Art Tatum

The English pianist Alan Clare was once intrigued with a workman who was carrying out some remodeling inside his house. Clare was playing some recordings, and he began to notice that the workman was whistling along with whatever music he put on – Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, it didn’t seem to matter. Even if he hadn’t heard it before, he had the natural musical ability to follow a melody closely and almost automatically. Clare decided to give him a real test and dug up his recording of Art Tatum doing Tea For Two, with the ground-breaking chord changes Tatum introduced into the tune. The workman never lost a beat nor did he lay out for a bar or two to figure out what was going on. He tracked Tatum flawlessly through all his changes, and when the record ended, he spoke for the first time. He glanced at Clare and with classic English understatement said, ‘Tricky f**ker, ain’t he?’

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

I would like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

I’m a big fan of music, a student. I just wanna learn and keep enhancing my education about Jazz.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can’t define it beyond that.

Let my children have music.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend.

Women have not been socialized to play drums. It’s not natural for us to hit thing.

I have won several prizes as the world’s slowest alto player and a special award in 1961 for quietness.

Music is interior decoration.

Vocalists must study music and know everything an instrumentalist needs to know.