It is, perhaps, silly to call this a review. This album came out in 1991. We are a little late to be issuing reviews. Instead, I suppose, one might be well served to think of this as thoughts as precursor to an unqualified recommendation, and my encouragement to you to seek out this album (and really any recording featuring Tatum) on your own time.
Tatum is, to my mind, the second greatest jazz pianist of the 20th century. The only possible mode of dispute is whether that rating is too low. Along with Oscar Peterson, who I have written about previously, is a masterful practitioner of both the neo-Lisztian ten-figure technique and the Harlem Stride.
On "Night and Day," the trumpet plays the melody to Cole Porter's classic show-tune, which Tatum surrounds with a dazzling array of ten-finger counterpoints. The old axiom of jazz is to hear "the notes unplayed," and on "Night and Day" the unplayed notes are the simple 8 note sequence that lies at the heart of the Porter piece. In that, it functions as a kind of basic tutorial to the way that Tatum's musical mind works.
"Caravan" features the alternative technique. As Tatum's left hand takes on the role of the rhythm section in Ellington's famous composition, while the right plays a series of quick melodies in almost impossibly rapid succession. It's good stuff.
If you like jazz, or are interested at all in technical virtuosity as a category of human excellence. This is an album worth checking out.
Rating: 4/4
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