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beeboss

I agree with you 100%. Your feedback is always thoughtful and articulate, and it is very much appreciated here

you're quite right to quote that and obviously you're in the choir so to speak ... but the point is LOOK at the SCORE and LISTEN to the music. or reverse the order - LISTEN and LOOK (and those capital letters are rhetorical, they're not directed personally to you!).

what's interesting about the million jazz one-liner stories that float around - is often what isn't said explicitly:in this case of the story, tatum didn't say something to the effect of " analyze or do whatever it takes or whatever you call it , internalize, etc. get to know this music that you've put down on paper so that you really know it"

you probably know, someone played something lester young had improvised back to LY. lester's response: "but can you play me a melody?" so yes, these kinds of stories are out there. and they interpret in a million different ways.

of course, there are real, specific points to be made about tatum's artistry (or lack, whatever the case), well at least a look at score and a listen to something specific (and again, beeboss, this advice is rhetorical! it's to to you personally!). then there's at least some kind of common ground for discussion.

maybe the shortest possible version i should have posted is the old "what specifically did he do and where and when specifically did he do it?"

and one last time ... all statements above are rhetorical and NOT to you personally!!!!!! ... or personally to anyone, for that matter!

anyway, if you find that mehegan transcription (which is in book 2 of the jazz piano series), would be interested in hearing what you think of it? it's full of all kinds of amazing things and all it takes to find them is .. listen and look!











I didn't know that. I transcribed it myself once, it almost killed me. I could have saved the effort ;-) [/quote]

have experienced that pain as well ...

Frankly, PL, it's getting really tiresome.
Go get a dictionary, or look up Wikipedia. And go listen to the Copland concerto, and the Bernstein piece. You clearly have no idea about anything.

Or are you just harping on for the sake of it?

Stories like that are all too common in jazz circles - put-downers for any classical pianist wanting to have a go at jazz. I've heard many more like that, involving some other well-known jazz pianists. But there are none of jazz pianists attempting classical that I know of, that keep circulating around for classical enthusiasts to continue sneering at. Only praise from the likes of Horowitz and Rachmaninoff....

It basically confirms everything I said earlier, that such apocryphal stories still do the rounds long after the supposed event. Are jazz pianists and enthusiasts really so insecure in their own skins that they feel the need to put down any classically-trained pianist who dares to venture into their territory, to keep their egos massaged?

I had a similar experience last Christmas when I had dinner with my two jazz acquaintances at one of their homes. Inevitably, conversation revolved around music, after which I played them the recordings of Thibaudet playing Bill Evans that I recounted earlier. Perhaps annoyed that they couldn't tell that it was a classical pianist playing jazz, they challenged me to do an improvisation, saying what many of the posters here said - that classical pianists can't improvise (despite having played them the Matsuev improv which impressed them, until I told them who the pianist was..).

One of them did an improvisation on Adeste fideles, which basically consisted of chord substitutions and changing the rhythm of the tune. Then I did mine, mixing in Silent Night as a counterpoint as I went on, in a vaguely Bach/Mozart style, but certainly not in a jazz manner. And they immediately said it wasn't a 'proper' improvisation because no jazz pianist would do what I did - where are the jazz harmonies, the swing in the rhythm, etc? (At which I reminded them that I'm not a jazz pianist......).

Going back to the original story, let's see how it would sound if one turned it around: A famous jazz pianist came to András Schiff (renowned for his Bach, having just recorded his third WTC) and told him he'd just made his own recording of the Bach 48, his first classical recording, and proceeded to play the first P & F for him. A stony silence from Schiff, then he asked quietly, ''Where's the voicing of the counterpoints in the fugue? Where are the entries of each subject? Are you playing Bach, or have you no idea?"

See what I mean?

From what I've picked up around here about Schiff, I can easily imagine him saying that to any pianist, classical or jazz.

That's why I picked him for this (very plausible) anecdote, rather than, say, Angela Hewitt .

It is not a put down, it is just the recognition of the fact that improvising something and playing a transcription of someone else's improvisation are different things, apples and oranges.




You are imagining these put downs. Nobody has put down any classical players.




I think those are transcriptions, aren't they? They are not improvisations I am fairly sure. Whatever they are they are beautiful and beautifully played, but as I said before apples and oranges. You cannot compare someone playing transcriptions of Bill Evans with Bill Evans himself. It would be like trying to compare someone who plays Bach with Bach.

Exactly.

The Matsuev was an original improvisation, but the Thibaudet recordings are transcriptions by Jed Distler. I didn't say the latter are improvisations - you're imagining that.

OK, so Tatum didn't put down the 'brilliant classical player'.
In which case, I didn't put down Tatum's RH tricks either, which (as I've already said) pale beside the variety, ingenuity and outsize virtuosity of Matsuev's .

I don't put down jazz players.

bennevis

sounds like you are just butt-hurt because you had some run in with jazzers with bad attitude. Get over it. For every sob story you have about how jazzers bullied you, I can tell you a story from my life that is just as bad, but I don't go around complaining about it.

Like I said there I've met good number of classical musicians who called Keith Jarrett's jazz stuff junk.. I've also heard/read people calling Uri Caine's arrangement of Mahler "Munity against Mahler". If you think jazz musician don't deal with BS like that on a regular basis, you are clearly being ignorant.There are bad apples in both camps.




Actually I don't mind when classical musicians criticize Jazz musician doing a poor job playing classical music. I am not going to defend Keith Jarret or Chick Corea's recording, and I am perfectly fine with the fact that their performances are subpar compared to the high standards set by professional concert pianists.



Man you are dense. It's comments like these, comparing and claiming Matsuev's somehow better than Tatum that's getting you into trouble. Like beeboss and everyone has said many times, jazz improv and classical improv emphasize different things, and you are comparing apples and oranges, but somehow you insist on this idea that one is somehow superior than the other. Nobody here is saying Matseuv is a bad improviser, only that he is not a good improviser in jazz setting.

btw if you want chops, there is always gonzalo rublacaba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9npt-CkaeI4

Actually, Keith Jarrett's Bach WTC isn't at all bad. (Unlike the jazz pianist in my story who had the unfortunate run-in with Schiff, Jarrett does know how to play polyphonic music properly ). His Shostakovich leaves much to be desired, though.

As for Uri Caine's take on the classics, I find them quite refreshing. His reworkings of Bach, Mahler and other composers have been well received on BBC Radio 3's 'CD Review' program over the years. (Radio 3 is the BBC's classical radio station).

And don't worry, I'm not (and haven't been) personally hurt by any jazz pianist. (I sensed sour grapes during our improvisation 'contest', and they admitted as much; and we're still friends, and intending our round 2 next Christmas...). I haven't had much chance to converse (or spar) with jazz enthusiasts ever since I joined PW, so I'm just making the most of this opportunity - it takes me out of my comfort zone a little.

Classical pianists like to be challenged - musically and technically. Otherwise we'd never improve.....

Thanks for that. I've never heard that guy before. He's certainly got the chops, but I just wish he isn't so relentless in his percussiveness, and there is more light and shade in his playing - but that's the voice of a classical pianist speaking.

Here's Matsuev improvising on something we all know. Don't worry, he isn't trying jazz here; just a classical pianist having a lot of fun.....
http://youtu.be/xliUbUfGzYo

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"

There's always the discussion that classical musicians tend not to swing and I think I have a partial explanation for that.

When I was younger and used a metronome I always had the clicks represent the strong beats ... 1 and 3 in 4\4. If you clap your hands in 4\4 on 1 and 3 most music will take on a march feel.

A good friend of mine suggested many years ago that I should try having the clicks represent the weaker beats ... 2 and 4 in 4\4. I don't know if that made me swing more, I do know that it immensely improved my time.

It took more than a few days to get comfortable with the clicks representing the weak beats, but I'll never go back to the way I first used the metronome.

Just passing this on.

I think there is merit in 2-4 metronome. Can't help but to at least encourage swing.

Like some others here I would think other jazz players mostly influenced Tatum and he spent very little time trying to learn from classical pianists.

I much prefer Oscar Peterson but I can sometimes get tired of a little bit of too much 'same ole same ole' even with his playing. Got tired of Tatum real fast. To me, he 'runs, runs into the ground.'

Still, it's easy for me to see how Tatum dazzled so many.

I've heard about Horowitz's meeting with Tatum and my guess is Horowitz was primarily just 'being kind.'

Bech