I studied at a music school in Toledo, right down the road from where he played! But I wasn’t here in 1956 to compare hand sizes.

@@JoshWalshMusic Well, I was in New Jersey then, but had not yet mastered the technique of tying my shoes, and could not go anywhere without my Mommy. Still, I think my hand would feel very small in Art Tatum's. Toledo must have had its effect because you play those arpeggios much better than I ever could. Thanks for educating us about Mr. Tatum, and everything else here.

@@kwgm8578 thanks for the great comment!

@@JoshWalshMusic My pleasure, friend.

Of course!

His recordings also stand in contrast with the stories of him at the time. Most of his early recordings in the 30s and 40s that went to 78s, suffered from the 2:30 - 3:00 limit per side. There are stories of him in the early-mid 30s going to rent parties and running through 3-4 bassists in record time, or of him going into clubs (after tearing down other sttride pianists and establishing himself on the top), taking the stage and playing out of his mind for 12 minutes straight.

But he DID hear the piano rolls of Lee Sims.

I tried the Horowitz one in college. It wasn’t pretty 🤣

Thanks man.

I have been able to play bumblebee for about a decade. I am barely able to hang on to some of these runs. The technique is remarkable, but you are right, he’s far from the only one with that technique. What’s amazing is that he would improvise like this for hours and hours without stopping. Thanks for the great comment!

@@JoshWalshMusic Good point about his improvisation! People say I can improvise but when I hear what a true master of the craft like Tatum or Teddy Wilson could do with a simple tune just makes me scratch my head and wonder how!

Have you heard the story about Horowitz playing this for Tatum? It’s a riot.

Hey MaeRuth - you gotta send us a video of your snail rag! Sounds epic.

Seen it 500 times 😂

Absolutely!

To label genres of Art Tatum is futile.

@@kzsotto7375 Nah, it isn't, if you actually understood the music well then you wouldn't say that. He was a genius, yes, but he played *swing* and *classical jazz* for most of his career. Not stride piano.

Tatum played "Tatum". Something never heard before and therefore not to be stuffed into a "stylistic basket".

@@byronjohnson8844 Nah, you're overcomplicating things. Yes, he had his own style, but it falls into the swing genre.

The opening harmonies isn’t even Jazz but Impressionism, influences of Ravel and Debussy.

I’ll consider it. I’m moving away from that directly instructional content on KZfaq , but I may add something to the course on it.

Something I've come across recently. Beboppers and Barry talk about diminish chord and how it's symmetrical made of all minor 3rds. There is a lot in that, but recently I heard someone talk about it as two tritones intervals put together. I've been thinking about that and it another cool way to view the dominants that come out of the diminished family of chords. Makes the dominants and tritone subs relationship standout in the diminished.

@@DojoOfCoolthere are several symmetries like this that Barry taught. As you pointed out, the octave is split symmetrically by the tritone. The diminished triads are also symmetrical, as are the augmented. I have a video here showing how diminished chords give birth to dominants, and if you take that same logic further you also get major and minor 6th chords. That explains essentially all of Barry’s harmony.

* father's (not fighters)

True. Exactly.

That's exactly right.

Yup!

I know right! LOL. Fun fact, Red Garland was a boxer before he became a jazz player.

Who’s James Booker?

U mean The Bayou Maharajah😂😂😊😊

"Tiger Rag" is a simple tune (supposedly derived from a French Quadrille perfomed in New Orleans, although I have never found any article by anyone who has correctly identified the original quadrille and its composer which was supposedly used as the basis for this), BUT even in its first commercial recording by the ODJB, it has much more than 'the sum of its parts', since they are performing it as collective ensemble work (probably mostly improvised). So although the published sheet music for it was greatly simplified to the bare essentials, the first known recording of the tune is still quite complicated. To date, I have NEVER heard a single pianist play the entire 1917 ODJB record of "Tiger Rag" (minus the drums of course) as a piano solo, or even as a piano duet. There are three horn lines going at once which all cross and overlap in many places due to the overlapping ranges of the trombone, cornet, and clarinet. It is not impossible to play their record as a piano duet, it is just very difficult. I am not sure how possible it is as a piano solo, because I have never tried it. However, at the recent (2024) World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest in Oxford, MS, pianist Zach Mandernach reduced down the Louis Armstrong record of "West End Blues" to a piano solo, including practically all the crossing horn lines (trumpet, clarinet, trombone etc) as well as Earl Hines' original piano part. He played them all at once, and they were actually distinct, musical, and the whole thing still swung (!!!). When I heard it (standing out in the hallway outside the auditorium), I thought I was ear-witnessing a feat of magic. I STILL don't understand how he did it. But then again I can't understand people who can divide their brain up enough to play a Bach 4-part fugue and keep all the 4 parts separate and distinct (or organists who are using all 4 limbs to do different and equally complicated things), although I have mad respect for that and know it CAN be done.

@@KalmAM those weren't quite as bad, but...

a fun exercise is taking tatum's tunes and slowing them down so you can hear that actually his runs were precursors to bebop language (enclosures, chromatic approaches, interpolating different modes and scales over a single chord nature)

To say Tatum was not a good musician is ridiculous and just wrong. His improvisations are very musically sophisticated.

@@jefolson6989 musicianship is not just about what you play, its just as much about when you play it, ragtime doubly so. He's playing a ragtime tune without any ragtime feel at all, fingers everywhere but ears totally absent.

Every top piano players ever would disagree vehemently with you!