[Dixielandjazz] Art Tatum

[Stan Brager]

Here's an interesting article from today's Los Angeles Times revealing how
recordings can be recreated using computers and some avant garde software.

Stan
Stan Brager
............................
Play it again, Art
Digital technology will enable jazz pianist Art Tatum, who died in 1956, to
'perform' at the Shrine again.

September 22, 2007

Jazz pianist Art Tatum will return to the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday to
perform the nine songs he recorded there in 1949, seven years before he
died.

It won't be Tatum in the flesh, of course. But it's not him on Memorex
either. Instead, a virtual Tatum will be on stage inside a computer the size
of a dictionary, sending electronic instructions that will move the keys and
pedals of a robotic, 9-foot-long Yamaha concert grand piano. Think of it as
a player piano for the digital era, powered by software instead of paper
rolls.

The point is to re-create one of Tatum's long-playing masterworks, "Piano
Starts Here," which features the Shrine recordings and four tracks from his
first studio sessions in 1933. Sony BMG (the record company that owns the
copyrights) could have modified the original tapes digitally to remove the
maddening hiss and simulate stereo sound. But it turned to Zenph Studios,
the North Carolina start-up, for an exponentially more difficult solution.
Zenph's software engineers analyzed the recording to determine not just the
notes Tatum played -- no mean feat, given that his hands flew across the
keys like a flock of birds spooked out of a tree -- but also how he played
them. There are lots of different ways to strike a piano key: You can lean
into it, jab it, tap it, caress it like a piece of fabric or pound it like a
nail. Taking advantage of the Yamaha's extensively programmable robotics,
Zenph's algorithms try to replicate what, exactly, Tatum's fingers did, and
how his feet worked the pedals. The result, if all goes right, will be a new
CD that replicates the original performance, in stereo and higher fidelity.

Zenph, which also revived pianist Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of Bach's
Goldberg Variations, has ambitions that stretch beyond re-performed piano
works. The company's co-founder, John Q. Walker, says the technology will
eventually be extended to other instruments -- and voices. And once enough
data are gathered about a performer, living or dead, that person's
distinctive playing or singing style could be applied to material he or she
never recorded. Imagine adding Eddie van Halen's guitar pyrotechnics to your
band's sound, without needing him in the studio. Or paying him.

This is heady stuff, and frankly a little creepy. It also suggests a battle
to come over who, if anyone, owns a playing style. Lawmakers didn't
anticipate technologies such as Zenph's when they wrote the statutes
governing copyrights and other intellectual property, so it's not clear how
the courts might rule. Nor do we know how these technologies will develop
and be used. The only sure thing is that because of Zenph, we have a lot
more useful knowledge about how Art Tatum played the piano -- knowledge that
could conceivably lead to a panoply of new creative works. As a result,
Tatum's signature cascades of sound will reverberate out of the Shrine
Auditorium long after his computerized self has left the building.