[Dixielandjazz] Can anyone best Art Tatum?

[Steve Barbone]

Steven Mayer Channels Art Tatum, but Adds His Own Flourishes at Keyboard
Festival 

NY TIMES - By ANTHONY TOMMASINI - July 21, 2006

One of the most awestruck fans of the jazz pianist Art Tatum was the
classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who heard the nearly blind Tatum play
live in New York jazz clubs and collected his records. Like Duke Ellington
and Oscar Peterson, Horowitz was inspired and intimidated by the
inventiveness and sheer virtuosity of Tatum¹s playing: the intricate
rhythmic riffs, the constantly shifting harmony, the hypercharged
keyboard-sweeping runs. ³I wish I had a left hand like Art Tatum¹s,²
Horowitz once said.

Tatum, who died in 1956 at 47, has another admirer from classical music in
the pianist Steven Mayer, who has transcribed by ear, note for note,
numerous Tatum improvisations and recorded them to acclaim on a Naxos
Classical release. On Tuesday at Mannes College of Music in Manhattan, Mr.
Mayer concluded a varied recital program, part of the school¹s two-week
International Keyboard Institute and Festival, with three of his transcribed
Tatum solos.

Though you can question the point of trying to replicate Tatum¹s ingenious
improvisations, you have to be impressed by Mr. Mayer¹s devotion to the
music and his technically brilliant playing. Actually, Mr. Mayer adds his
own touches to Tatum¹s solos. Still, his renditions are amazing facsimiles.
Tatum took the Harlem stride style of Fats Waller and reinvented it, pushing
it harmonically, polyphonically and pianistically beyond anything imagined.

Yet, though Tatum sometimes repeated his solos almost exactly in different
performances, the pieces emerged as improvisations and always sounded fresh.
For all the ferocity of his playing, there was a devil-may-care quality to
his style, a seemingly impossible mix of intensity and impishness. Though
Mr. Mayer plays Tatum with admirable panache, inevitably his performances
sounded somewhat practiced and dutiful.

Mr. Mayer is a musician with wide-ranging interests who has played standard
concerto repertory with major international orchestras. He began this
recital with a boldly expressive account of Mozart¹s Rondo in A minor,
followed by a rhapsodic performance of Schumann¹s early Sonata in F sharp
minor, a technically awkward, sometimes intractable yet noble, haunting and
fantastical work that is too seldom heard.

He was at his best in Ives¹s ³Celestial Railroad,² an astounding essay in
color, texture and energy that sounded more radical than ever in Mr. Mayer¹s
compelling performance. He also gave engaging accounts of two works by
Gottschalk and, as a warm-up to the Tatum, more of his transcriptions of
early jazz piano pieces: James P. Johnson¹s ³Blueberry Rhyme² and Jelly Roll
Morton¹s ³Frances.²

It¹s reassuring to see classical pianists of Mr. Mayer¹s accomplishment
thinking outside the box. Still, even Horowitz, a renowned transcriber,
never took on Tatum.