Fats Waller: Carolina Shout; Ain't Misbehavin' << sound clip
Earl Hines: Fifty-Seven Varieties; My Melancholy Baby
James P Johnson: Snowy Morning Blues;
You've Got To
Be Modernistic << sound clip
Jelly Roll Morton: King Porter Stomp; Original Rags
Duke Ellington: Swampy River
Willie 'The Lion' Smith: Passionette; Morning Air
Art Tatum: Humoresque; Begin The Beguine << sound clip
Teddy Wilson: Tiger Rag; When You And I Were Young,
Maggie
Billy Kyle: Finishing Up A Date
Teddy Weatherford: My Blue Heaven
Donald Lambert: Pilgrim's Chorus
Garland Wilson: Rockin' Chair
Mary Lou Williams: Swingin' For Joy
Joe Turner: The Ladder
Joe Sullivan: Little Rock Getaway
The piano is the most versatile of musical instruments.
It enables a player to combine notes and create complex
chords, and in the right hands, offers exceptional
potential for dynamic variety. Unlike its predecessor,
the harpsichord, the piano is essentially a percussion
instrument. The notes are activated by felt hammers
striking strings and each pianist brings differences
of touch and emphasis to this process, helping to
define the piano as the ideal vehicle for a creative
art-form like jazz.
A late seventeenth-century innovation, the piano
was perfected by one Bartolomeo Cristofori, then the
Keeper of Instruments at the Medici Court in Florence.
Originally the piano e forte (literally 'soft and
loud'), it embraces the staple elements of rhythm,
melody and harmony.
Little wonder then that the piano became the instrument
of choice for so many families throughout the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries or that great numbers
of aspiring musicians were encouraged to tackle its
complexities. Black families in America were no different
to their white counterparts in this. They too, wished
their offspring to acquire the preferred social graces
of the day, among them, of course, sufficient mastery
of the piano to provide the accompaniment for turn-of-the-century
parlour socials, family festivities and neighbourhood
recitals. Unsurprisingly, the piano also became a
common feature of church and school life, and the
perfect support for many kinds of public entertainment,
much of it innocent; the rest, from all reports, sometimes
verging on the downright disreputable.
Given its unique character and wide cross-cultural
distribution, it was inevitable that the piano would
play a central role in the development and diffusion
of jazz. Initially, this was through ragtime, a piano-based
musical form first developed in Missouri by black
performers in the first decade of this century. Rhythmically
spirited yet always shapely, ragtime became hugely
popular, before it was superseded by the newer piano
style known as stride, which emanated from Harlem,
the black section of New York. A number of significant
innovators were important to its development, among
them Willie 'The Lion' Smith and James P Johnson,
both represented in this compilation of great piano
solos. However, it's Johnson's celebrated pupil, Thomas
'Fats' Waller who we hear first, in a bravura reading
of Johnson's composition Carolina Shout. Stride, by
the way, is characterised by rhythmically charged
'oom-pah' left hand patterns, guaranteed to swing.
Waller (1904-43) was the son of a church pastor and
played the organ before becoming a professional pianist,
working in clubs and cabaret, much to the dismay of
his parents. Aside from a legendary capacity for alcohol,
Waller was also famed for his exuberant keyboard manner
and for his compositional gifts. He refined Johnson's
original stride approach, adding a flair for embellishment
and a powerful drive all of his own. Waller's impish
sense of fun came through on many of his popular small
group recordings and he is often recalled for that
alone. However, there was far more to 'Mrs Waller's
harmful little armful' than an arcane feeling for
humour; he was a serious performer whose solo work
proved to be highly influential and whose many songs,
notably Ain't Misbehavin' live on as standards. This
lovely tune, with its deft lyrics by Andy Razaf, was
first introduced in 1929 in 'Hot Chocolates', a Broadway
show enlivened by the presence of Louis Armstrong.
Composed in just forty-five minutes, it became a lasting
hit.
Earl 'Fatha' Hines (1903-83) grew up in Pittsburgh
but moved to Chicago, then the Mecca for black entertainers,
teaming up with Louis Armstrong on record. He was
among the first pianists to play solos which moved
away from the four-square conventions of stride. Irresistibly
inventive, Hines was capable of complicated, firmly
swinging improvisations which seemed to exemplify
originality. Although his left hand chord patterns
still set the beat, it was his adventurousness in
the treble which impressed modern jazzmen like Bud
Powell. His original composition, the punning Fifty-Seven
Varieties dated from his late-twenties period in Chicago,
while My Melancholy Baby is from 1941 and was made
at the tail-end of a session by Hines' splendid big
band.
James P Johnson (1894-1955), known unflatteringly
as 'The Brute', was the doyen of Harlem's piano professors,
an enormously influential pianist and composer, who
perhaps failed to achieve the fame which his talent
deserved. Aside from the captivating Snowy Morning
Blues recorded in 1927, Johnson wrote 'The Charleston'
and 'Old Fashioned Love' before turning to extended
composition. Classically trained, his keyboard mastery
was never in doubt, as can also be heard on You've
Got To Be Modernistic.
Ferdinand 'Jelly Roll' Morton (1890-1941), a truly
colourful character, was from New Orleans but took
himself off to California and Chicago, where he made
a series of significant recordings with his Red Hot
Peppers. Self-styled as 'The Originator of Jazz, Stomps
and Blues', Morton could usually back his claims,
whether through his keyboard prowess or as a composer.
His King Porter Stomp - named for Porter King, an
early ragtimer - was later made popular by Benny Goodman's
Swing Band. Original Rags, a Scott Joplin piece, was
recorded in New York two years before Morton's final,
ill-fated move to California, where he died while
attempting a come-back.
Edward Kennedy 'Duke' Ellington (1899-1974) was another
who came under the spell of Johnson and The Lion,
following his move to New York. Swampy River has an
evocative feeling of its own and comes from Duke's
Cotton Club period, which presaged his later, glittering
career as the most famous bandleader and composer
in all of jazz. Appropriately, Willie 'The Lion' Smith
(1897-1973) follows with Passionette, the first of
two recordings from 1938, which stress the more decorative
side of his playing. One of the great braggarts of
jazz, Smith (full name: William Henry Joseph Bonaparte
Bertholoff) gloried in his nick-name seeing it as
a tribute to his combative personality, typified by
his arrival at a club when he would push the resident
pianist aside, take over and shout 'The Lion is here!'
When Fats Waller realised that the partially-blind
Art Tatum (1909-56) had walked into a venue where
he was playing, he announced 'God is in the house!'.
Tatum's talents were exceptional: he was simply the
greatest jazz pianist of his day, possessed of dazzling
technique, marvellous harmonic understanding and rhythmic
daring. His pieces here date from 1940 when his powers
were arguably at their peak.
Theodore 'Teddy' Wilson (1912-86) expressed in his
playing a kind of calm, ordered dignity quite like
that of Wilson himself. Influenced by Hines and Tatum,
Wilson forged a personal style based on patterned
figures which served him well throughout his lengthy
career. For a period in the Thirties, he was a member
of Benny Goodman's band, helping to breach the colour
bar.
Billy Kyle (1914-66) was influenced by the piano
styles of Earl Hines and Teddy Wilson. It was apposite
therefore, that he replaced Hines as a member of Louis
Armstrong's All Stars in 1953, remaining until his
death thirteen years later. Essentially a product
of the swing era, Kyle was the most tasteful of pianists
- witness his sparkling performances of Finishing
Up A Date with subtle rhythm accompaniment.
Teddy Weatherford (1903-45) was a powerful, rollicking
player who came to Chicago early on before venturing
to Asia where he remained for the remainder of his
life, succumbing to cholera in India. Mary Lou Williams
(1910-81) was proficient as arranger and pianist.
Associated with the Andy Kirk big band for many years,
she became an important soloist, her unusual harmonic
awareness prompting the interest of younger modernists.
Donald Lambert and Joe Turner were among the best
of stride's second wave. Each was a fine technician,
deserving of fame and reputation, yet Lambert (1904-62)
preferred to hide his talents under the proverbial
bushel, playing out his career in obscure New Jersey
bars close to home and recording rarely. Turner (1907-90)
travelled to Europe as Adelaide Hall's accompanist,
stayed on and became popular, appearing at top clubs
in Paris until his death.
Rockin' Chair was one of the first commercial records
made by Garland Wilson (1909-54) and shows a marked
Earl Hines influence. Often underrated, Wilson was
a product of the Harlem stride school who undertook
many long-term engagements in London and Paris from
1932 until his death.
Joe Sullivan (1906-71) is the only white performer
represented in this collection. A tough Chicagoan,
Sullivan was known for his associations with Bud Freeman
and Bob Crosby. Little Rock Getaway was his best known
solo, and demonstrates his debt to Hines and Waller.
Greatness is no easy matter to define and arguments
will continue to rage over the merits of each of these
soloists when compared with the others. Still, the
evidence is here - all you have to do is listen.
Or to put it another way: 'One never knows, do one?',
as Fats Waller used to say.
PETER VACHER