Artist: Art Tatum Trio

Format: 45rpm 7" Record

Label: Brunswick EB-71021

Country Pressed: USA

Condition Of Record: EX VG++

Picture sleeve is rated G+

Side A: I ain't got nobody * Cocktails for two

Side B: After You've gone * Deep Purple

Art Tatum was among the most extraordinary of all jazz musicians, a pianist
with wondrous technique who could not only play ridiculously rapid lines with
both hands (his 1933 solo version of "Tiger Rag" sounds as if there
were three pianists jamming together) but was harmonically 30 years ahead of his
time; all pianists have to deal to a certain extent with Tatum's innovations in
order to be taken seriously. Able to play stride, swing, and boogie-woogie with
speed and complexity that could only previously be imagined, Tatum's quick
reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with fresh
(and sometimes futuristic) ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries.



Born nearly blind, Tatum gained some formal piano training at the Toledo School
of Music but was largely self-taught. Although influenced a bit by Fats
Waller and the semi-classical pianists of the 1920s, there is really no
explanation for where Tatum gained his inspiration and ideas from. He first
played professionally in Toledo in the mid-'20s and had a radio show during
1929-1930. In 1932 Tatum traveled with singer Adelaide
Hall to New York and made his recording debut accompanying Hall
(as one of two pianists). But for those who had never heard him in person, it
was his solos of 1933 (including "Tiger Rag") that announced the
arrival of a truly major talent. In the 1930s, Tatum spent periods working in
Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and (in 1938) England. Although he
led a popular trio with guitarist Tiny
Grimes (later Everett
Barksdale) and bassist Slam
Stewart in the mid-'40s, Tatum spent most of his life as a solo pianist who
could always scare the competition. Some observers criticized him for having too
much technique (is such a thing possible?), working out and then keeping the
same arrangements for particular songs, and for using too many notes, but those
minor reservations pale when compared to Tatum's reworkings of such tunes as
"Yesterdays," "Begin the Beguine," and even
"Humoresque." Although he was not a composer, Tatum's rearrangements
of standards made even warhorses sound like new compositions.



Art Tatum, who recorded for Decca throughout the 1930s and Capitol in the late
'40s, starred at the Esquire Metropolitan Opera House concert of 1944 and
appeared briefly in his only film in 1947, The Fabulous Dorseys (leading
a jam session on a heated blues). He recorded extensively for Norman
Granz near the end of his life in the 1950s, both solo and with all-star
groups; all of the music has been reissued by Pablo on a six-CD box set. His
premature death from uremia has not resulted in any loss of fame, for Art
Tatum's recordings still have the ability to scare modern pianists.