when you listen to other pianists play the Shout, it sounds as though they're struggling. Art plays it with such skill and verve, and it all sounds so easy.
He's amazingly fast but also SAYING SOMETHING, which is more important. I've heard live recordings of his, and when he's done with some amazing piece, like this, you can hear, maybe, a smattering of applause. Pearls before swine. I'm glad he's on youTube where so many people truly love and appreciate great music.
IMO Oscar's technique, however amazing, was always more emphatic than Tatum's; what impressed Horowitz and Toscanini so deeply was that with his ultralight touch Tatum bedazzled his audience almost offhand.
As for unison jazz piano, watch Phineas Newborn too.
All this is not meant to take anything away from Peterson, but he was not the only stellar jazz pianist when it comes to technique.
His Playing is a commemoration and Tribute to all Musicians who play, think they can, want to ,or who Love music at its roots ,soul ,core and passion. w/ his innate ease of Gift ...Look out and keep lookin UP....T....
It stands for beats per minute, which dictates the tempo of the piece. So when you look at a clock, it beats 60 beats per minute or 60bpm, because there's 60 seconds in a minute. You can look up an online metronome to listen to different tempos. I can almost guarantee that none of them can keep time as fast as tatum's playing right now.
Well, yeah, if you make them beat quarter notes. However, they can keep up if you measure in half notes (so the "oom" of each "oom-pah"). I doubt very many piano players today, if any, could play this, at least anywhere near this cleanly. It is technically a monumental feat.
What's amazing is that if you just listen to it as MUSIC, Tatum doesn't seem to be going that fast, because his phrasing is so perfect, but then count along and it is actually terrifically fast!
@BRazor78 if you practice blindfolded, or in the dark, often enough, you will be able to do those things too! (or at least, get closer than before)
Being sightless, or vision impaired, actually can help your ability on a musical instrument because it can help you self-correct bad fingering habits, inefficient postures and hand positions, etc. things that you don't notice when you're able to watch the keys. When I tried practicing in the dark, my accuracy went way up. I should keep at it!!
@KawhackitaRag Thanks for that insight! I'm sure playing vision impaired has advantages for those who are most accustomed to it. For your comment, I think I'll challenge myself to play certain tunes blindfolded just to get a better feeling for the piano.
Anyway, after listening to this recording at half-speed for about a half hour or so, and playing with the program's other features (a keyboard which allows you to check pitches and analyzes the sound wave for a particular instant when paused and shows you what notes it hears happening in that instant), I finally decided to speed it back up again and was amazed at how fast and impossible it sounded!
Tatum is perhaps the only pianist who plays fast so effortlessly it actually seems slower!
@KittraKittra I would if I knew how. Does anyone know how to record audio from the Transcribe! software? Would using Freecorder to record the audio output of Transcribe! at half or quarter speed actually work??
We have a great program called "Transcribe!" which allows you to slow down recordings to half speed and even quarter speed without affecting pitch (although the electronic pitch-correction introduces more bad-sounding artifacts into the recording the further you slow it down).
I remember that at half-speed, this recording sounds like a regular medium-fast-tempo stride solo, played perfectly! At quarter speed, you can almost hear each individual note in the runs, despite the artifacts.
And in 1932, he had a contest with James P. Johnson, Willie The Lion Smith, Duke Ellington AND Fats Waller. They all concluded that Art was the best and could out-invent them all. When Art came to Fats' show one night, Fats announced, I am a piano player. But tonight, God is in the house. Apparently, the two men were a mutual admiration society and people had to leave the table when they talked as they were so incredibly complimentary to one another.
As you know in jazz delayed is a almost norm. I musician chooses to come in when he or she wants to, and the effect is awsome. So, I'm not totally dis-agreeing with you about delayed affect, I'm just dont get that feeling in this case. I just feel that he speeds up slightly.
KawhackitaRag, maybe messing up is the wrong words. I dont't think in this case he was trying to what Hines or Erroll Garner does with delayed tempo. Look up "I get a kick out of you_Erroll Garner" and I think we both will agree it is a perfect example of what were both talking about. I just think that in spite of the various tempos and techniques, I think that he speeds up slighty. I dont get the feeling that in that case is was trying to do delayed.
What happens is as jazz changes and evolves some players bring a stride element to 30's, 40's and even in some cases the 50's. What really made the difference is the jazz ballet. It starts to become more soft with less notes. Strings come in and give it a swaying sothing sound. When you add stride to that, if your not careful it can be overpowering or just plain to much and take away from the beauty of the composition.
The best stride compositions have a melody that is somewhat detached rhymically from the rest of the composition: for example, the B theme of Luckey Roberts' excellent "Nothin'" which sails over the furious left hand with a kind of 3/8 pattern that is kept up almost throughout the whole strain; it creates a sound of the pianist playing in two different tempos at once! When used properly and sparingly, this can be a marvelous effect; Tatum achieves this effect here, but through other means.
Nice piece, but he messes up on the tempo at .48. You have to understand about his back ground, he was not a stride player. He played it, but it was not his main background. To understand stride you have to understand why the stridist choose so many notes to play. It was to brighten up the music.
I'm not sure what you mean about him "messing up". Starting at 0:39, Tatum starts by accenting beat 4 strongly in the tenor line, then continuing accenting beats 1 and 3 for a few bars. You can just barely hear the entry of his low bass note on beat 1 at 0:46 (coming out of the bass trill), but it IS there. Tatum was like Earl Hines in that he sometimes used unusual rhythms and accents which tend to throw off the listener, but HE always knows exactly where he is. Count along and you will see!
I think they're an acquired taste. I was put off by them initially, but now I recognize them as an integral element of his style. And I think as his style matured over the years, he got better at integrating arpeggios into the overall melody so they sound less gratuitous. It's worth remembering that stride pianists were all about competing to see who had the flashiest tricks, which I'm sure influenced the early Art Tatum.
Have you heard Come Rain or Shine by him. He starts off all raggedy/rubato and then moves into a gentle swing tempo without, as I recall, too many histrionics.
I know what you mean; however, even worse is the treatment Lee Sims gets; although he was a major influence on Tatum, he is often ridiculed or belittled when mentioned, whether as a Tatum influence or anywhere else, simply because he was a popular pianist and not a jazz pianist. The whole idiom of popular and novelty piano playing is not very well understood in the US today, and if mentioned at all is often put down. Only the ragtime scene seems to have adopted it with respect and enthusiasm.
Yes there are recordings of Tatum's voice which was a veiled, rasy type. He sings on the CD "God Is In The House", in an informal manner, and he was also probably pretty looped!There is a pretty good but small biography on him called "Too Marvelous For Words" by James Lester.
It sounds like ragtime, and it's fast. :) A lot of the early stride piano pieces were called "shouts," like Carolina Shout. So I interpret this as Tatum paying homage to that style.
Oh, And Now I Get It When You Said Speed You Might Have Meant Speed As In Tempo Or The Drug. But Now That I Think of It The Left Had Dose Sound Like Sped Up Ragtime.
Yes, actually! Do a google search for "Art Tatum Toledo Blues" and go to the first link. Check out tracks 8 and 9. I'm not sure if any other tracks of him singing exist.
Here's a nice 1930's version of this song that I haven't seen on Youtube - /watch?v=yeJo8MAqcdY
16yearoldwhiteboy 3 days ago
Extraordinary virtuosity by any standards.
meredith218461 4 months ago
And black people weren't considered smart enough to vote back then??
16yearoldwhiteboy 6 months ago
Great boogie-woogie.
ColonelHarry 1 year ago
when you listen to other pianists play the Shout, it sounds as though they're struggling. Art plays it with such skill and verve, and it all sounds so easy.
brabazon10 1 year ago
One of the fastest pianists, Liszt would even be inspired...
CBasie2856 1 year ago
wow mt last names tatum
Reapervvn 1 year ago
musically is not among the most interesting pieces Tatum ... it is a fun ... but no human can play the piano like Tatum...
gullivior 1 year ago
@gullivior If you had to go to heaven for telling the truth, this one statement one be the reason you'd be in heaven.
The83rdTrombonist 1 year ago
WOW! Show them how it's done Art!
dnettles 1 year ago
WOW! The master of them all strikes again.
dnettles 1 year ago
He's amazingly fast but also SAYING SOMETHING, which is more important. I've heard live recordings of his, and when he's done with some amazing piece, like this, you can hear, maybe, a smattering of applause. Pearls before swine. I'm glad he's on youTube where so many people truly love and appreciate great music.
nicodagger 2 years ago 2
An amazing musician. Nobody did it better.
paulostroff99 2 years ago
IMO Oscar's technique, however amazing, was always more emphatic than Tatum's; what impressed Horowitz and Toscanini so deeply was that with his ultralight touch Tatum bedazzled his audience almost offhand.
As for unison jazz piano, watch Phineas Newborn too.
All this is not meant to take anything away from Peterson, but he was not the only stellar jazz pianist when it comes to technique.
BuckshotLaFunke 2 years ago
genial!
nixzulachen 2 years ago
His Playing is a commemoration and Tribute to all Musicians who play, think they can, want to ,or who Love music at its roots ,soul ,core and passion. w/ his innate ease of Gift ...Look out and keep lookin UP....T....
DYNODRUM 2 years ago 2
no word to describe...he is super
dajang 2 years ago 3
His accuracy is incredible. How can he and all those 10ths on the left hand so cleanly? With runs on the right hand?
BRazor78 2 years ago 10
Oh by the way, according to Transcribe's amazing tempo caculator, he's playing around 340 bpm throughout this insane minute and a half of stride.
BRazor78 2 years ago 6
What's a bpm?
KittraKittra 2 years ago
It stands for beats per minute, which dictates the tempo of the piece. So when you look at a clock, it beats 60 beats per minute or 60bpm, because there's 60 seconds in a minute. You can look up an online metronome to listen to different tempos. I can almost guarantee that none of them can keep time as fast as tatum's playing right now.
BRazor78 2 years ago
Well, yeah, if you make them beat quarter notes. However, they can keep up if you measure in half notes (so the "oom" of each "oom-pah"). I doubt very many piano players today, if any, could play this, at least anywhere near this cleanly. It is technically a monumental feat.
What's amazing is that if you just listen to it as MUSIC, Tatum doesn't seem to be going that fast, because his phrasing is so perfect, but then count along and it is actually terrifically fast!
KawhackitaRag 1 year ago
@KittraKittra beat per minute.
evilpacman1742 1 year ago
@BRazor78 if you practice blindfolded, or in the dark, often enough, you will be able to do those things too! (or at least, get closer than before)
Being sightless, or vision impaired, actually can help your ability on a musical instrument because it can help you self-correct bad fingering habits, inefficient postures and hand positions, etc. things that you don't notice when you're able to watch the keys. When I tried practicing in the dark, my accuracy went way up. I should keep at it!!
KawhackitaRag 1 year ago
@KawhackitaRag Thanks for that insight! I'm sure playing vision impaired has advantages for those who are most accustomed to it. For your comment, I think I'll challenge myself to play certain tunes blindfolded just to get a better feeling for the piano.
BRazor78 9 months ago
Anyway, after listening to this recording at half-speed for about a half hour or so, and playing with the program's other features (a keyboard which allows you to check pitches and analyzes the sound wave for a particular instant when paused and shows you what notes it hears happening in that instant), I finally decided to speed it back up again and was amazed at how fast and impossible it sounded!
Tatum is perhaps the only pianist who plays fast so effortlessly it actually seems slower!
KawhackitaRag 2 years ago 5
Can you record it at half speed and post it for us?
KittraKittra 2 years ago
@KittraKittra I would if I knew how. Does anyone know how to record audio from the Transcribe! software? Would using Freecorder to record the audio output of Transcribe! at half or quarter speed actually work??
KawhackitaRag 1 year ago
We have a great program called "Transcribe!" which allows you to slow down recordings to half speed and even quarter speed without affecting pitch (although the electronic pitch-correction introduces more bad-sounding artifacts into the recording the further you slow it down).
I remember that at half-speed, this recording sounds like a regular medium-fast-tempo stride solo, played perfectly! At quarter speed, you can almost hear each individual note in the runs, despite the artifacts.
KawhackitaRag 2 years ago 2
TATUM WINS!
KawhackitaRag 2 years ago 5
EFFORTLESSLY!
theroyalpriest 2 years ago 5
Short but wonderful!
deathheim1 2 years ago 3
Tatum never lost a cutting contest.
And in 1932, he had a contest with James P. Johnson, Willie The Lion Smith, Duke Ellington AND Fats Waller. They all concluded that Art was the best and could out-invent them all. When Art came to Fats' show one night, Fats announced, I am a piano player. But tonight, God is in the house. Apparently, the two men were a mutual admiration society and people had to leave the table when they talked as they were so incredibly complimentary to one another.
Mannock 3 years ago 21
"I" should be some.
yuline54 3 years ago
As you know in jazz delayed is a almost norm. I musician chooses to come in when he or she wants to, and the effect is awsome. So, I'm not totally dis-agreeing with you about delayed affect, I'm just dont get that feeling in this case. I just feel that he speeds up slightly.
yuline54 3 years ago 2
KawhackitaRag, maybe messing up is the wrong words. I dont't think in this case he was trying to what Hines or Erroll Garner does with delayed tempo. Look up "I get a kick out of you_Erroll Garner" and I think we both will agree it is a perfect example of what were both talking about. I just think that in spite of the various tempos and techniques, I think that he speeds up slighty. I dont get the feeling that in that case is was trying to do delayed.
yuline54 3 years ago
Fucking A.
Z0751 3 years ago
What happens is as jazz changes and evolves some players bring a stride element to 30's, 40's and even in some cases the 50's. What really made the difference is the jazz ballet. It starts to become more soft with less notes. Strings come in and give it a swaying sothing sound. When you add stride to that, if your not careful it can be overpowering or just plain to much and take away from the beauty of the composition.
yuline54 3 years ago
The best stride compositions have a melody that is somewhat detached rhymically from the rest of the composition: for example, the B theme of Luckey Roberts' excellent "Nothin'" which sails over the furious left hand with a kind of 3/8 pattern that is kept up almost throughout the whole strain; it creates a sound of the pianist playing in two different tempos at once! When used properly and sparingly, this can be a marvelous effect; Tatum achieves this effect here, but through other means.
KawhackitaRag 3 years ago
Nice piece, but he messes up on the tempo at .48. You have to understand about his back ground, he was not a stride player. He played it, but it was not his main background. To understand stride you have to understand why the stridist choose so many notes to play. It was to brighten up the music.
yuline54 3 years ago
I'm not sure what you mean about him "messing up". Starting at 0:39, Tatum starts by accenting beat 4 strongly in the tenor line, then continuing accenting beats 1 and 3 for a few bars. You can just barely hear the entry of his low bass note on beat 1 at 0:46 (coming out of the bass trill), but it IS there. Tatum was like Earl Hines in that he sometimes used unusual rhythms and accents which tend to throw off the listener, but HE always knows exactly where he is. Count along and you will see!
KawhackitaRag 3 years ago 4
Uh huh. And Paganini wasn't a violinist either.
nutz4Tuna 3 years ago
Maybe you should reserve your comments for something you know about. Tatum's rhythmic ability is not something you know anything about.
lipsbach 3 years ago
Excellent piece and performance for the late and famous "cutting contest"!
likemyviolin 3 years ago
fabulous !
PhilippeLernould 3 years ago
Sounds like a variation on S'Wonderful to me.
I agree with the comment about Art's excessive arpeggios.
Still a marvellous pianist tho'
divvy1400yam600 3 years ago
I think they're an acquired taste. I was put off by them initially, but now I recognize them as an integral element of his style. And I think as his style matured over the years, he got better at integrating arpeggios into the overall melody so they sound less gratuitous. It's worth remembering that stride pianists were all about competing to see who had the flashiest tricks, which I'm sure influenced the early Art Tatum.
credman 3 years ago
Aquired taste? How true lol
Art also overdoes his circle of fifths
"fill ins" IMO.
In fact he overdoes everything. lol.
Have you heard Come Rain or Shine by him. He starts off all raggedy/rubato and then moves into a gentle swing tempo without, as I recall, too many histrionics.
divvy1400yam600 3 years ago
I know what you mean; however, even worse is the treatment Lee Sims gets; although he was a major influence on Tatum, he is often ridiculed or belittled when mentioned, whether as a Tatum influence or anywhere else, simply because he was a popular pianist and not a jazz pianist. The whole idiom of popular and novelty piano playing is not very well understood in the US today, and if mentioned at all is often put down. Only the ragtime scene seems to have adopted it with respect and enthusiasm.
KawhackitaRag 3 years ago
Yes there are recordings of Tatum's voice which was a veiled, rasy type. He sings on the CD "God Is In The House", in an informal manner, and he was also probably pretty looped!There is a pretty good but small biography on him called "Too Marvelous For Words" by James Lester.
Etude69 4 years ago
Ragtime On Speed? What Do You Mean?
Morahman7vnNo2 4 years ago
It sounds like ragtime, and it's fast. :) A lot of the early stride piano pieces were called "shouts," like Carolina Shout. So I interpret this as Tatum paying homage to that style.
credman 4 years ago
Oh, And Now I Get It When You Said Speed You Might Have Meant Speed As In Tempo Or The Drug. But Now That I Think of It The Left Had Dose Sound Like Sped Up Ragtime.
Morahman7vnNo2 4 years ago
The guy's got three hands, I swear!
dizzib 4 years ago 2
I was just wondering as I listened to this hyperbole proof performance, are there any recordings of Tatum's voice?
GolumTR 4 years ago
Yes, actually! Do a google search for "Art Tatum Toledo Blues" and go to the first link. Check out tracks 8 and 9. I'm not sure if any other tracks of him singing exist.
credman 4 years ago
Thanks for that! I like his voice, soft but bluesy.
What an incredible pianist and musician. Thank you again for this find.
GolumTR 4 years ago
Picks up Jaw from floor....
RhythmANing 4 years ago
OMG! This is almost sounds like the Tiger Rag.
CBasie2856 4 years ago