The Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces [BOX SET]

Art Tatum

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 22, 1991)
• Original Release Date: November 15, 1991
• Number of Discs: 7
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Pablo
• ASIN: B000000XHS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #126,329 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #96 in

  Music > Jazz > Traditional Jazz & Ragtime > Boogie-Woogie

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This box set is a stunner: the ultimate Art Tatum collection. Virtually every well-known jazz composition is included, as well as many of the show-stopping ballads of Rogers and Hart, Jerome Kern, and the Gershwins, all played in Tatum's lavish, swinging style. While a box set of this size is almost impossible to cover in brief, it reaches a peak for stride piano enthusiasts with "Taboo," which reeks of 1920s Harlem rent parties. In addition, the last two choruses freely reveal the Thomas "Fats" Waller image so loved and adopted by Tatum. Aside from the bustling all-over-the-keyboard Tatum, there's an immeasurable tender side to him, as well. He plays the ballad "My Last Affair" in the silken, smooth rhythm that so distinguished his style, a style and technique never equaled in its sophistication and brilliance. It is virtually impossible to select a more impressive jazz and swing piano treasure for the neophyte or seasoned collector. Historians note that Norman Granz, the original promoter of the Tatum series, recorded the pianist in a sort of musical Napoleonic charge to get every selection down on wax for the ages. It was as if Granz knew that Tatum would be dead in 1956, three years after the first of these recordings. --Daniel Bartlett Jr.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest pianist who ever lived, June 2, 2001

By	"vinylcootie" (Brighton, UK) - See all my reviews

The history of jazz piano after Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton -Earl Hines, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Al Haig, Herbie Nichols, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Cecil Taylor, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett- is an orphan without Art Tatum. Tatum was the greatest piano player jazz ever produced.

His weakness for sentimental standards became immaterial in the light of his phenomenal technique and seemingly infinite capacity for intricate improvisation. He would explore all the imaginable ramifications of a simple idea with flamboyance, and then delicately embellish them with elaborate ornaments. The sheer density of his notes led cynics to regard his playing as excessive and the result of an overdeveloped formula, and sceptics to doubt everything they were told until they saw him perform.

Tatum's first recording of "Tiger Rag" in 1933 completely subverted the song's original rhythmic structure, introduced new harmonies, and built complex ornaments around the melody... at twice the original tempo. Stéphane Grapelli heard the song in France in the year of its release and asked who the "pianists" were; the record dealer told him "Art" and "Tintin". Toscanini was once an hour late to his own performance in New York because he was stupefied listening to Tatum in a club.

Tatum was a gregarious introvert and an alcoholic. He spent almost all his time in the company of others, playing in small clubs until the early hours of the morning. Norman Granz had the insight in the early fifties to record Tatum in a series of group settings and on his own. The seven discs that make up the Pablo solo recordings contain some of the most astonishing piano playing anyone is ever likely to hear. And some of the most beautiful.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpieces is right., June 26, 1998

By A Customer

These recordings are remarkable. Art Tatum's mastery of many styles is awe inspiring. I remember my father, who was a pianist, saying that he wanted to cut his hands off every time he heard Art Tatum. Mr. Tatum is one of those rare artist who truly transcends his instrument. It seems like he can do anything he wants to, and he wants to do a lot. I would like to warn prospective buyers, though. These recordings are not the kind that you can just put on as background music (although why anyone does that I'm not sure). This music DEMANDS your attention. It is very dense and the musical references fly fast and furious. Sometimes I think that the music would improve with some simplification, but then I listen a few more times and I get more out of it. This is not for the faint of ear.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true source of modern piano jazz, December 29, 2000

By	David E. (Holon) - See all my reviews

It is the bible of piano jazz playing. The effect of Tatum is lasting and stunning. You cannot listen to all seven discs in a concentrated manner for it is too dense in start. He is playing a song in different ways simultaneously as if he is testing the ideal way of presenting it. The recordings of Tatum documented here are the peak of his evolutionary career. Although his style stayed almost the same in its basics you could listen to his early radio transcriptions of the thirties and then to this final fifties notes and understand how the same old tunes developed and became in a few years a perfect sonatas improvised in a surprisingly gracious new interpretations and with unsurpassed virtuosity. Tatum took all that was in jazz piano playing of his time and combined it with his classical wisdom. The result is something so unique that till this day he is considered the most inspiring and revolutionary between jazz pianists (beside Cecil Taylor). Musical genius is tangible in every second of this set.