The Latest Discovery of Art Tatum Recordings

Cover of the album being discussed

Some readers may have observed that, every now and then when writing about pianists, I find of a way of injecting the name of Art Tatum into the context. To call him a jazz pianist of prodigious inventiveness would be selling him short. Indeed, since he was a contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff, I like to fantasize over what might have happened had the two of them been in the same place at the same time. (To the best of my knowledge, this never happened; but I can still wonder whether each listened to recordings of the other!)

As a result, even though I have both of the “Complete” box sets released by Pablo (one for solos and one for combos), I never miss an opportunity to add recordings of Tatum performances to my collection. So when I learned that Resonance Records was releasing a three-CD collection of live performances from the Blue Note jazz club in Chicago, recorded between August 16 and 28 in 1953, I was as happy as a pig in you-know-what. The title of the collection is Jewels in the Treasure Box, and it could not be more accurate.

With the exception of a few solo tracks, all of the performances are of a trio that Tatum led. He was joined by guitarist Everett Barksdale and Slam Stewart on piano. Every now and then, each of them gets an opportunity for a solo take or two; but, for the most part it’s Tatum’s show. My guess is that almost all of the tunes are familiar and have been previously recorded, but Tatum’s inventiveness knows no bounds. It seems as if, every time he returns to a tune, he has another way of approaching it.

It is also worth noting that those approaches often involved a radical shift in connotation. One of Tatum’s favorite sources from the classical repertoire was Jules Massenet’s “Élégie” (which the composer himself repurposed several times). As the title suggested, the composer conceived this as a musical evocation of melancholia. The score page I found through IMSLP gives the tempo as “Triste et très lent.” In this Chicago collection, Tatum’s performance is anything but “triste,” since he performs it at an eye-popping breakneck pace!

Since these are club performances, there is no shortage of “background noise.” Nevertheless, the recording technology consistently keeps the music in the foreground. When any imposition from the background finds its way onto the recording, it is inevitably a sign of appreciation from the audience that is bound to concur with anyone listening to that particular track. It is also worth noting that the album includes a fifteen-page booklet, which includes a diverse collection of retrospective reflections by other musicians with first-hand experiences of Tatum’s talents, such as Ahmad Jamal and Sonny Rollins. I also rather liked Rollins’ reflection that, when Earl (“Fatha”) HInes was at one of Tatum’s performances, he said, “God is in the house!”

Enjoy the journey!