Doing The Art Tatum Shuffle

July 31st, 2006 at 07:01am Michael Conniff 2

The beautiful thing about doing the iPod Shuffle is you never know what’s going to intrude on your subconscious. For me, the musician making the most of this particular moment inside my head is the immortal jazz pianist Art Tatum.

When you “discover” somebody anew, of course, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask the only question that matters: is he really as good as I think he is? But it took a “Name That Tune” session at the Aspen Music Festival and School to bring Art Tatum all the way home for me. Hosting a Critical Conversations Symposium Sunday at Harris Concert Hall, moderator Douglas McLennan of ArtsJournal.com told the story of how the great classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz “became fascinated at one point with Art Tatum.”

Horowitz worked long a hard to compose his own variations to the standard “Tea For Two”—and he played the piece for Tatum one day. Then Tatum played his own improvisations for “Tea for Two” and they were “even more amazing than the flourishes he [Horowitz] came up with.”

How long, Horowitz asked Tatum, did it take you to come up with those?

“I just tossed it off,” Tatum said, according to McLennan.

And there you have the greatness of Tatum and the iPodomous question for all time: does the inherent creativity of the jazz musician trump the classical artist? Apples and oranges? Perhaps.

“When Art Tatum played,” writes Christian Morrow in the New Pittsburgh Courier, “the audience was always filled with piano players. Even classical masters Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubenstein referred to Tatum as “God.’”

It occurs to me that all great music—even a great musician like Horowitz—aspires on some subconscious level to jazz. I remember writing a column about jam bands a few years back that questioned their musicianship. If they get good enough, they abandon the noodle-roni approach to improvisation and move toward the more sophisticated sound of surprise.

I’ve been reading about classical musicians who are bringing a much broader range of improvisation into their work and their world. Bravo, I say. What better reason to go to a concert than to hear something you never heard before or since?

Entry Filed under: Classical Music, Aspen, Jazz