44 long ago should have been placed, as a remarkably gifted technician who happened to learn his instrument ART, AND TATUM through the jazz medium but who has since departed from those beginnings into his own peculiar, restless firma­ ment of expression.

ATUM's individuality as a musician Tis partl. y the result of his unique ex­ perience as a jazz performer. Since his professional emergence in 1931 he has worked almost entirely as a solo mu­ sician, with the exception of his vari­ ous sublimated trios (guitar and bass), a few studio bands, and occasional all- star recordings. In contrast, there are the remaining ninety-nine jazz pian­ ists who have had to work either with their own groups or as sidemen: Jess Stacy and Teddy Wilson with Benny Goodman; Billy Kyle with John Kir- by; Basie with Bennie Moten and his own band; Bud Powell with Cootie Williams and Charlie Parker, and so forth. Tatum, then, with his burgeon­ ing technical facilities, has been chiefly By WHITNEY BALLIETT who, a little overripe on the bough, responsible to himself. As a result, he exhibits, within the confines of his does not fit easily into the collective areas of big and small-band jazz. ART Tatum, the partly blind, fifty- materials, an extraordinary set of There was always the feeling, in fact, /% year-old pianist from Dayton, pianistic exercises that are, simpjy, in many of his recordings made in the -^•*-Ohio, who has undistinguished, demonstrations of how to play the Forties with his trios, that he was stubby fingers and a dumpy figure, has piano perfectly. having a difficult time sitting still even long been regarded by a good many All the facets of his famous style within those meager restrictions. Time jazz musicians and listeners Avith a are exaggeratedly present: the speed- and again, as accompanist for guitar sort of inviolable admiration, as if, in­ of-light arpeggios that often seem or bass solos, one would hear him deed, he were a whale or the Brook­ compounded of at least 128th notes muscling uncontrollably up and out, lyn Bridge or Mt. Everest. Tatum's and that are, regardless of their musi­ until, on several occasions, his own abilities have inspired, in fact, an cal value, invariably stunning because "background" figures would get tangled emulation similar to that usually ac­ each note emerges as round and whole with those of the guitar or the bass corded Marilyn Monroe; eyes pop, as a new tennis ball; the left hand that so that it was difficult to know who hearts quicken, and critical sense falls moves stolidly and ceaselessly be­ was accompanying whom. There have, dead. The principal reason one hears tween tenth-chords, single notes, of course, been a few exceptions to for this glazed condition among his Wallerish "striding," and complicated this iconoclasm. In 1941, when Tatum admirers is the pianist's massive tech­ configurations that either parallel or was still limbering up, he made a re­ nique, which is generally and simply challenge whatever it is the right hand markable series of recordings for judged by a helpless nodding of heads. is doing; the sense of dynamics that Decca with Joe Thomas, Edmund Hall, Now, a kind of crowning—if belated can suddenly shade truculence into and Joe Turner, in which, both as ac­ —^monument has been erected in Ta­ raindrops and violets; the use of the companist and soloist, he was a strik­ tum's honor by Norman Granz, the piano as a whole orchestra, instead of ing and refined jazz instrumentalist. jazz impresario who works by the as a horn restricted to one note at a gross and whose own admiration of time; the electric broken rhythms Billy Taylor, a modern pianist of Tatum has resulted in the master hav­ that nevertheless contain an iron-firm great finesse, recently pointed out in ing set down, solo, on Granz's Clef la­ implied beat; the arabesques of mel­ Down Beat magazine that it simply bel, after a couple of sessions in 1954, ody that somehow hang together no did not make sense to judge Tatum on slightly under 200 versions of songs of matter how many times they are the basis of the Granz recordings his own choosing. Seventy-four of trampled under by fresh, successive alone. He said that he had heard Ta­ these have recently been released on flights of fancy; and, above all, the tum—always a finicky performer— ten twelve-inch LPs in two hefty al­ volcanic vitality that keeps this ten- play at various after hours sessions bums entitled, bluntly, "The Genius of armed engine going. with company of his own choosing and Art Tatum." It takes about six hours Unfortunately, little of the astonish­ that at such times his improvisational to hear the albums through, and the ing crystal palace of sound that Tatum abilities and his technique had melted cumulative effect, at one sitting, is un­ has created here is jazz; it is, in fact, together, invariably producing incom­ nerving. For here, in selections that difficult to find a single complete cho­ parable jazz piano. Those happy vary in length from the standard rus of jazz improvisation in the whole fusions, however, have occurred in three-minute performance to ones of series. One hears, rather, a weird cross few of Tatum's recordings or public six or seven minutes, is a new kind between a jazz-oriented pianist and appearances, and the general listener, of Tatum, a Tatum unfettered by one who is, at various times, decked after all, can judge only by what he rhythm accompaniment, a kind of out in Chopin, Debussy, cocktail fila­ is allowed to hear. In the same way, whooping, damn-the-torpedoes Tatum grees, and Frankie Froeba. Yet, one perhaps Keats sat down privately and who was allowed to do just what he feels that these records, unclassifiable scribbled superb odes which he then pleased, and did. It is also a Tatum as they are, place Tatum where he chose to burn. If so, only God knows. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 45

l-^KOAI TIIK I^AXl), simple and honest and enduring, conies America's folk music. Traveling west, working the land, the frontier-makers put their loneliness, their THE ROGER WAGNER CHORALE SJNGS: fear and hopes and jubilation into song. Into ballads and laments, like the Wayfaring Stranger . Blue Tail Fly 1 Wonder as I Wander Streets o( Laredo and He's Gone Aii^ay, into carefree dances Uke Cindy and I've Been Working on the Railroad Skip to Mai} Loii... and into the most touching love songs ever cried out, Streets of Laredo . Black is the Color like Black is tl:e Color and Sheiuvidoaii. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child He's Gone Away . Cindy Now The Roger Wagner Chorale, considered the finest choral group in America, Drunken Sailor . On Top of Old Smoky sings these songs and others on a new Capitol "Full Dimensional Sound" album. Skip to Mah Lou . Shenandoah It's called "Folk Songs of the New World." It will take a special, treasured place Other Albums: in your collection. Songs of Stephen Foster No.8267 VILLA-LOBOS: For you will never hear the human voice so beautifully employed. Nonetto and Quatuor No. 8191 BRAHMS: LIsbeslleder Waltzes and German Folk Songs No. 8176

INCOMPARABLE HIGH FIDELITY IN FULL DIMENSIONAL SOUND

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 46 life in a Siberian pvison-camp, ''Notes from the House of the Dead." The dissonant, stark, often disjunct Jan­ acek score reflects its horrors and mystical hopes faithfully. This is a performance recording, and the mi- crophoning is so faulty at times that the singers—moving about noisily on the stage at the Holland Festival, at which the recording was made on June 25, 1954—simply fade out. Be­ cause much of the dialogue is con­ veyed in hoarse shouts, imprecations. and subhuman growlings, and as the libretto—in either German or English, both of which are supplied—is ex­ tremely fragmented, the pervasive ef­ fect is somewhat nightmarish. This remarkable score, composed (but left in need of extensive editing before it could be performed) when Janacek was past seventy, suggests a com­ Janiiiek and Smelana—"rhilling power and peasant humor. poser of almost Bartokian cast. The pantomime play-within-a-play, "Ke- dril and Don Juan," staged by the prisoners themselves, must be over­ Sounds of Slovakia whelmingly effective on the stage. Here, as cluttered up by stage noises and blurred by fading voices, it yet scarcely adequate to ringingly excel­ By HP]RBERT WEINSTOCK retains chilling power. lent, the last in the case of the leading O AMERICAN music-lovers, the , Beno Blachut. The recording of Bohemia and the other does not approach the best current MLORc E remarkable than any of these Tregions of what is now Czecho­ Western European and American three operatic recordings is another slovakia have remained mostly un­ standards of fidelity or even mere 1954 Holland Festival recording: known except for "The Bartered clarity, but it is not so inadequate as Janacek's "Tagebuch eines Verschol- Bride" and, some years ago, Jaromir to make the unbearable. lenen" as sung by Ernst Hafliger Weinberger's "Schwanda the Bag­ Beno Blachut stars again in an­ (tenor), Cora Canne Meyer (mezzo pipe-Player." Even LP has not other Smetana recording, a pageant soprano), and three members of the brought us much operatic news from of tragedy: "" (Colosseum Netherlands Chamber Choir, with Fe­ Bohemia and Moravia: three ver­ CRLP 181/2/2, $11.94), again sung in lix de Nobel at the piano. Janacek left sions of Smetana's masterpiece, of the original Czech by soloists, chorus, notes claiming that the texts of the course; two recordings of Dvoi'ak's and orchestra of the National songs in this unconventional cycle, "," and excerpts from a few Theatre, this time under the direction composed in 1916, were written by a others. Now, suddenly, three substan­ of . Again and young man who disappeared after a tially complete operas appear—and again in this treatment of an ancient love affair with a gypsy girl and the are joined by a tremendously impres­ Czech legend, the melodic-harmonic resultant birth of his illegitimate son. sive song-cycle. Two composers are web reminds me of all the more fa­ Music of compact psychological real­ represented: Smetana and Leos miliar Smetana, from "The Moldau" ity, melodic beauty, and harmonic Janacek. to "." But on the power, the "Diary of One Who Van­ During the sixty years from Sme­ basis of this sample, it would appear ished" belongs in the select company tana's birth in 1824 to his death in a that Smetana was not especially gift­ of Mussorgsky's "Sunless" cycle and madhouse in 1884 he completed eight ed for tragedy: too often here he falls "Songs and Dances of Death." Ernst operas and started a ninth. Of them into pompousness and bathos when Hafliger projects the young man's "Prodana Nevesta" (1866) has be­ stretching for a tragic tone. Nonethe­ songs superbly; Cora Canne Meyer is come world-famous as "The Bartered less, it is sad that this recording could exactly right as the earth-force rep­ Bride" and "Die verkaufte Braut." not have been far better technically, resented by the gypsy girl; and Felix The sixth of Smetana's operas, "Hu- for the performance is good and much de Nobel is an accompanist (and, in bicka"—""—a two-act work of the music is in itself attractive. The one interlude, a soloist) of the first completed in July 1876, is presented odd sixth side contains excerpts from order. Zdenek Fibich's opera "The Bride of on a Prague National Theater record­ The recording (Epic LC-3121, $3.98) Messina" (1883), based on the Schil­ ing in the original Czech (Colosseum is excellent in depth and definition. In ler drama. These are interesting, but CRLP 184-5, $7.96), as sung by the the Debussyan effect of the three are marred—as is "Dalibor"—by poor Prague soloists, chorus, and orchestra singers heard remotely behind the recording. under the direction of Zdenek Chal- soloists, it exploits to real musical abala, "The Kiss" lacks the pungency Worlds away from the solid naivetes ends some of the best potentialities of and bite of "The Bartered Bride," of Smetana is the Epic recording contemporary microphone techniques. subsisting instead on a more naive (SC-6005, $9.96) of "Aus einem To- This is the most impressive recording sort of peasant humor and some tenhaus," a three-act opera (post­ of vocal music previously unknown to charming lyricism. I should guess that humous, 1930) by the Moravian Leos me which I have encountered since I it needs the stage-business; by way Janacek (1854-1928). The libretto is first heard OrfPs "Carmina Burana." of records alone it seems monotonous. Janacek's own condensation of Dos- It is a genuine and impressive modern The unfamiliar singers range from toyevsky's autobiographical novel of masterwork. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED