Art Tatum Takes On the Great American Songbook
Tatum transforms familiar standards into showcases for his restless harmonic imagination and finger-defying technique.
Art Tatum approaching a collection of standards is like watching a master chef work with classic ingredients — he knows exactly what they are, and he's going to show you things you never knew were possible. Standards gives you Tatum in his element: solo piano, no one else to defer to, working through the jazz repertoire's most durable melodies. What makes this album essential is how it captures what his peers heard in him from the start. The reharmonization here isn't decoration or showing off. Tatum genuinely hears different possibilities in these songs. He'll take a tune everyone knows and find chord progressions that make you wonder if you ever really heard it before. His use of bitonality — playing in two keys at once — shouldn't work, but in his hands it opens doors instead of closing them.
The piano work is physically astonishing without ever feeling cold. His stride left hand stays grounded in jazz tradition while his right hand darts through passages that would seem impossible if you didn't hear them executed so cleanly. There's swing here too, beneath all the technical sophistication. Tatum doesn't play fast just to prove he can; the speed serves the music. If you've never heard him, Standards is the right place to start. It's more approachable than some of his solo recordings because the melodies remain recognizable even when he's taking them apart. For listeners already familiar with Tatum, this sits firmly in his peak period work — not a departure or experiment, simply Tatum doing what only Tatum could do with material that deserved someone exactly this good.
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Art Tatumpiano
