Customer Reviews

Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 2

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These sessions were recorded a little more than 50 years ago, near the end of Tatum's life. Perhaps it was mere coincidence that it came at an end of that era in music as well; the shift to rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Many of the songs are much older.

Yet it all holds up so well. This is acoustic piano played by a man who learned it in the cultural glory days of the parlor player piano, the symbol of middle class arrival in its day.

In these recordings, you hear everything about the piano from a man for whom the piano was everything. In Tea For Two, he does what many classical composers have done in writing variations on a simple theme. Only these are performances as well as compositions. There are stories that he could play Tea for Two for an hour and never repeat the same variation on it twice. It has to be heard to be believed.

If it were possible to build a piano with more than 88 keys, Tatum would already know where they were and what to do with them.

Another of my favorites, I Didn't Know What Time It Was. This is the kind of song Sinatra described as a "saloon song." Tatum preserves that quality of the song while making it fit together like a well crafted sonata. There are even a few soft diminished chimes. The time? Time to listen to more Tatum.

Before Norman Granz brought Art Tatum into the studio a half-dozen times in 1955-56 to record what would become known as the "Group Masterpieces," he brought the legendary pianist into the studio nearly a dozen times from 1953-55 to record what would become the eight CD volumes of the "Solo Masterpieces." (By the way, feel free to check out my reviews of Group Masterpieces Volumes 3, 4 & 6, and of the Boxed Set collecting all eight volumes.) Art Tatum is arguably the greatest pianist in the history of jazz, and the world owes a great debt to Mr. Granz for having the insight to document him in such variety and quantity. For those of you who are hesitating because this is a solo jazz recording, don't! Art has a style of playing flurries of notes, so that at any given time it sounds like a trio session. But don't get the wrong impression, Tatum is not merely a master technician, but a sensitive and sincere virtuoso. Another intimidating aspect of these "Masterpiece" volumes, whether it is the Group or Solo, is the shear number of them. I would suggest, as the Penguin Guide does, to start with Volumes 4 or 6, but any one of them will do fine for they are all truly, modern piano masterpieces.