Art Tatum, Forgotten Genius of the Piano

Posted by Tom Fasano on November 27, 2009 – 10:06 pm

Art Tatum was born a century ago last month and remains the most admired jazz pianist who ever lived. Tatum’s virtuoso technique left his colleagues speechless. As Fats Waller said, “When that man turns on the powerhouse, don’t no one play him down.” Even the classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz so loved Tatum’s playing that he made his own arrangement of one of Tatum’s specialties, Tea for Two. Yet outside of his home town of Toledo, Ohio, the centennial of his birth on Oct. 13 went virtually unnoticed and unremarked upon. Today reverence of his talent is universal among jazz pianists, yet he is essentially unknown to musical audiences.

Below is a rare 1954 TV performance of “Yesterdays” by Jerome Kern.


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Bernice Bobs Her Hair: the Song

Posted by Tom Fasano on April 18, 2008 – 11:58 am

divinecomedy.jpg

The Irish pop group Divine Comedy recorded a song based on “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” Here’s a snippet from the song. Give it a listen.

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New song from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

Posted by Tom Fasano on April 8, 2008 – 10:33 pm

A couple of months have passed since the “Once” duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won Oscars for their song “Falling Slowly” from John Carney’s independent hit of last summer. Now they have a brand-new track for another movie, which again is a bittersweet boy-meets-girl foreign movie.

Strangers

The song is called “One More Word” and it’s from the independent Israeli movie “Strangers“, which was well received at Sundance in January. From what I’ve read the film goes for the docu-style urbanity of Once, but with an original twist: an Israeli Romeo meets a Palestinian Juliet. My understanding is that the duo recorded the song in Prague two weeks before the Academy Awards.

Hear it here:

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