well this performance proves one thing, alkan and liszt had as much dexterity as tatum and tatum is not in his own class. this guy was formally trained in alkan:



though not perfect, his dexterity is as good as tatum's.
There are 28 comments, leave a comment.
who cares about who had more dexterity? the real amazing thing about art tatum are the harmonic and textural innovations he brought to jazz piano. the fact that he was a major virtuoso is not as important as the creativity he brought to the music, imo.

hm
yeah even if somebody could play just like art (and who cares if they could) art thought of it.

when i wanna listen to art, i do.  i've never been the least bit interested in listening to an imitator.
...i realized that when i was copping oscar peterson. we already had oscar who wants to hear a copy? (as if:)
wow!!!!!!!


surely you are are joking right???

to my ears that guy is nowhere close to art tatum, you should be banned from here just for even mentioning this nonsense. :(

like the other's have said the main ingredients in tatums playing have eludeded you it seems.
sorry...i was sipping jim beam after a late night power outage...i really got off topic (never drink and type)

what does it mean to be formally trained in alkan?  do you mean he studied alkan's music? is there an "alkan" method of teaching or something?  

i read that alkan lived next door to fred and got some of fred's students after he kicked off...interesting...
i never said this guy was near tatum. like i said, this performance is not perfect. of course, this guy can't improvise like tatum, and he doesn't have the creativeness, and he doesn't have the memory, but he has the technical skill required to play tatum. he said he wasn't done with the piece, but maybe if he practices a little bit more and  more he could pull off this piece. he needs to play the original runs in the piece though(if you slow the piece down with transcribe, a couple of the runs he plays are different from the runs in the original).

yes, this guy played classical music to begin with, and he had studied alkan's music later... now, he's on to tatum's music.

it shows you that alkan, tatum, liszt are on the same level of technical skill.i've heard many comments on youtube saying that tatum is the best pianist in the world and he is not human, but that's not true. according to this(and when you really think about it), there is no best. alkan, tatum, chopin, rachmaninoff and liszt were all on the same level of creativeness and technical skill, and it is so hard to compare one pianist to another.
to really make a comparison, we would have to get liszt, alkan, and hamelin to play art tatum or art tatum to play liszt to see who's better, but that's not possible, since alkan, tatum, and liszt are no longer living.

did oscar peterson ever attempt art tatum's tiger rag? if so, are there any recordings of it?
i'm not sure if oscar peterson had attempted tiger rag or not. but since he was a virtuoso of the highest order i'm quite sure that he would have no problem with it.
who is alkan?  how do you know this guy was trained by him.
mike,  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/charles-valentin_alkan#technique

this is from the comment section:
das499  
not really,i was just curious as too how you got to that level of finger dexterity(through vigorous scales, classical etudes, etc.)? anyway great job! and do you have any advice on what to practice to really work out ur fingers.

chrisjordan83  
alkan
one thing i don't understand is why can't we just give this guy a break.

he transcribed (or found a transcription) tatum. he played it, recorded on youtube and made no other comment or statement.

what i see if someone who is studying art tatum. why the need to compare tatum to this chris, or peterson to tatum or hancock to corea. i just don't get it.  

it keeps re-occurring. cheap comments on you tube. some monster pianist is gonna play a gorgeous improvised version of tenderly, and some bozo comes out saying: "oh did you listen to op's version"?

just my opinion. either you say, well, at 3:22, your wrist is a little high or whatever constructive. but comparing anyone to anyone else seems unconstructive to me.
ok so from what i can see this alkan lived 1818 to 1888.  so why have you wasted my time figuring out that this guy could not have studied with  this guy alkan because he is dead???
you say "this guy was formally trained in alkan:"  what did he figure out how to time travel?
you know you are lucky saying completely false misleading statements based on pure fiction that is likely to harm the education of others and in general make a lot of people miseralbe is perfectly acceptale behavior for a mucician.


did you're eyes see this?:

"yes, this guy played classical music to begin with, and he had studied alkan's music later... now, he's on to tatum's music."

of course he didn't study with alkan(he studied alkan's music)! he was classically trained(classical training is formal training; jazz, blues, rock are not formal training; most parents want their kids to start out playing classical, that way they can have a better understanding of other types of music too). he played and studied alkan's music. now, he's playing and studying tatum's music now. does that make sense?

it is recommended that every pianist should start out playing classical music first. that way they can develop technique, theory, knowlege about different composers, and music reading skills.
after that, they can go into any other music genre they want whether it be blues, jazz, rock and roll, etc... if you can play classical, you can play anything!
you say "this guy was formally trained in alkan:"  what did he figure out how to time travel?  

did your eyes see this?:

"yes, this guy played classical music to begin with, and he had studied alkan's music later...  now, he's on to tatum's music."

of course he didn't study with alkan(he studied alkan's music)! he was classically trained(classical training is formal training; jazz, blues, rock are not formal training; most parents want their kids to start out playing classical, that way they can have a better understanding of other types of music too). he played and studied alkan's music. now, he's playing and studying tatum's music now. does that make sense?

it is recommended that every pianist should start out playing classical music first. that way they can develop technique, theory, knowlege about different composers, and music reading skills.
after that, they can go into any other music genre they want whether it be blues, jazz, rock and roll, etc... if you can play classical, you can play anything!
sorry for the posts!

sorry if "formally trained in alkan" misled you.
mike,

if your not familiar with the virtuosic alkan repetoire, than i can show you some of his pieces:

le chemin de fer:



&watch_response

alkan grand etude op. 76:



alkan comme le vent:



alkan finale symphony for solo piano:
cool stuff...i had never heard of alkan before.  i was hoping to find some of his stuff at sheetmusicarchive.net but there isn't any...
i meant to say - thanks :)
dr. whack,  

if you are interested in learning the pieces, you can get free sheet music from this site:

https://www.scribd.com/

just sign up and download his pieces for free.
some of the pieces of alkan are so difficult to play that they even surpass the transcendental etudes of liszt. honestly, i believe it was alkan's music that art tatum played during his classical training. this gave art tatum his incredible technique.

in my view, oscar peterson is just another "liszt" and art tatum was just another "alkan". art tatum, no doubt had a perfect technique.
indeed oscar was trained by a student of liszt's, but that as far as the comparison goes.

imho, oscar still would have developed an extradionary technique, regardless of who he studied with, because of his firece determination, talent, attitude and work ethic.

i know at least 4 musicians with fabulous technique who are self taught.

there are other jazz pianist's who have great technique who haven't studied classical music!!

look, why don't you try the alkan method yourself and in 5 years report back to us to tell us how it improved your jazz playing!!!!!
well, right now i'm trying to play le chemin de fer and the grand etude. le chemin de fer seems hard, but it really isn't as hard as it seems. in my opinion, the grand etude is harder.

actually, i'm trying to get something both out of art tatum and alkan. i will depend on both art tatum and alkan to improve my technique and will depend on art tatum for my studies in jazz. then sometimes i might dive into fats waller, james p. johnson, or oscar peterson or other jazz artists to get some variety.
a few things:

1. "well this performance proves one thing, alkan and liszt had as much dexterity as tatum and tatum is not in his own class. this guy was formally trained in alkan"

this doesn't actually prove any of the above.  i think what you mean to say is that liszt's and alkan's music is written with a degree of virtuosity that is equivalent to tatum's music.  the performance of this student has no bearing on the technique of any of the above pianists.

2. please reign in on the level of classical evangelizing.  many of the members here have heard this discussion before, and in most cases you'll just be preaching to the converted.  there are great pianists who were classically trained.  there were great pianists who were self taught.  while classical training will probably benefit every pianist, it is in no way compulsory.  

3. while i think that praise for young pianists is a great thing, i don't recommend comparing them to tatum, op, ect., especially on the basis of technique.  it never ends well.
i'd say it's pretty impressive.  he plays a tad heavy, but it's one of the best tatum recreations i've heard.
someone above mentioned hamelin who has unbelievable technique.  i know this is a jazz discussion board and i am making no representations on hamelin's ability to play jazz.  just wanted to share a most amazing thing that i once saw hamelin do.  i was at a pre-concert reception for him and he sat down and played chopin's c# minor etude in a unique way.  basically he played the right hand as written.  but with it (and at an incredible tempo) he played the left hand as a mirror image of the right. it created an odd sound, to say the least but, at the same time, was fascinating to watch. and, for those of us who have studied (and sweated over) this etude, it was humbling!
the great thing about this classical repertoire is that it is written out for all of us to practice.  some of us take the time to learn and practice and the rest of us stand in awe of those who do
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