Taking The A Train

Sunday, June 22 my wife and I took the “A” Train to Harlem. In fact, it wasn’t the only train we took that day but for the purposes of this story it was the important one.
We were on a mission to hear Art Tatum. Our destination was the historic Apollo Theater on 125th. Street. The show we were about to see was “Art Tatum Piano Starts Here.”
The playbill described the performance as a “two-man show: one lives, one lives on.” For the next two hours the actor Paul Butler, in the persona of Doc Hanley, beguiled us.
Hanley was closing up his basement jazz club shortly after the death of his friend Art Tatum. Hanley reminisced about his friend and recounted their many musical adventures.
Art Tatum was the other performer on the Apollo stage even though the audience only saw him through images projected onto the stage wall. However everyone in the theater would testify that they were in the presence of the great man.
Tatum came to life through a Steinway B concert grand piano which commanded the stage by its presence. Oh what a piano it was! Three years in the making, the instrument was a symbiotic melding of the instrument-maker’s craft and digital technology. Add the cutting edge software of Zenph Studios and we were about to be mesmerized by the artistry of Art Tatum as surely as if he were seated at the keyboard.
In all the show featured 12 song performed by Tatum. Even though I had heard Tatum many times in the past, those performances were Tatum distilled and filtered through microphones and speakers. What emerged from the Steinway was pure Tatum, no amplification allowed.
There was something about the visual reinforcement of the aural. I was hearing it and I was seeing it, but I still didn’t believe it.
Along the way we learned much about Tatum the man. However, the information that came as the greatest surprise was the fact that his widow Geraldine survives to this day.
After the performance Zenph President and Founder John Q. Walker told the audience of his meeting with Mrs. Tatum and of her generous contribution of Tatum’s personal piano to the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Generations to come will be able to view the piano and other artifacts from Tatum at the museum.
Overall I had a great time. The music was enthralling. Experiencing it in the historic Apollo Theater enhanced the special character of the performance. Kudos to one and all and especially to Art.

Art Tatum: Piano Starts Here

When I read about this recording in Marc Myers’ “Jazz Wax” blog I knew I wanted to add it to my collection. The disc arrived this week and I am not disappointed.

If you’ve not heard the story of this recording here it is in a nutshell. In the spring of 1949 Tatum performed at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. A less-than-stellar recording of the gig has seen multiple releases as “Piano Starts Here.” The new disc, released June 3, is promoted as a “RePerformance” and was recorded September 23, 2007 also at the Shrine.

Zenph Studios takes vintage recordings and through digital wizardry turns those recordings back into a live performance. In the case of the Tatum session a Yamaha Disklavier Pro digital reproducing piano is the performer.

After listening to the new disc I am pleased at the musicality of the performance. I have to keep telling myself that I am listening to a machine. Having listened to my share of Tatum recordings over the years, I feel that this is more than just an accurate representation of Tatum. This is the essence of the great pianist. No wonder the 2007 audience breaks into applause.


In addition to the usual surround sound recording, the disc also contains binaural stereo recordings. For this, two microphones mounted in a dummy head are placed at the keyboard of the piano. The resulting recording, when listened to on headphones, gives you the sense of sitting at the piano and hearing what Tatum must have heard.

Here’s a link to the Zenph website. Follow it for details on the recording and a planned performance later this month at the Apollo Theater in New York.

Unlike some other digital manipulations of old recordings, I don’t find this to be a misuse of the technology. One has only to listen to a track from the original recording and then the same track from the new disc to fully appreciate the amazing difference. To me this is technology employed in the service of artistry.