Art Tatum is the best pianist ever

[Daevren]

With the exception of Liszt of course. But we can't be sure without recordings. The musicality and technique of Art impress me more than many classical pianists. I think Rach and Horowitz were very impressed by Arts performances.

Any other people have an opinion on this.

[thracozaag]

No argument here.  I'd throw in Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans into that pantheon, though.

[comme_le_vent]

art is one of my favourite pianists, but hes also my favourite improviser and jazz musician.

he is for sure the greatest non-classical pianist ever.
and for sure one of the greatest improvisers in history.

but the greatest pianist ever?

id imagine tatum had a greater technique than liszt.

i know this because a liszt pupil said that some pianists have exceeded his technique since his passing - most notably godowsky in finger technique.

i think you are judging a pianist by their improvisational ability - some pianists are crap improvisers yet still great pianists.

judge a pianist by their PERFORMING ability alone - and you will find more pianists as great as tatum.

[Daevren]

Its kind of easy to give a good performance when you can just play very great music written by someone else, don't you think?

[comme_le_vent]

NO!



where are you coming from?!?

[Clare]

I think it's way harder to play something someone else wrote than something you wrote yourself. Everyone's different, so when you play a piece by someone else, you're never quite in your natural zone of playing-ness.
Well, that's what I think, anyway.

[nujdp]

Richter came once into a pub where Tatum played and he said "I've always wanted to play that good!"....

[Daevren]

Of course its harder to play someone elses stuff. But if you play something composed by a genius composer its already genius. You can play genius music, thus giving a genius performance without doing anything genius yourself. You just have to play it ok. Of course you can also *** it up and play it perfectly.

Imagine this. We have an ok pianist and a superb pianist. The ok pianist plays increadible music composed by a genius and the superb pianist plays some horrible music composed by some clueless composer. Who is giving the best performance? Not the best pianist obviously.

Face it, improvising is the ultimate instrumental skill. You have to function at all levels and kinds of musicality at the same time.

[comme_le_vent]

yes it is probably the ultimate skill, BUT performace and improvisation are different things, a pianist should be judged as a performer.

of course this is different in jazz, where pianist invariably means an improvisor.

but i define someone being a great pianist, as being a great performer.

and your wrong about the bad work, great performer thing, a performance can be good no matter the quality of the piece.

[DAwud7]

I agree that playing something u improvised is easier than playing something written by someone else, main reason being u dont have too read and interpret it its just there the technique for it and everything are there. I luv improvising i improvise in every style , sometimes i improvise cuban type danzas like luecouna and sometimes i improvise music in jazz forms or in spanish rythms like cumbia and i do this for hours and i can play improvised stuff that is far beyond what i can do by reading because i have too develop a fingering for it and all that i find in improvising my mind lets loose i can do whatever as long as im able too do it.

[Demidoff]

When it comes to pure speed, I haven´t really heard anyone with the capacities of Cziffra, But I would say Cortot is the greatest musician at the piano.

I don´t get all the hype about Richter, on the other hand.

[rajordahl]

I think you get into trouble on the issue of " greatest pianist ". What is your criteria? Outsibe of jazz, improvisation is of no consequence. Perhaps of some value would be unranked lists of classical pianists, jazz pianists ( with a number of sub-catagories ),etc.