Jazz's Big Bang: The Night Art Tatum Arrived
October 24 2010

If the Pianobabbler could witness any historical moment...

The night Art Tatum dismantled, then reassembled jazz piano for all time. Big bang.

Portly, piriform, post-adolescent. 1931. Tatum is 22 years old. Quiet. Otherwise unimposing. Sight-impaired. He materialized in the room. The reigning piano almighties had preceded him. They were playing. Cutting.

James P. Johnson. Thomas "Fats" Waller. Willie the Lion Smith. Luckey Roberts. Antique names now. Titans then. The rock stars of their day. Uber-gifted with the ability to turn a piano into a driving machine of melody and power. Just listen to Waller's Handful of Keys or Willie the Lion's Fingerbuster (played here by Dick Hyman).

In the crunch of the room's pack, they stood out, these pianists. There were plenty others there too. All were playing. Cutting, to be more precise.

The cutting session. Pianist after pianist would take turns outdoing, out-outdoing, and out-out-outdoing the other. Fastest. Cleanest. Melodious. Smartest. Best. Gladiatorial piano.

No one, except maybe Donald Lambert, ever cut Johnson, Smith or Waller. Until Tatum, that night.

Waller had been the instigator. He had heard about Tatum, who had just arrived in New York. Smelling blood, Waller looked him up. Invited him to a session the following night.

The following night, they were all playing when Tatum arrived. Anxious air: the order of things was being challenged. One pianist sat down, got up to make room for the next, who in turn rose for a third, and another, each player topping each, the amperage ramped up and up. Until only Waller, Johnson and the new kid were left.

Tatum was biding his time. He was going to play last, refusing to play before all others had finished.

All finished. Tatum sat down. Tea for Two. Three minutes later, at the song's end, the room was stricken dumb. The silence of great change.

James P. Johnson broke the silence. He launched a reply with reliable pianoslayer tunes. Waller followed. The best playing their best.

To no end. Music had evolved before their ears. Big bang. Tatum had wrenched music into its new sonicsphere, and drawn all in the room along with him.

Sealing the triumph, Tatum sat down again and played his version of Tiger Rag. End game. Unheard of harmonies. Relentless melodies. Delirious tempos. Stratospheric technique. These could not possibly be, but were, issuing from one human. 22 years old, no less.

Imaginaria before Tatum's performance never conceived of such sounds. Imagenaria after never did.

If the Pianobabbler could witness any historical moment, he would witness this night of glorious stupor. Listening to Tatum these many years later, the wonder of his playing remain whole.

The eternal resonance of a jazz big bang.

The Pianobabbler has babbled.

The Pianobabbler is a RonDavisMusic production. The Pianobabbler's blog posts appear weekly at pianobabbler.com. Please remember to leave your comments and thoughts below. Subscribe to the RSS feed. And subscribe to RonDavisNews by clicking on the Mailing List link, above right. And follow us on Twitter.

- Click here to read "Ars Gratia Tatum"-Ron Davis' 1978 biographical sketch of jazz's great pianist (PDF.)

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