I'm Coming Virginia - Art Tatum, Cook, Will Marion
Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away) - Art Tatum, Barris, Harry
Dixieland Band - Art Tatum, Hanighen, Bernie
Track Listings (17) - Disc #2
Embraceable You - Art Tatum, Gershwin, George
Come Rain or Come Shine - Art Tatum, Arlen, Harold
Just A-Sittin' and A-Rockin' - Art Tatum, Ellington, Duke
There Will Never Be Another You - Art Tatum, Gordon, Mack
Tenderly - Art Tatum, Gross, Walter [1]
What Does It Take - Art Tatum, Burke, Johnny [Lyri
You Took Advantage of Me - Art Tatum, Hart, Lorenz
I've Got the World on a String - Art Tatum, Arlen, Harold
Yesterdays - Art Tatum, Harbach, Otto
I Hadn't Anyone Till You - Art Tatum, Noble, Ray
Night and Day - Art Tatum, Porter, Cole
The Jitterbug Waltz - Art Tatum, Maltby, Richard Jr.
Someone to Watch Over Me - Art Tatum, Gershwin, George
The Very Thought of You - Art Tatum, Noble, Ray
You're Driving Me Crazy - Art Tatum, Donaldson, Walter
I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You - Art Tatum, Crosby, Bing
Stardust - Art Tatum, Carmichael, Hoagy
Track Listings (16) - Disc #3
I Cover the Waterfront - Art Tatum, Green, Johnny [1]
Where or When - Art Tatum, Hart, Lorenz
Stay as Sweet as You Are - Art Tatum, Gordon, Mack
Fine and Dandy - Art Tatum, James, Paul
All the Things You Are - Art Tatum, Hammerstein, Oscar
Have You Met Miss Jones? - Art Tatum, Hart, Lorenz
In a Sentimental Mood - Art Tatum, Ellington, Duke
I'll See You Again - Art Tatum, Coward, Noel
I'll See You in My Dreams - Art Tatum, Jones, Isham
Ill Wind - Art Tatum, Arlen, Harold
Isn't This a Lovely Day? - Art Tatum, Berlin, Irving
Blue Skies - Art Tatum, Berlin, Irving
Without a Song - Art Tatum, Eliscu, Edward
Stompin' at the Savoy - Art Tatum, Goodman, Benny
My Last Affair - Art Tatum, Johnson, Haven
I'm in the Mood for Love - Art Tatum, Fields, Dorothy
Track Listings (18) - Disc #4
Taboo - Art Tatum, Lecuona, Margarita
Would You Like to Take a Walk? - Art Tatum, Dixon, Mort
I've Got a Crush on You - Art Tatum, Gershwin, George
Japanese Sandman - Art Tatum, Egan, Raymond
Too Marvelous for Words - Art Tatum, Mercer, Johnny
Aunt Hagar's Blues - Art Tatum, Brymn, Tim
Just Like a Butterfly (That's Caught in the Rain) - Art Tatum, Dixon, Mort
Gone With the Wind - Art Tatum, Magidson, Herbert
Danny Boy - Art Tatum, Weatherly, Frederic
They Can't Take That Away from Me - Art Tatum, Gershwin, George
Tea for Two - Art Tatum, Caesar, Irving
It's the Talk of the Town - Art Tatum, Livingston, Jerry
Blue Lou - Art Tatum, Mills, Irving
When a Woman Loves a Man - Art Tatum, Hanighen, Bernie
Willow Weep for Me - Art Tatum, Ronell, Ann
Ain't Misbehavin' - Art Tatum, Brooks, Harry
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Art Tatum, Harbach, Otto
Mighty Like a Rose - Art Tatum, Nevin, Ethelbert
Track Listings (15) - Disc #5
Stars Fell on Alabama - Art Tatum, Parish, Mitchell
Blue Moon - Art Tatum, Hart, Lorenz
There's a Small Hotel - Art Tatum, Hart, Lorenz
Caravan - Art Tatum, Ellington, Duke
The Way You Look Tonight - Art Tatum, Fields, Dorothy
You Go to My Head - Art Tatum, Coots, J. Fred
Lover, Come Back to Me - Art Tatum, Hammerstein, Oscar
Sophisticated Lady - Art Tatum, Ellington, Duke
Dancing in the Dark - Art Tatum, Dietz, Howard
Love Me or Leave Me - Art Tatum, Donaldson, Walter
Cherokee - Art Tatum, Noble, Ray
These Foolish Things - Art Tatum, Link, Harry
Deep Purple - Art Tatum, DeRose, Peter
After You've Gone - Art Tatum, Creamer, Henry
I Didn't Know What Time It Was - Art Tatum, Hart, Lorenz
Track Listings (20) - Disc #6
Somebody Loves Me - Art Tatum, DeSylva, Buddy
What's New? - Art Tatum, Burke, Johnny [Lyri
Sweet Lorraine - Art Tatum, Burwell, Clifford R
Crazy Rhythm - Art Tatum, Caesar, Irving
Isn't It Romantic? - Art Tatum, Hart, Lorenz
You're Blasé - Art Tatum, Hamilton, Ord
You're Mine, You - Art Tatum, Green, Johnny [1]
(Back Home Again In) Indiana - Art Tatum, Hanley, James F.
That Old Feeling - Art Tatum, Brown, Lew
Heat Wave - Art Tatum, Berlin, Irving
She's Funny That Way - Art Tatum, Moret, Neil
I Surrender, Dear - Art Tatum, Barris, Harry
Happy Feet - Art Tatum, Ager, Milton
Mean to Me - Art Tatum, Ahlert, Fred E.
The Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Art Tatum, Dubin, Al
Moonlight on the Ganges - Art Tatum, Myers, Sherman
Moon Song - Art Tatum, Coslow, Sam
When Your Lover Has Gone - Art Tatum, Swan, Einar A.
The Moon Is Low - Art Tatum, Brown, Nacio Herb
If I Had You - Art Tatum, Campbell, Jimmy [Vo
Track Listings (21) - Disc #7
S'posin' - Art Tatum, Denniker, Paul
Don't Worry 'Bout Me - Art Tatum, Bloom, Rube
Prisoner of Love - Art Tatum, Columbo, Russ
Moonglow - Art Tatum, DeLange, Eddie
I Won't Dance - Art Tatum, Fields, Dorothy
I Can't Give You Anything But Love - Art Tatum, Fields, Dorothy
Lullaby in Rhythm - Art Tatum, Goodman, Benny
Out of Nowhere - Art Tatum, Green, Johnny [1]
I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues - Art Tatum, Arlen, Harold
It's Only a Paper Moon - Art Tatum, Arlen, Harold
Everything I Have Is Yours - Art Tatum, Adamson, Harold
I Only Have Eyes for You - Art Tatum, Dubin, Al
On the Sunny Side of the Street - Art Tatum, Fields, Dorothy
Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me - Art Tatum, Ellington, Duke
So Beats My Heart for You - Art Tatum, Ballard, Pat
If You Hadn't Gone Away - Art Tatum, Brown, Lew
Please Be Kind - Art Tatum, Cahn, Sammy
Someone to Watch Over Me - Art Tatum, Gershwin, George
Begin the Beguine - Art Tatum, Porter, Cole
Willow Weep for Me - Art Tatum, Ronell, Ann
Humoresque - Art Tatum, Dvorak, Antonin
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 pl... more »ayed 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.« less
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.
Ricard Giner (cootie@cootiesjazz.co | Brighton, UK | 06/02/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"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."
A genius in bondage but still a genius
madamemusico | Cincinnati, Ohio USA | 08/20/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Arthur Tatum, 1910-1956, was far and away the most talented, visionary pianist of his time, possessor of a fabled technique that allowed him to use both hands independently of each other, a beautiful touch that brought out the most lovely tone from any piano he played. Pianists as diverse in background and musical styles as Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Vladimir Horowitz and Josef Hoffmann admired his technique. But Tatum himself was always bitter about the fact that a player of his prodigious gifts had to "waste his talent" playing jazz. He wanted more than anything else in the world to be a top classical pianist.
Unfortunately, such doors were closed to him in his lifetime, but Tatum made up for his lack of opportunity by honing his improvisatory talent, an awesome natural gift that he raised to the level of high art. He was often cited as the greatest improvising pianist since the days of Thalberg and Liszt, in the 19th century. The down side was that, in order to achieve any sort of popularity, Tatum had to confine his prodigious gift to the popular songs of his day, rather than create his own music.
The results of this odd fusion are heard in this massive collection, spanning three years and some 12 hours of music. It is the greatest testament to a musical genius within the jazz idiom ever attempted, or accomplished, in the entire history of the music. And if at times the basic material seems inferior or of a lesser quality, Tatum redeems it by fractioning the time, rewriting the harmonic base, and then improvising baroque fantasies above it. Listening to such a rich feast of complex improvisation, however, is a strain on the mind of even the most informed and sensitive listener. Six or seven tracks at a time is about the limit one can listen to before becoming somewhat overloaded, but with such a rich feast here that is not a problem.
Norman Granz, the jazz promoter who created the circus-like "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concerts, was the original producer for these albums, which first appeared on his own Clef label and then were sold to Verve (which became Pablo). He is to be commended for spending a great deal of his own money on extensive recording sessions with Tatum over a four-year period (1953-56) that certainly could not have sold that many copies to the general public at that time. This set, like many classical albums, was built to sell slowly over a long period of years, not quickly and then forgotten. It has certainly done so, and in my opinion this set will still be selling 100 years from now. Genius is genius. I can't think of any single classical performer whose complete recordings I would want to own (though Toscanini comes close at about 80%), but Tatum and Django Reinhardt's recordings are awesome souvenirs of brilliant musical minds that moved even the greatest of the great.
"
Masterpieces is right.
Ricard Giner (cootie@cootiesjazz.co | 06/26/1998
(5 out of 5 stars)
"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."
A true source of modern piano jazz
David E. | Holon | 12/30/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"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."
The best
madamemusico | 02/07/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I discovered the Art Tatum solo piano sessions while a DJ in college 20 years ago, and I've been playing them pretty much constantly since. After all this time I still hear new things in these recordings, and I still marvel at how Tatum makes the most technically impossible passages sound both natural and beautiful. I am about to buy my third copy of this series, because I carry them around and play them so much some of the discs get lost. I truly believe that Art Tatum is one of the few musicians that people will still be listening to 100 years from now."