which his father said that it was all one man: Art Tatum. After that, Oscar stopped playing for months and then turned around and practiced his speed. They also said Oscar refused to play with Art around.
The Horowitz story doesn't have solid first-hand evidence (i.e. Horowitz himself claiming to have met Tatum) to support it, unfortunately. It's more of a legend.
A good example of stride from later in his career is the live version of “The Continental “ recorded in Toronto in 1949.
U NEED FOUR EARS TO HEAR EVERYTHING HES PLAYING IN CREDIBLE 80 YEARS LTR
best comment on here
Incredibile! Da restare senza parole!
👍👍
What a buzz! This is really spectacular to listen to, certainly mesmerizing, but yeah, what more can one say about this freak pianist?
And there's also one in his 1954 "After You've Gone". It impressed me 'cos he didn't usually "display virtuosity" in his last years, especially his "super-stride".
I hate how your clipping everything to the end but I love Art Tatum.His techique is so flawless that no one has ever interpreted Art Tatum like Art freaking Tatum.He's the greatest pianist of all time and it's amazing to hear this.
You hate? I'm sorry. You can listen to the whole songs on YT.
@@gullivior Well I personally thought that it should showed Arr's inhuman stride all the way throigh.It's only fair to the guy even he's not with us anymore.
my 2 weeks old art tatum i know that you know and im rusty ruclips.net/video/oB9k6mNanjQ/видео.html
The way he's playing on "Song of the Vagabonds", it has all the impact, urgency and dire quality of the climactic point of a thriller movie... like a run-for-your-life chase scene. That and it's also just about the fastest thing I've ever heard.
Wie die Restauration immer besser
wurde, sollte auch ihre Wiedergabe
gepflegt sein: Die QualitätsKette ist
so stark wie ihr schwächstes Glied!
EQUALIZER Variante
(update Einstellung!)
*©2024* HL, Germany.
-06,0 dB (60Hz)
-12,0 dB (230Hz)
-15,0 dB (910Hz)
-15,0 dB (4kHz)
+15,0 dB (14kHz)
Die kleine Mühe der EQ-
Einstellung lohnt sich....
Vergleichen Sie bitte ab 10:42f. mit/ohne o.a. Equalizer-Variation ..... wie ein 'etwas verschwommenes' Foto insgesamt schärfer wird. *Warum* es sich so verhält, kann man an dem *Graph* der Funktion, die aus dieser genauen Einstellung resultiert und eine Crescendo-Verstärkung zeigt, verstehen: er wird auf dem Display sichtbar.
@@hostlangrEl sabio de turno.
@@opale1572, *troll nicht rum!*
If Art Tatum had lived another 10 years when the jazz festival venue exploded and television came into its own as a mass communication technology, he'd be a household name!
ltravail Maybe. He never composed a standard (just re-composing existing songs every bar), and his technique was so beyond everyone else he couldn't influence anyone (except to consider another career).
+skierpage Not only do I disagree with you, but so would Oscar Peterson...and Billy Taylor...and Errol Garner...and Billy Strayhorn...and Rex Stewart...and...Roy Eldridge...and...Paul Maclin (classical)...and...Herbie Hancock...and Mel Powell (classical)...and...need I go on?...I don't know how much you know about jazz, or Art Tatum, but he single-handedly elevated jazz to the level of a serious musical art form on a level with European classical music, and changed the way jazz musicians approached that idiom. He even spawned Charlie Parker! The great bebop sax player, Sonny Rollins, called him "revolutionary." The vast majority of jazz musicians (of all instruments) considered him the consummate musician's musician. It was not just his technical brilliance that put him head and shoulders above all other musicians, but the depth of his knowledge of the European system of music theory and its application to jazz as well. It may be arguable, but it is certainly no overstatement to say he was perhaps the most remarkable musician who ever lived.
"except to consider another career"... hahaha, brilliant!
ltravail You misunderstand me. I completely agree Tatum is a jazz musician without equal. But he did not compose one standard, and he did not lead jazz into lasting new musical directions the way for example Miles Davis did (even though you can find every musical idea under the sun in Tatum's harmonic inventions). That's my explanation for the sad fact that he is not very well-known, and TV of his performances wouldn't change that. I've read "Too Marvellous for Words", have you?
Due to radio and records, and word-of-mouth among musicians,
he WAS a household name by the 1940s/50s.
the low fidelity makes it even better
Theres only two pianists in the history above Tatum. 1) Oscar 2) Peterson.
Yes it's fast and all but somehow he makes it sound smooth and reasonable in tempo even though he is playing at great speed.. Maybe it is his shear accuracy? it's like each note is given it's own time and voice evenly...
Look up what a "Tatum" represents in computational music theory. Basically, to paraphrase, it is the shortest possible clean note which can be perceived and distinguished by human ears. www.cs.tut.fi/sgn/arg/music/jams/
Oct 082006 That's AWESOME
He is the Rachmaninov of Jazz!
Oh my god!
As always, he had a better technique when he was young. If one did not have heard, would say it´s impossible.
Jesus Christ. Remember when there used to be talented geniuses that populated the American artistic landscape?
Now is populated with pop, twerking, and rap.
Those was the days! No talent around now!
Now there's Justin Bieber.
Esperanza Spaulding and Wayne Shorter and Brad Mehldau are amazing, and Art Tatum was no more popular than these contemporary geniuses. That said, NO ONE is Art Tatum. Dizzy invented Be Bop by listening to him play. Only musician in history I know of that talented was Mozart.
Even nowadays there are amazing Jazz talents in America.
I just tried to move hands, fingers, arms like this, at that velocity and Cannot. Doing nothing accurate, just movement and Cannot. Art made such joyous music with accuracy, sheer fun, superb harmony, complex but comprehensible rhythm, a total creativity. Oh!!
When Art Tatum was young, he would find a player piano and put his hands on the keyboard, following the keys that dropped. Nobody told him that there were usually four hands doing the rolls, so he found ways to do it all. Nobody told him it could not be done. So the result is that he found a way to do it - we are limited by the ability of people who tell us that is impossible.
Dave Luttinen Mr. Tatum laughed and said this story wasn't true when it was repeated back to him in a radio interview. BUT- when he was 16 he DID play thru lots of player piano rolls owned by a friend in Toledo, Ohio, and copy them. They were mostly "one pianist" rolls with a minimum of added notes, and I can tell you that several of them were by Lee Sims, who Mr. Tatum said he admired. One of the Sims rolls was definitely "Sweet Georgia Brown", from which the young Tatum learned some of his fast runs. You can listen to it here, with dynamics added by pianolist Philip Legg:
ruclips.net/video/fGFcqTIXak0/видео.html
and many other Sims rolls (not a complete collection yet, but 31 of the rolls he did for U.S. Music in the 1924-1926 period) on Richard Rames' channel. Just search (without quotes) 'Richard Rames Lee Sims'.
There are a few other Sims rolls posted by others (both the U.S. Music 88-note rolls and the Ampico reproducing rolls), as well as many of his Brunswick records from c. 1928-1934, and a rare film of Sims and his wife Ilomay Bailey performing in 1934.
Finally, some of Sims' compositions (published sheet music) have been digitized and uploaded as MIDI scores to RagtimeDorianHenry's RUclips channel.
That Lulu's Back in Town is unbelievable.
Amazing! thanks for posting !
Super sonic sound.
OK, I see: I'll continue to play the piano and, perhaps near eternity, I will eventually unravel this mystery.
Had he forgotten that he had to be somewhere else and the last train was about to leave in five minutes?
Peter Taylor . Yes, great technique, but where is the MUSIC.? Computers can do that now.
Deryck Trahair - The thing is, Art Tatum is all improvisation. There's no going back in improvisation to retry or do over something. Once you hit a tone regardless of what it is, you gotta make it work somehow to keep the piece seemingly coherent. You can't use white-out on it like you could with ink on a page. Now Art Tatum improvises in the spur of the moment (spontaneously) at such blazing tempos most don't even perform actual written works with. Respectfully, just let that sink in for a moment, now do you see it?
@@derycktrahair8108 SLOW IT DOWN to like 50% or 75% speed using your home computer on RUclips (the gearwheel icon in the lower right of the RUclips screen lets you adjust the playback speed). Although this will introduce artifacts into the sound, notice how CLEAN and EVEN his touch is even at 50% speed on most tracks. He hardly ever misses a note, and it is still musical. Now try this with a whole raft of classical virtuosi and you will find that relatively few can match Mr. Tatum with this uncanny quality of touch and tone-production.
@@derycktrahair8108 ¡Cuánto sabio!
@@andrewbarrett1537👍👍👍👍
I have good news! Art Tatum Lives
Like Elvis!!
he does at my place!
After this session, you could easily light a cigarette on the strings of that poor piano.
Nice reference :)
Or in Tatum's case, a massive bifter of sensi.
@@ibuprofen303 was Tatum a friend of Mary-Jane? I'd have thought it would've slowed him down too much!
@@richardharrold9736 Mary-Jane?????
@@opale1572 marijuana...
2 recordings omitted here are the fast stride section of his "After You've Gone" (1954) and in "All God's Chillun's Got Rhythm" (1938).
Tiger Rag too
Fantástico! É inacreditável o que esse cara tocava!!!! Oscar Peterson foi o seguidor do estilo de Art Tatum. Conta Oscar que quando ouviu ele tocar pela primeira vez, pensou que se tratava de dois pianistas, mas quando soube que era apenas um, conta ele que quase desistiu de tocar piano...(isso no comecinho de sua carreira, ainda sem a fama.)
my tribute to art i know that you know still in the works ruclips.net/video/oB9k6mNanjQ/видео.html
The best that ever was!!!!
Or ever will be!!!!!!!
my tribute to art tatum ruclips.net/video/oB9k6mNanjQ/видео.html
Me pregunto por qué han desaparecido la mayoría de respuestas a los comentarios.
Two fast recordings I know that aren't in this list (though I'm aware the author says it is "not exhaustive") are the double time section of "After You've Gone" (1954) and "I Wish I Were Twins" (1934), which is an entire two minutes of super stride.
As a stride fan and practitioner I sure do love it! But u get my like for the desctiption ;)
Do you have videos? I'd love to see.
Here's a little sampler.
I am not anywhere near Mr. Tatum's league but manage to have fun anyway: ruclips.net/video/f7YidSs20As/видео.html
Art of Tatum
Thanks, too, for this rare Happy Feet from '38 - one of my favorite tunes of the era.
Wonder pianist! Greatest!
Hey friend, no need to single out that part. The WHOLE thing is the whole thing! Imagine how it must have been for those pianists in nightclubs at the time when Art played for a while between sets (I think I heard about this happening) and after he'd finished, YOU'D have to come back on with the band! That would have been so awful, eh? Back to the scales and the finger exercises...
Le meilleur des meilleurs, ce soir , Dieu est dans la salle...
"I can't believe what I'm seeing and hearing." Vladimir Horowitz, listening to Art Tatum improvising on "Tea For Two".
I don't actually believe that story that much. I don't recall Horowitz ever speaking about Tatum. When someone asked Horowitz's office if he knew Tatum, the office just said, "Mr. Horowitz says he didn't really know Mr. Tatum, but had great respect for him."
I seem to recall an interview with Horowitz in which he provided anecdotal testimony to Tatum's greatness. Horowitz had arranged Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" as an encore piece to express his solidarity with the American war effort. He played the number for Tatum, who was so delighted with what he'd just heard that he sat down at the keyboard and spontaneously reeled off theme and variations of such polished complexity that Horowitz was left deflated and humbled. I'm not sure where I ran across this story, but it may be taken from an interview with Mike Wallace on "60 Minutes". At least forty years have passed since then, and I'm willing to concede my memory could be playing tricks at this stage. But I can still hear that rueful laughter.
Fake news! Fake story! There's no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Horowitz ever met Art Tatum, let alone play for him. seeking his approval There IS however statement in Willis Conover Voice of America interview of Tatum that he (Tatum) was an avid fan of Vladimir Horowitz and devoted collector of his recordings.
And on a personal note I would add that no living pianist ever has "deflated and humbled" the great Horowitz, but HE deflated and humbled practically all of them. Please, keep that in mind next time you decide to entertain us with amusing but unlikely anecdotes!
And so we have to believe you, just because you say so..???
Vladimir Horowitz did in fact meet Tatum. This is well known among pianists who knew both. there is a BBC special with Oscar Peterson and classical pianist Andre Previn where they tell the story of when Horowitz met Tatum and they both played tea for two. Horowitz was taken aback by Tatum’s version which he couldn’t believe was improvised on the spot by Tatum.
Just amazing!