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I really don't know shit about jazz but would like to. Some of my favoutires:
Peter Brotzmann Evan Parker Alice Coltrane Eric Dolphy Charles Mingus Anthony Braxton |
 Art Tatum From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Arthur Tatum Jr. Art Tatum Born: October 13, 1909 Toledo, Ohio Died: November 5, 1956 Occupation: Jazz pianist Arthur Tatum Jr. (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist. Art Tatum was known for his virtuosic piano playing and creative improvisation. Tatum was widely recognized among his colleagues as the most gifted jazz pianist alive. To many, he was one of the greatest pianists of any musical genre, and arguably one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century and -- putting aside the great composers -- possibly the greatest instrumentalist of all time. Critic Scott Yanow declares that "Tatum's recordings still have the ability to scare modern pianists."[1] The contemporary jazz pianist and educator, Kenny Barron, once said "I have every record [Tatum] ever made -- and I try never to listen to them . . . If I did, I'd throw up my hands and give up!" Biography Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio. From birth he suffered from cataracts which left him blind in one eye, and with only very limited vision in the other. He played piano from his youth, and played professionally in Ohio and especially the Cleveland area before moving to New York City in 1932. He learned to play by copying recordings his mother owned, playing by ear by the age of three. By the age of 6 he was able to play songs originally performed as duets, unaware that there was supposed to be two players, hence developing his incredible hand speed, without losing any of his accuracy. Tatum drew inspiration from his contemporaries James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, who exemplified stride piano style. From that foundation, Tatum made a quantum leap in terms of technique and theory, and honed a new style that would greatly influence later jazz pianists, such as Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson and Chick Corea. Unusually for a jazz musician, Tatum rarely abandoned the original melodic lines of the songs he played, preferring instead to feature innovative reharmonization (changing the chord progressions supporting the melodies). Tatum's harmonic concepts were well ahead of their time in the 1930s and would be explored by bebop era musicians 20 years later. He also had a penchant for filling spaces within melodies with trademark runs and embellishments, which some critics considered gratuitous and "unjazzlike." In fairness, the notes and phrases within those embellishments made genuine musical statements appreciable by jazz and classical audiences alike, and Tatum's fans consider the pyrotechnics a vital component of his music. Tatum tended to record unaccompanied, partly because relatively few musicians could keep up with his lightning-fast tempos and advanced harmonic vocabulary. He formed a trio during the early 1940s with bassist Slam Stewart and guitarist Tiny Grimes. During their short period of time together, they recorded a number of 78 rpm discs that feature marvelous interplay among the musicians and are unique to this day. But Tatum's solo piano recordings are his greatest legacy. With repertoire drawn mainly from the Great American Songbook, Tatum displayed effortless technical brilliance and prodigious memory in creating a library of piano masterpieces. Tatum's ability to imagine and execute complex and ingenious ideas in rapid-fire fashion is unparalleled in recorded music. Listening to Tatum can be both thrilling and demanding because of the sheer onslaught of ideas, harmonic detours and extravagant ornamentation. Unlike jazz greats Louie Armstrong or Miles Davis or John Coltrane, each of whom spawned a school of devotees emulating the master, there emerged no school of Tatum clones -- perhaps because his playing was so difficult to copy. As a result, while very influential in the jazz world, Tatum is practically unknown to the general public today. Tatum's contemporaries recognized his prowess, however. When he walked into a club where Fats Waller was playing, Waller stepped away from the piano bench to make way for Tatum, announcing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house". In addition, Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, after hearing Tatum play, claimed he was the greatest piano player in any style. Other luminaries of the day such as Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubenstein and George Gershwin marveled at Tatum's genius. And legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker (who helped develop bebop) was highly influenced by Tatum. When newly arrived in New York, Parker briefly worked as a dishwasher in a Manhattan restaurant where Tatum happened to be performing, and often listened to the legendary pianist. Unfortunately, the two icons never played together. Tatum recorded commercially from 1932 until near his death, though the predominantly solo nature of his skills meant that recording opportunities were somewhat intermittent. Tatum recorded for Decca (1934-41), Capitol (1949, 1952) and for the labels associated with Norman Granz (1953-56). For Granz, he recorded an extended series of solo albums and group recordings with, among others, Ben Webster, Buddy DeFranco, Benny Carter and Lionel Hampton. Although Tatum refrained from classifying himself as a classical pianist, he adapted several classical works into new arrangements that showcased his own musical style. Only a small amount of film showing Art Tatum playing exists today as the vast majority has been lost (several minutes of professionally shot archival footage can, for example, be found in the video documentary Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues). Tatum appeared on Steve Allen's Tonight Show in the early 1950s, and on other television shows from this era. Unfortunately, all of the kinescopes of the Allen shows, which were stored in a warehouse along with other now defunct shows, were thrown into a local rubbish dump to make room for new studios. However, the soundtracks were recorded off-air by Tatum enthusiasts at the time, and many are included in Storyville Records extensive series of rare Tatum recordings. The surviving film shows a pianist who performed with quiet body language and relaxed confidence, while his hands fluttered expertly up and down the keyboard. Art Tatum died in Los Angeles, California from the complications of uremia (as a result of kidney failure), having indulged in excessive beer drinking since his teenage years. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Tatum posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. Biographies James Lester (1994) Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509640-1 pages http://www.duke.edu/~njh3/biography.html |
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6434701
Art Tatum: A Talent Never to Be Duplicated  by John Burnett  Legally blind and virtually self taught, Art Tatum was a professional musician from his teens and became the most influential of the swing-style pianists. Columbia Records/Getty Images From 'Solo Masterpieces'
 Tatum at the piano, in a photo taken sometime in 1937. Hulton Archive/Getty Images November 5, 2006 Fifty years ago Sunday, the jazz musician Art Tatum died. He's been called one of the piano geniuses of all time, in any genre. Yet his legacy is often overlooked. It's hard to summon enough superlatives for Tatum's piano playing: his harmonic invention, his technical virtuosity, his rhythmic daring. The great stride pianist Fats Waller famously announced one night when Tatum walked into the club where Waller was playing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house." The musical prodigy was born in Toledo, Ohio, to a mechanic and a domestic who worked in white homes. Legally blind and largely self-taught, Tatum memorized entire piano rolls, and absorbed music from the radio and the Victrola. He emerged in the 1930s as a fully formed musician whose improvisational skill quickly became legend. There had never before been anyone like Art Tatum. "Tatum's playing was unworldly, unreal, because his standard was so high," says Dick Hyman, a Florida-based pianist and composer who is considered a great performer of early piano jazz. "Tatum's harmonies to begin with were beyond what anybody was doing at the time... really beyond what anybody's done since," Hyman says. The highly regarded jazz critic and author Gary Giddins listens to lots and lots of jazz. But he says he plays certain artists more often than others. "Tatum is one of them," Giddins says. "He's endlessly fascinating. You know, people used to criticize Tatum and they would say things like, 'Well, it's too ornamental... there's too much decorative stuff.' That is the essence of Tatum. If you don't like his ornament, you should be listening to someone else. That's where his genius is." People who heard Tatum on a record for the first time often thought they were listening to two piano players. He became a phenomenon in New York. It wasn't unusual to look up and see the classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz or the composer George Gershwin sitting in the audience in awe. He usually played solo, because it was so hard for accompanists to follow his dazzling, volcanic musical ideas. He tried to play everything he heard in his head. Whitney Balliett, longtime New Yorker jazz critic, once observed: "Tatum's mind abhorred a vacuum." The jazz pianist and educator, Dr. Billy Taylor -- a protege of Tatum's -- says his mentor could even make a bad piano sound good. "He really heard so many things," Taylor says. "The piano was out of tune, he'd make it work so that even the note was out of tune, he'd use that." Over the past year, Storyville Records, a Danish label, released nine CDs full of rare Tatum material. They're what one collector calls "the equivalent of discovering unpublished Shakespeare plays." Many of these previously unreleased recordings came from the vault of a retired real estate executive named Arnold Laubich. He says he first heard Tatum as a teenager -- more than 60 years ago -- and never got over it. He is the world's preeminent collector of Art Tatum recordings. The Storyville CDs are remarkable because they offer an audio glimpse into the invisible world of jazz -- the after-hours parties where musicians unwound and tried out new songs and new ideas, or just had fun. "He played all night and into the day, and often 'til noon or later, from the night before," Laubich says. "And this is what he would do. He would go to these places. And sometimes he'd go from place to place and crowds would follow him. But the crowds were friends." Art Tatum died on Nov. 5, 1956 at 47. Death came from complications associated with his prodigious drinking. Laubich says a couple years ago he gave a lecture on Tatum to a class at City College in New York. No one in the class had heard of Tatum. He has never joined the pantheon of jazz greats -- Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Davis. There's no Tatum songbook, because he rarely composed. In fact, it's said he was so original that he re-composed every song he ever played. His piano playing was so advanced almost nobody can copy him. Related NPR Stories |
A few years ago, a young MIT grad student invented a term that's now in common usage in the field of computational musicology: The tatum.
It means "the smallest perceptual time unit in music." |
coltrane, mingus, monk, especially ornette coleman,
free improve wise: evan parker john zorn derek bailey peter brotzman |
13 Sonic Youth albums couldn't prepare me for John Coltrane's Ascension.
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I'd like to add 2 more albums to the list:
Donald Byrd - A New Perspective Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage |
So heres a quandary to determine, If you could hand pick your own septet, out of living and or dead jazz musicians, who would they be?
Personally I'd go with: Charlie Parker - Sax John Gilmore - Sax John Coltrane - Sax Miles Davis - Trumpet Sun Ra - Keyboards Charles Mingus - Bass Lenny White - Percussion |
Most often listened to:
Horace Silver Fats Waller Thelonius Monk Abdullah Ibrahim Chris Potter |
Here are a few others to add to an already extensive list of the great and good:
David S Ware Tim Berne Thomas Chapin (sadly died very young) Brotzmann's Machine Gun and Last Exit are incendiary Zorn's Masada and Electric Masada The Necks (Australian improv piano trio) Exploding Star Orchestra (Rob Mazurek and luminaries including Tortoise members) Not sure if anyone's mentioned Pharoah Sanders yet? His Impulse recordings would make a list of the new thing. Check out Babel records, home to London groups Led Bib and Fraud who have imminent releases. Both doing interesting music on the margins of jazz. Both have mysapce pages. Polar Bear are on Babel too as was Acoustic Ladyland. Both feature pretty much the same artists, including the insanely talented seb rochford on drums, and are pretty cool although AC's last recording teeters a bit too derivatively on the no-wave/punk slant. And to finish off, on a sad note, I just read that Andrew Hill passed away on Friday. |
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amen. i've been HUGE into Thelonious lately. studying and listening to his discography and how each record fits accordingly to any particular period in his life. from Blue Note to Prestige to Riverside to Columbia. all of it. also read both Leslie Gourse's book and Thomas Fitterling's book. both good, but Gourse's is so much more packed with great info. fascinating man.. fascinating stuff. also everyone should watch "Straight, No Chaser" the documentary on Monk watch it in it's entirety here i'll upload one Thelonious record (ALL of Thelonious is worth listening to) the album i'm closest to, his first Prestige recording, the '52/'54 recording, Thelonious Monk Trio (originally released as Monk's Moods) with Art Blakey/Max Roach on drums and Percy Heath/Gary Mapp on bass. it opens with Monk's favorite version of "Blue Monk" and i can see why. "Bemsha Swing" is also recorded but doesn't compare to the perfect recording on Brilliant Corners also on here is the first recording (I think) of "Little Rootie Tootie" which is funny and dancy and you can't help but picture lil' Thelonious Jr. rolling 'round, choo chooing. tons of great shit in there, many of his great classics. the piano is a bit out of tune but its all there. also the absence of horns is extremely refreshing here, imo. it keeps things clean, simple and tight. i still don't have his Blue Note recordings "The Genius of Modern Music" etc. gotta buy those. Monk's Music is another great recording. Criss-Cross opens beautifully with "Hackensack" and has a really good recording of "Tea For Two" and of course his 1958 Five Spot recordings (Misterioso and [/i]Thelonious In Action[/i]) etc etc etc etc. fuckin' love Monk. ----------------------- Thelonious Monk - Thelonious Monk Trio "Monk's Moods" Quote:
hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/kg06b1 ps- does anyone happen to have Monk's 1954 Solo recording in Paris? i can't find it to download anywhere. it'd be awesome. |
Teddy Wilson is also good if you're into the swing, stride, etc. stuff a la Art Tatum. Not as good, but still pretty awesome.
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zorn
early davis richard bona (he made me laugh on his gig) mike stern dave fiuczynski & screaming headless torsos (i know i know :) ) scott henderson i've been to henderson blues band gig (with alan hertz on drums) and i was just like OH WTF! dave holland mclaughlin metheny zawinul steve coleman etc etc.. mostly fusion |
Still think you have to look pretty hard to beat this...
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for example - i'm not the giggest saxophone fan, you know.. who else?
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wow. atari... i actually, totally & completely agree. with you. that's wild. |
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Great lists but i don't think that OM is a good record. I think there are very few weak Coltrane-Albums but OM is definitely one of them. |
Well, that's pretty crazy, matt g.
This is, I think, my third attempt over the years at a Coltrane list, and I had my reservations with going with anything for #1 besides Giant Steps and A Love Supreme. "Naima," from Giant Steps, an ode to John's first wife, is perhaps my all-time favorite original composition of his. Of course, the tune is now a jazz standard. And the whole of A Love Supreme is a landmark, to be sure. My Favorite Things is the first album Coltrane made for his time at Atlantic Records and is the first he album recorded with later "classic line-up" members McCoy Tyner on piano and Elvin Jones on drums. "My Favorite Things" captivates the listener on an otherwordly reworking of Hammerstein. His soprano (at a time when no one else was using the instrument anymore) playing on Cole Porter's "Everytime We Say Goodbye" is breathtaking and it's probably Coltrane's most sublime ballad. The take on George Gershwin's "Summertime" is perfect and showcases much of Coltrane's ear-bending, mind-blowing range. "But Not For Me" impressively begins the harmonic explorations continued on Giant Steps recorded directly afterwards. |
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As far as jazz goes, I've been listening to nothing but Trane, Kind of Blue, Shape of Jazz to Come, and Jazz Advance.
and a little Dolphy here and there, when the mood is right. Jazz rules, definitely appreciate this thread. And if any of you have never listened to Cecil Taylor's Jazz Advance I HIGHLY recommend it. Especially if you like your bop a little free like I do. |
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