Re: Jazz Part iv: Art Tatum

From: Keyser & Shuriken (keyser.shuriken@freemail.hu)
Date: Wed Jan 17 2001 - 13:13:41 CET

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    Enduro's Lisbon was the best 12" I've heard last year. It's still a big
    favourite

    (Budapest is missing you, Nat!!!)

    shuriken

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Nathaniel Rahav <nat@rhythmlove.com>
    To: acid jazz <acid-jazz@ucsd.edu>
    Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 9:15 PM
    Subject: Re: Jazz Part iv: Art Tatum

    >
    > There is a vinyl set of his recordings entitled ' Solo Masterpieces ' -
    > I think it's 10 or 12 records - just him on the piano.
    > I took it out once from my public library when I was in high school. I
    > dont think I understood back then what I was listening to, though I did
    > enjoy it. I wonder if my library still has records (heck I wonder if my
    > library still has books!)
    >
    > I also really enjoyed all the dancing footage from the Savoy and the
    > Roseland... I think, with exception to BBoying, people seemed to dance a
    > lot harder back then, with all those flips & such...
    >
    > Onto some more Acid Jazzy topics, I'm really enjoying this new 12" by
    > Enduro, called "Lisbon". features a Charles Mingus sample. Buttery
    > mid-tempo jazz groove with excellent (Rhodes?) keyboard solo.
    >
    > peace
    > Nat
    >
    >
    > What I really enjoyed in this la
    >
    > On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Steve Catanzaro wrote:
    >
    > > OK, I'm weighing in again to say the 4th installment was not quite as
    slick as the second or third, imnsho.There seems to be alot of repetition
    between episodes, kinda like "In 1927, Louis Armstrong played sounds that
    had never been heard..." and 45 minutes later, "In 1929, Louis Armstrong
    played a music that people in his day found unbelievable..." and in the
    next episode "By 1931, Parisian audiences heard from Louis Armstrong a
    soulful music they never knew existed..." blah blah blah and so on and so
    forth.
    > >
    > > And yeah, they're laying it on awfully thick. Werner Heisenberg
    developed his Uncertainty Principle because of listening to Louis Armstrong
    in Germany? Louis' tempos aurally demonstrate Einstein's theory of General
    Relativity? OK, I surrender, Louis is the greatest! Now who else was out
    there, already?
    > >
    > > As for the portions on Duke Ellington; well, I just find it hard for
    pictures and stories about Duke to do anything but attract people to him and
    his music. I find it more credible to keep checking in with him, because his
    music underwent such a tremendous evolution over the 60 (!) + years he
    stayed at the jazz pinnacle. It was great to hear "Reminiscing in Tempo," a
    fully composed piece of "jazz," (an oxymoron?) that, along with other of his
    more popular songs, caught the ears of some of the esablished music
    cognescenti at Juiliard and the like. A lot of change going on from 1920-30.
    > >
    > > But the thing I liked best was the all-too brief part about Art Tatum.
    Damn, even in a showpiece for jazz, the "Invisible Man" remains almost
    invisible.
    > >
    > > What kind of a genius was Tatum? Well, I have the belief that if he and
    Charlie Parker did a jam session, and Bird laid some of that heavy shit on
    him, Tatum would have smiled and played it right back at him, and then some,
    at an even faster tempo!
    > >
    > > Then, I realized I didn't own any Tatum CD's. I guess I kind of felt
    about Tatum like Abraham Lincoln did about guns... safer not to have it
    around, in case you start to really doubt yourself.... Art probably turned
    more self-aware pianists into dentists, accountants, and and doctors then
    anyone in the history of music.
    > >
    > > So, , the moral of the story is, despite all the wankering about in
    "Jazz," I bought 4 Tatum CD's this morning. Viva la "Jazz!"
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    >
    >



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