{"id":519,"date":"2017-09-29T16:34:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T16:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.dcs.wisc.edu\/wp\/musicalperformers\/?p=519"},"modified":"2017-12-20T21:01:23","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T21:01:23","slug":"art-tatum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.dcs.wisc.edu\/wp\/musicalperformers\/2017\/09\/29\/art-tatum\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Tatum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Caricature

\u201cThe Crazed Chopin\u201d: Founder of the Tatum
1909-1956<\/p><\/div>\n

Art Tatum, the man was said, \u201cThere is no such thing as a wrong note,\u201d was an amazing African-American jazz pianist whose technique impressed not only jazz musicians but also classically trained pianists. Both Sergei Rachmaninoff<\/a> and Vladimir Horowitz<\/a> claimed he was the greatest piano player in any style, and Gershwin<\/a> was a huge fan as well. A French poet once called him \u201ca crazed Chopin.\u201d Tatum did not consider himself a classical pianist, but one of his most famous works is his own version of the \u201cHumoresque\u201d by Antonin Dvorak<\/a>. Tatum was nearly blind, and learned to play almost entirely on his own by copying piano roll recordings that his mother played, and he did all of this by ear at the age of 3! Many jazz pianists since have tried to emulate his style and techniques with limited success. By the age of 6, he was playing music designed as duets, completely unaware that the music was written for two players. Some musicians believe that this helped Tatum developed his fast playing style. His first recording, \u201cTea for Two\u201d would become his signature piece for life. Tatum\u2019s influence was not limited to just piano players; legendary performers Coleman Hawkins<\/a> (voice) and Charlie Parker<\/a> (sax) both tried to translate his fast-moving melodic lines with their own instruments. Many of his harmonies and chord voicings were ahead of the time and would be adopted into Bebop <\/a>many years later. In what may be the most unique honor ever, an MIT student recently coined a term that is now used in the field of computational musicology called \u201cThe Tatum.\u201d The term refers to the smallest time unit that can be perceived in music.<\/p>\n

“Yesterdays”<\/p>\n