Artist: Art Tatum
Title: Piano Starts Here: Live at The Shrine
Year Of Release: 2007
Label: Venus Records / Japan
Genre: Jazz
Quality: SACD (DSD64 2.0; 5.0; Image.iso) + scans
Total Time: 01:17:02 min
Total Size: 2,66 Gb
For many serious jazz fans, no pianist has ever approached the technical mastery of Art Tatum, though his virtuoso skills usually meant he was at his best unaccompanied. Many of his recordings from the 1930s & ’40s were limited by the deficiencies of recording methods at the time. Piano Starts Here, long considered 1 of Tatum’s definitive albums, combined 4 solos from a 1933 studio session (his 1st as a soloist, aside from a test pressing a year earlier), & a fabulous solo concert at the Shrine Auditorium in 1949 (the latter issued as an Armed Forces Radio Service 16″ transcription disc), which has been reissued many times over the decades. But there were several problems with these releases. The pitch was slightly too slow on the live material. A medley of George Gershwin tunes was awkwardly edited (a miserly decision to save on royalty payments) to only “The Man I Love,” discarding over 1 minute of other compositions, including “Summertime,” “I’ve Got Plenty of Nothin’,” & “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” The order of the live performances was also altered.
Zenph Studios decided to use 21st century computer technology to re-create this album, both the 1933 studio session & the famous 1949 concert. The technicians worked wonders with the source material, by correcting the speed & adding the missing segments. Improvements in computer technology enabled the staff to not only replicate how Tatum played each key, but also to duplicate his use of the sustain pedal, recording the playback on a MIDI file that in turn served as source for a Yamaha Disklavier Pro concert grand piano, which was recorded 2 different ways on the very same Shrine Auditorium stage. They even took the time to duplicate the exact location of the piano on-stage for Tatum’s original Shrine concert. No audience was used for the 1933 selections, which included versions of “Tea for Two” & “Tiger Rag,” in all likelihood similar to the performances Tatum used to best both Fats Waller & James P. Johnson during a Harlem cutting contest not long after Tatum arrived in New York City. Of major interest is the greatly improved fidelity of the re-creation of the 1949 concert. Instead of using generations-old, flawed tapes that were descended from the original AFRS transcription disc, the MIDI file as played back on the Yamaha Disklavier Pro concert grand piano seems closer to the essence of what Tatum’s original performance sounded like. Antonin Dvorák’s “Humoresque” is the playful opener (a tape transfer error on later LPs has been restored), followed by “Tatum Pole Boogie” (a rollicking inventive original that doesn’t rely exclusively on a consistent, heavy ostinato bassline like most boogie-woogie). The complete restored “Gershwin Medley” (courtesy of Tatum discographer Arnold Laubich, who owned a copy of the original performance) removes for good the abrupt edit present between the opening & closing sections of “The Man I Love” on all earlier commercial issues. The uptempo showpieces are dazzling, including a romp through “How High the Moon” & “Yesterdays” (which includes a surprising octave unison segment) plus the strolling, bluesy take of “Willow Weep for Me.”
The producers of this Art Tatum “re-performance” simultaneously recorded the playback in 2 different ways. The 1st 13 cuts on the CD were recorded to 5 tracks for a 2ch surround version, to achieve ideal sound for listeners. The music is duplicated in the 2nd half of the CD, but it is in a binaural 2ch version recorded 2-track into a dummy head propped as if the listener is the pianist hearing the instrument as he or she is performing. Listening to the binaural recordings on headphones gives an intimate perspective, with the applause heard mostly in the right channel & the auditorium air conditioning audible in quieter passages. It is compatible with regular CD players, Super Audio units, & Super Audio Surround Sound.
This re-performance of classic recordings by Art Tatum will likely be controversial for some collectors, who think that technology has destroyed the integrity of the pianist’s performances. This CD doesn’t replace Tatum’s Piano Starts Here in anyone’s collection, but the greatly improved sound of Piano Starts Here: Live at the Shrine should be considered a marvelous engineering feat to give jazz fans a much better idea of what the late piano virtuoso sounded like in concert on a top-notch instrument.
Tracklist:
From New York studio sessions, March 21 1933:
01-Tea For Two (SACD Stereo)
02-St. Louis Blues (SACD Stereo)
03-Tiger Rag (SACD Stereo)
04-Sophisticated Lady (SACD Stereo)
From The Shrine Auditorium, April 2, 1949:
05-Humoresque (SACD Stereo)
06-Tatum Pole Boogie (SACD Stereo)
07-Someone To Watch Over Me (SACD Stereo)
08-How High The Moon (SACD Stereo)
09-Yesterdays (SACD Stereo)
10-Willow Weep For Me (SACD Stereo)
11-The Kerry Dance (SACD Stereo)
12-Gershwin Medley (SACD Stereo)
13-I Know That You Know (SACD Stereo)
From New York studio sessions, March 21 1993:
14-Tea For Two (SACD Binaural Stereo)
15-St. Louis Blues (SACD Binaural Stereo)
16-Tiger Rag (SACD Binaural Stereo)
17-Sophisticated Lady (SACD Binaural Stereo)
From The Shrine Auditorium, April 2, 1949:
18-Humoresque (SACD Binaural Stereo)
19-Tatum Pole Boogie (SACD Binaural Stereo)
20-Someone To Watch Over Me (SACD Binaural Stereo)
21-How High The Moon (SACD Binaural Stereo)
22-Yesterdays (SACD Binaural Stereo)
23-Willow Weep For Me (SACD Binaural Stereo)
24-The Kerry Dance (SACD Binaural Stereo)
25-Gershwin Medley (SACD Binaural Stereo)
26-I Know That You Know (SACD Binaural Stereo)
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