Customer Reviews

The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 8

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The entire Art Tatum Masterpieces series is wonderful, but this release, with tenor saxophonist Ben Webster featured, is my favorite. Tatum's jangly, staccato piano solos combine with Webster's fluffy tenor to create an effect that to my taste is more than either musician gets alone. The drive of the piano keeps the arrangements from being overly lush or sappy, as they are on some other Ben Webster albums. And at the same time Ben's sax gives Tatum a more melodic, romantic feel than I hear otherwise. Also, in this release with its alternate takes of "Gone With the Wind" and "Have You Met Miss Jones," you can appreciate the improvisational genius of each musician. This CD can be difficult to find in stores, so it's a treat to come across it here. One of my all-time favorite albums.

When the recording of "All the Things You Are" was first released as part of a compilation in 1957, Nat Hentoff reviewed it for Downbeat. He called this track "...one of the great solos in the history of recorded jazz. For Webster alone on this number, you should buy this record."

I agree. This is perhaps the most serendipitous of all of Norman Granz' wonderful pairings of Tatum with great swing instrumentalists.

Those of you who think that Art Tatum was merely a great jazz soloist are in for a real treat. This is still Tatum, the master improvisor with a technique that could rival Horowitz (no exaggeration). And yet when he combines his own inimitable gifts with the wonderful, breathy sounds and the laid back, behind the beat style of Ben Webster, the result is something rare in music. One needs to hear no more than their rendition of My One and Only Love to realize that this is ensemble playing at its highest level and something that is rarely achieved in any idiom of music. You are left with the feeling that you have not just listened to a great improvisation, but rather eavesdropped on an intimate dialog between two old friends. As James Lester mentions in his biography of Art Tatum, (Too Marvelous for Words, also available through Amazon), "Ben Webster was more than just a fan of Tatum's...he idolized him."

I have to admit I got a real kick out of the review posted by one "Brian" some years ago on these pages (it's a classic). I am a huge Art Tatum fan...or more aptly, I am one of those who worship at the temple of this man's rare genius - along with scores of others infinitely more knowledgeable of musical artistry than me. Still, the sentiment (rage, passion, or a bit of both) expressed in the "Brian" review (and by other critics during and after Tatum's lifetime) are not entirely invalid. I have found myself listening to him sometimes (and I listen to him almost daily, sort of like praying I guess) wanting to just cry out "please Art, give me some ease, man...have mercy and let me breathe for a second"! Listening to him over an extended period, at times, reminds me of my college days slogging through those 18th/19th century German philosophers (e.g., Hegel, Kant and such) whose thought-threads would run 2 or 3 pages without a single "period" along the entire trail. The experience could be likened to water-boarding I suppose - too much water and not enough air. Then one of his masterpiece tracks comes on ("Tiger Rag", "Humoresque", "I Know That You Know", "Tea for Two", "Love For Sale", "All The Things You Are", etc.), and suddenly, what on a previous track may have seemed a merciless torrent of gravel being slung-shot at your face becomes a panorama of lightning bugs on a hot summer night mystifying you with the interplay of their alternating bio-luminescent exchanges from every plane and cranny of the darkness. At those moments, the constant runs and arpeggios fit beautifully within the ingenious structures that spring from his brilliant musical mind. The "ornaments" are no longer just a dizzying procession of pebble-like notes being flung at you, but are themselves as self-contained and indivisible as any other musical unit (a pitch, a beat, etc.) in the peice.

Tatum always said there was reason and logic to every note and run he ever played (though he never explained it, that I'm aware of, always preferring to let the piano do his talking). As much as I idolize this great artist, I can't always find the rationale for some of those "ornamental" insertions myself (though I did see a book on Amazon, which I intend to purchase, that purports to provide an expose of the reasoning process in Tatum's work). But what mortal would have had the nerve to tell this giant to his face that he plays too many notes (much less tell him they're gonna lop off his fingers if he doesn't cut down on the runs, as "Brian" once threatened). Some say that, being a black man born in the heyday of America's "jim crow" insanity, he went to great lengths to prove to "white" America that a black man could indeed achieve the standard of mastery defined and held dear by the cultural "thought-leaders" of his chosen field of endeavor. If, in Tatum's mind, there was an inkling of truth to that "stick-it-to-the-man" compulsion, well, it wouldn't be hard to be sympathetic, even if one thinks sometimes it may have been counter-productive. Still, here was a man who transcended every possible social inferiority America could tag onto one of its own native sons (black, blind, poor) to prove that such a human being not only could attain the highest level of artistic achievement, but set a new standard of accomplishment in the musical arts in the process (not to mention having a scientific unit of measure, the "tatum", named after him).

I certainly will grant that "getting with" Art Tatum can be difficult, especially if one's relationship to music is casual or relegated to commodified radio pop formulae. He is dense, he is demanding, he is uncompromising, and you cannot obtain an appreciation for what sets him apart from mere mortals in a passing glance. Music - like physics, like art, like literature - is an intellectual endeavor (at least "serious" music, i.e., jazz and classical). It is a system of knowledge, of logic and reasoning. The demands for achieving a mastery, a virtuosity, of that system of knowledge are as strenuous as in any other (depending on how far one chooses to go). A careful listening to Tatum's music, first off, reveals a man of prodigious learning, a master of musical knowledge every bit the equal of the most celebrated classically-trained musicians of his day (many of whom were in awe of his abilities). But what separated him from mortals was his gift of dexterity and imagination to deploy the elements of his vast learning into structures not heard before - neither in classical nor jazz - and in a way that was and still is far beyond the execution capabilities of all but the most rigorously trained and skillful pianists. Without question, the man is fully deserving of the reverence in which he is held by nearly every practitioner of the art form and his smattering of fans in the layman's world. If the man had lived long enough to reach that resurrection period (the 70s mostly) that memorialized the careers of the jazz greats of old (such as Ellington and Basie) he'd be on a USPS postage stamp at the very least.

Indeed, there are other artists from whom I derive a certain kind of pure pleasure I do not get from Tatum (Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, Horowtiz, for instance). But I listen to Tatum for enlightenment, for fascination. He is like taking a course in quantum mechanics - so far above your head yet so exoticly mesmerizing that you'll be drowned before you even realize you've just gotten wet. I fully understand where the "Brian" types are coming from. So there is no need to shame someone for not showing proper deference to OUR "god", even if it means they'll burn in hell for all eternity on account of their infidelity (ummmm...LOL).

This record has a deep personal signifigance to me, words don't quite do justice, so I'll be atypically brief.
Art Tatum was the most formidable virtuoso pianist in the history of jazz. So ornate was his style, he steamrolled other players (who were scared to death of him anyway) and he played best alone.
Ben Webster may not have been "the Best" tenor saxophonist ever, but his absolutely personal, immediately identifiable sound made him the Best Loved; a brawling, tempestuous, mercurial man, his tone was breathy, cello-like, ardent, the voice of the ideal manly lover who could coax anyone into bed. He started out as a swashbuckler (see Cottontail, with Duke), but as he aged, he stuck to slight variations on ballad melodies, the grain of his voice, the sound of air pushed through the horn, providing a thrill that surpassed any amount of variation.
Put the flashy, baroque fireworks of Tatum and the breathy simplicity of Webster together on a program of largely standard ballads and what do you get? It's simple. These two go together like Astaire and Rodgers, and if hearing this doesn't sweep you off your feet into some heavenly ballroom of bliss, then you're not breathing.
The most erotic jazz album ever recorded.

Peter Jones above takes the words, or at least the idea, out of my mouth, or in this case, fingers!! I don't wish to detract in any way from the other superlative items on this CD, but I have loved the Tatum-Webster first take of "All The Things You Are" for almost five decades now. (Note: The second take is on "The Album"). The reason it is special for me is that I first heard it on an LP compilation from the Group Masterpieces around 1960 and, of all the items on it, this one and the Trio Blues with Jo Jones stood out. I have used it to show modern jazz fans and players how a jazz musician not only needs his own tone and sound, but he also needs phrasing that sets up a story and builds it logically. In "All The Things You Are" Webster uses the tune's classic chord changes and harmonies along with his broad breathy tone to tell someone he clearly has in mind.......that he loves them. There is probably no more selfless and genuine expression of love in jazz than this. "Night and Day" is the only swinger, but the entire CD is one that will last with you forever. And as you tire of endless hardbop flurries of notes that passes for jazz today, and get to the point where too many begin to sound the same, put on "All The Things You Are." Just as we have gone wrong in finance and economics, so we have started down a none too fruitful path in jazz. Ben and Art will put you back on the main highway where musical brilliance does not obsure the message.

Let's face it: Art Tatum could play piano backed by washboard, Jew's harp, and a comb with a tissue over it and he'd still sound like a million bucks, so it's no wonder that this recording is just another great one in a long line of masterpieces. (Hey, that's what it's called, right?) Sometimes, his playing is so entrancing, the listener doesn't even really notice the backing band. What does make this recording so comfortable, then, is that just when Tatum threatens to steal the show and carry it away, he lays back and allows one of the backing band members to interject a solo, and the effect is to ground the music and make it really flow. The other thing I think is great about this series of works is that if you are in the mood for just Tatum, you can pick up one of the solo masterpieces (like The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 1), but if you want something that has the group dynamic, you can still get your Tatum fix at the same time. The highlight of this CD is Have You Met Miss Jones, which is so subtle, you might not even recognize at first. The alternate takes show a lot of the potential of Tatum and this backing band, and the relatively detailed liner notes help bring the Tatum mystique into focus. This is just a wonderful piece of jazz music, especially for lover's of classic jazz piano.

The sound quality on this recording is PHENOMENAL. Of the couple of dozen Tatum recordings I own, this one is my favorite. Tatum's collaboration, with the great Ben Webster, Red Callender and Bill Douglass, is just terrific--group masterpiece, indeed!

If you are already a Tatum fan, this one is a MUST-have. If you're new to this great jazz master, this is the place to start--unless you are looking strictly for his solo piano work.

As for the one-star review(s), as a classical pianist, jazz student, and life-long jazz-lover, I was shocked to see anyone talking about "lobbing off" Art Tatum's fingers.

Perhaps, in evaluating the reliability of Brian's one star review, it would help readers to know that when Art Tatum played concerts, Rachmaninoff--who was one of the greatest classical pianists ever--along with many of the classical and jazz masters, would flock to hear this master of masters play.

Tatum should have been up there with them all in the classical world, but the racism of the day prevented that.

Tatum has over and over again been voted favorite jazz pianist by readers and critics alike in poll after poll, including in Downbeat and Metronome magazines. He is a member of the Downbeat Hall of Fame. He is a typical favorite of the great jazz pianists themselves.

Tatum learned to play jazz by learning every tune in every key. He has not only incredible technique, but incredible (unique) style, sensibility, and musicality. He has been acknowledged by many of the jazz pianists who followed him as a major influence on their work. His collaborations, in particular this one, are out of sight. I am saying this as someone who ALSO appreciates minimalism, and loves Bill Evans--my favorite. i hardly see why, however, one need choose either/or.

Sometimes greatness is so great that it is beyond the comprehension of lesser mortals. I suspect that Brian may fall into that category. Tatum is universally honored as one of the all-time greats in jazz history. If you don't like him, so be it, don't listen. But please, don't talk about chopped fingers and even wishing to take him away from the rest of us and the entire jazz world, who have long esteemed his gifts. Keep your ignorance to yourself.

Admittedly, Art Tatum does sound intimidating with his fingerbusting, running up and down the scales...

However, first of all, it is not shear exercise; Art's flamboyance has its twisted logic (and even plenty of rhythm if you listen closely enough) and secondly, Ben Webster, "The Brute" as someone called him; one of the most sensitive, emotional and rhyhtmically potent balladeers of the classical tenor-sax is not easily intimidated... Tatum's group masterpieces with Buddy DeFranco, Lionel Hampton, Harry Edison or Benny Carter give ample evidence how great musical minds could work with Art; either chasing him up and down (like DeFranco), finding new fire in their musical heart (like Edison) or remaining their magnificent selves (like Carter and Webster in their respective matches with Tatum)...

This is not an album for everyone's tastes (if you think Art is too verbose -just give it up!), but those who like it might very well adore it... Thankfully, you have samples on the amazon, so you can get the general idea...

This album always transports me to a heavenly place.

I think it was the pinnacle of both soloists. I like the fact that Tatum is always challenging Webster. They both play their hearts out -- and they're completely complementary, yet always themselves.

Sheer perfection.