Look up hampton in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Hampton may refer to:

Places[link]

From the Saxon words meaning "homestead" and "enclosure".

In Antarctica[link]

• Mount Hampton

In Australia[link]

• Hampton, Queensland
• Hampton, Victoria
• Hampton East, Victoria
• Hampton Island
• Hampton Park, Victoria

In Canada[link]

• Hampton, New Brunswick
• Hampton, Nova Scotia
• Hampton, Ontario
• Hampton, Prince Edward Island

In the United Kingdom[link]

• Hampton Green, Cheshire
• Hampton Heath, Cheshire
• Hampton Fields, Gloucestershire
• Hampton Bishop, Herefordshire
• Hampton Gay, Oxfordshire
• Hampton Poyle, Oxfordshire
• Hamptons, Kent (note final 's')
• Hampton, Herne Bay, Kent
  • Hampton-on-Sea, Herne Bay, Kent (drowned settlement at the above location)
• Hampton, London, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
  • Hampton Hill, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
  • Hampton Wick, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
  • Hampton Court Palace, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
  • Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, an annual Flower Show held by the Royal Horticultural Society
  • Hampton & Richmond Borough F.C. Football Club
• Hampton, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire
• Hampton, Shropshire
• Hampton-in-Arden in Solihull, West Midlands
• Hampton Loade, Shropshire
• Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire
• Hampton-on-the-Hill, Warwickshire
• Hampton Magna, Warwickshire
• Hampton, Worcestershire
• Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire

In the United States[link]

• Hampton, Arkansas
• Hampton, Connecticut
• Hampton, Florida
• Hampton, Georgia
• Hampton, Illinois
• Hampton, Iowa
• Hampton, Maryland
• Hampton, Minnesota
• Hampton, Missouri
• Hampton, Nebraska
• Hampton, New Hampshire
• Hampton, New Jersey
• Hampton, New York
• Hampton, Oregon
• Hampton, Pennsylvania
• Hampton, South Carolina
• Hampton, Tennessee
• Hampton, Virginia
  • Hampton University

• Collinston, Utah, also known as Hampton

See also[link]

• East Hampton (disambiguation)
• Easthampton
• Hampton Cove, Alabama
• Hampton Falls
• Hampton Township (disambiguation)
• Littlehampton
• New Hampton (disambiguation)
• North Hampton (disambiguation)
• Northampton (disambiguation)
• Southampton (disambiguation)
• South Hampton (disambiguation)
• The Hamptons
• Welshampton
• Westhampton (disambiguation)

People[link]

• Christopher Hampton — British playwright
• Dan Hampton — National Football League defensive tackle
• Dave Hampton — National Football League running back
• David Hampton — U.S. con artist
• Fred Hampton — African American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party
• Howard Hampton, leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party
• Ike Hampton — Major League Baseball catcher
• James Hampton (artist) — American folk artist
• James Hampton (actor) — television and film actor
• Jean Elizabeth Hampton — American philosopher
• John Hampton — Australian politician
• Kimberly Hampton — the first female military pilot to be shot down and killed in U.S. service
• Lionel Hampton — U.S. jazz musician
• Martin L. Hampton — Architect
• Michael Hampton — guitarist for Funkadelic
• Michael Hampton (punk musician) — member of Embrace (Washington DC)
• Mike Hampton — an American baseball player
• Millard Hampton — U.S. athlete
• Rodney Hampton — National Football League running back
• Trevor Hampton — founded the first scuba diving center in Britain
• Wade Hampton (disambiguation) — three generations of South Carolina planters, politicians and military leaders
• William Hampton (cricketer) — English cricketer

Other[link]

• Hampton (car), a British automobile produced from 1912 to 1933
• Hampton (horse), a British Thoroughbred racehorse
• Hampton National Historic Site — Towson, Maryland
• Hampton School — London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
• Hampton University — Virginia
• Hampton Inn — a hotel chain
• USS Hampton, various United States Navy ships

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton at the 1979 North Sea Jazz Festival
Background information
Birth name	Lionel Leo Hampton
Also known as	"Hamp", "Mad Lionel"
Born	(1908-04-20)April 20, 1908 Louisville, Kentucky, United States
Died	August 31, 2002(2002-08-31) (aged 94) New York City, New York, United States
Genres	Swing Big band Mainstream jazz New York blues
Occupations	Multi-instrumentalist Actor Composer
Instruments	Vibraphone Drums Piano Vocals
Years active	1927–2002
Labels	Decca
Associated acts	Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Quincy Jones, Louis Armstrong, Gloria Parker

Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich to Charlie Parker and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Lionel Hampton was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1908, and was raised by his grandmother. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother moved to her hometown Birmingham, Alabama.^[1][2][3] He spent his early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin before he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1916. As a youth, Hampton was a member of the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, which was off limits because of racial segregation.^[4] During the 1920s—while still a teenager—Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and started playing drums.^[5] Hampton was raised Roman Catholic, and started out playing fife and drum at the Holy Rosary Academy near Chicago.^[6][7]

Early career[link]

Lionel Hampton began his career playing drums for the Chicago Defender Newsboys' Band (led by Major N. Clark Smith) while still a teenager in Chicago. He moved to California in 1927 or 1928, playing drums for the Dixieland Blues-Blowers. He made his recording debut with The Quality Serenaders led by Paul Howard, then left for Culver City and drummed for the Les Hite band at Sebastian's Cotton Club. During this period he began practicing on the vibraphone. In 1930 Louis Armstrong came to California and hired the Les Hite band, asking Hampton if he would play vibes on two songs. So began his career as a vibraphonist, popularizing the use of the instrument ever since.^[8]

While working with the Les Hite band, Hampton also occasionally did some performing with Nat Shilkret and his orchestra. During the early 1930s he studied music at the University of Southern California. In 1934 he led his own orchestra, and then appeared in the 1936 Bing Crosby film Pennies From Heaven alongside Louis Armstrong (wearing a mask in a scene while playing drums).^[9]

With Benny Goodman[link]

Also in November 1936,^[11] the Benny Goodman Orchestra came to Los Angeles to play the Palomar Ballroom. When John Hammond brought Goodman to see Hampton perform, Goodman invited him to join his trio, which thus became the celebrated Benny Goodman Quartet with Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa completing the lineup. The Trio and Quartet were among the first racially integrated jazz groups to record and play before wide audiences,^[12][13] and were a leading small-group in an era when jazz was dominated by big bands.

Lionel Hampton Orchestra[link]

Lionel Hampton during a concert in Aachen (Germany) on May 19, 1977

While Hampton worked for Goodman in New York, he recorded with several different small groups known as the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, as well as assorted small groups within the Goodman band. In 1940 Hampton left the Goodman organization under amicable circumstances to form his own big band.^[14]

Hampton's orchestra became popular during the 1940s and early 1950s. His third recording with them in 1942 produced a classic version of "Flying Home", featuring a solo by Illinois Jacquet that anticipated rhythm & blues. The selection became very popular, and so in 1944 Hampton recorded "Flying Home, Number Two" featuring Arnett Cobb. The song went on to become the theme song for all three men. Guitarist Billy Mackel first joined Hampton in 1944, and would perform and record with him almost continuously through the late 1970s.^[15] In 1947 he recorded "Stardust" at a "Just Jazz" concert with Charlie Shavers and Slam Stewart produced by Gene Norman.

From the mid-1940s until the early 1950s, Hampton led a lively rhythm & blues band whose Decca Records recordings included numerous young performers who later achieved fame. They included bassist Charles Mingus, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, guitarist Wes Montgomery, vocalist Dinah Washington and keyboardist Milt Buckner. Other noteworthy band members were trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Cat Anderson, and Kenny Dorham, trombonists Snooky Young and Jimmy Cleveland, and saxophonists Illinois Jacquet and Jerome Richardson.

The Hampton orchestra that toured Europe in 1953 included Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce, Anthony Ortega, Monk Montgomery, George Wallington, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, and singer Annie Ross. Hampton continued to record with small groups and jam sessions during the 1940s and 1950s, with Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Buddy DeFranco, and others. In 1955, while in California working on The Benny Goodman Story he recorded with Stan Getz and Art Tatum for Norman Granz as well as with his own big band.

Hampton performed with Louis Armstrong and Italian singer Lara Saint Paul at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival in Italy. The performance created a sensation with Italian audiences, as it broke into a real jazz session.^[16] That same year, Hampton received a Papal Medal from Pope Paul VI.

Later career[link]

President George W. Bush honors Lionel Hampton during a ceremony recognizing Black Music Month in the East Room of the White House on June 30, 2001.

During the 1960s, Hampton's groups were in decline; he was still performing what had succeeded for him during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. He did not fare much better in the 1970s, though he recorded actively on the Who's Who Record label.^[17]

Beginning in February 1984, Hampton and his band played at the University of Idaho's annual jazz festival, which was renamed the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival the following year. In 1987 the UI's school of music was renamed for Hampton, the first university music school named for a jazz musician.

Hampton remained active until a stroke in Paris in 1991 led to a collapse on stage. That incident, combined with years of chronic arthritis, forced him to cut back drastically on performances. However, he did play at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2001 shortly before his death.^[18][19][20]

Personal life[link]

On November 11, 1936, in Yuma, Arizona, Lionel Hampton married Gladys Riddle (c. 1910-1971).^[21] Gladys was Lionel's business manager throughout much of his career. Many musicians recall that Lionel ran the music and Gladys ran the business.

During the 1950s he had a strong interest in Judaism and raised money for Israel. In 1953 he composed a King David suite and performed it in Israel with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Later in life Hampton became a Christian Scientist.^[22] He had a love for puppies and in fact owned 30. He named half of them Bill and half Sharon. Hampton was a Thirty-third degree Prince Hall freemason in New York, also.^[23] In January 1997, his apartment caught fire and destroyed his awards and belongings; Hampton escaped uninjured.^[24]

The grave of Lionel Hampton

Lionel Hampton died from congestive heart failure on August 31, 2002 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York. His funeral was held on September 7, 2002 and featured a performance by Wynton Marsalis and David Ostwald's Gully Low Jazz Band at Riverside Church in Manhattan; the procession began at The Cotton Club in Harlem.^[25][26]

Charity[link]

Lionel Hampton Houses housing project in Harlem (far right). Photo by Jordan Davis

Hampton was deeply involved in the construction of various public housing projects, and founded the Lionel Hampton Development Corporation. Construction began with the Lionel Hampton Houses in Harlem, New York in the 1960s, with the help of then Republican governor Nelson Rockefeller. Hampton's wife—Gladys Hampton—also was very involved in construction of a housing project in her name—the Gladys Hampton Houses. Gladys died in 1971. In the 1980s, Hampton built another housing project called Hampton Hills in Newark, New Jersey.

Hampton was a staunch Republican and served as a delegate to several Republican National Conventions.^[27] He served as Vice-Chairman of the New York Republican County Committee for some years^[28] and also was a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission.^[29] Hampton donated almost $300,000 to Republican campaigns and committees throughout his lifetime.^[30]

Awards[link]

• 2001 - Harlem Jazz and Music Festival's Legend Award
• 1996 - National Medal of Arts presented by President Bill Clinton
• 1995 - Honorary Commissioner of Civil Rights by George Pataki
• 1995 - Honorary Doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music
• 1993 - Honorary Doctorate from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore
• 1992 - Inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
• 1992 - "Contributions To The Cultural Life of the Nation" award from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
• 1988 - The National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship
• 1988 - The National Association of Jazz Educators Hall of Fame Award
• 1987 - Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the University of Idaho - UI's School of Music renamed "Lionel Hampton School of Music."
• 1987 - The Roy Wilkins Memorial Award from the NAACP
• 1986 - The "One of a Kind" Award from Broadcast Music, Inc.
• 1984 - Jazz Hall of Fame Award from the Institute of Jazz Studies
• 1984 - Honorary Doctorate of Music from USC
• 1983 - The International Film and Television Festival of New York City Award
• 1983 - Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the State University of New York
• 1982 - Hollywood Walk of Fame Star
• 1981 - Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Glassboro State College
• 1979 - Honorary Doctorate of Music from Howard University
• 1978 - Bronze Medallion from New York City
• 1976 - Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Daniel Hale Williams University
• 1975 - Honorary Doctorate of Music from Xavier University of Louisiana
• 1974 - Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Pepperdine University
• 1968 - Papal Medal from Pope Paul VI
• 1966 - George Frederick Handel Medal
• 1957 - American Goodwill Ambassador by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
• 1954 - Israel's Statehood Award

Discography[link]

Compilations

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lionel Hampton Library Collection, part of the International Jazz Collections at the University of Idaho Library
• Christopher Popa, "Lionel Hampton: Music Was His Fountain of Youth," Big Band Library
• Interview with Lionel Hampton by Felix Grant in 1982
• Lionel Hampton's Gravesite
• Lionel Hampton: His Life and Legacy at University of Idaho
• Lionel Hampton at Drummersworld
• Gene Krupa - What's New(s)
• Lionel Hampton Band - Midnight Sun 1947, Decca 28059 on YouTube
• Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at University of Idaho
• Lionel Hampton at IMDB
• Official website of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
• Photos at Jazzhouse.org

Art Tatum
Art Tatum, 1946
Background information
Birth name	Arthur Tatum, Jr.
Born	(1909-10-13)October 13, 1909 Toledo, Ohio, U.S.
Died	November 5, 1956(1956-11-05) (aged 47)
Genres	Jazz, stride
Occupations	Jazz pianist
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1927–1956

Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind since birth.

Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time^[1] and he was a major influence on later generations of jazz pianists. He was noted for the complexity and speed of his performances, which set a new standard for jazz piano virtuosity. Critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Tatum's quick reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with fresh (and sometimes futuristic) ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries ... Art Tatum's recordings still have the ability to scare modern pianists."^[2]

Life and career[link]

Art Tatum, at the Vogue Room, New York (between 1946 and 1948)

For a musician of such stature, there is very little published information available about Tatum's life. Only one full-length biography has been published, Too Marvelous for Words, by James Lester.^[3] Lester interviewed many of Tatum's contemporaries for the book and drew from many articles published about him.

Early years[link]

Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio. His father, Arthur Tatum, Sr., was a guitarist and an elder at Grace Presbyterian Church, where his mother, Mildred Hoskins, played piano.^[4] He had two siblings, Karl and Arlene.^[5] From infancy he suffered from cataracts (of disputed cause) which left him blind in one eye and with only very limited vision in the other. A number of surgical procedures improved his eye condition to a degree but some of the benefits were reversed when he was assaulted in 1930 at age 20.^[6]

A child prodigy with perfect pitch, Tatum learned to play by ear, picking out church hymns by the age of three, learning tunes from the radio and copying piano-roll recordings his mother owned. In a Voice of America interview, he denied the widespread rumor that he learned to play by copying piano roll recordings made by two pianists.^[7] He developed an incredibly fast playing style, without losing accuracy. As a child he was also very sensitive to the piano's intonation and insisted it be tuned often.^[8] While playing piano was the most obvious application of his mental and physical skills, he also had an encyclopedic memory for Major League Baseball statistics.

In 1925, Tatum moved to the Columbus School for the Blind, where he studied music and learned braille. Subsequently he studied piano with Overton G. Rainey at either the Jefferson School or the Toledo School of Music. Rainey, who too was visually impaired, likely taught Tatum in the classical tradition, as Rainey did not improvise and discouraged his students from playing jazz.^[9] In 1927, Tatum began playing on Toledo radio station WSPD as 'Arthur Tatum, Toledo's Blind Pianist', during interludes in Ellen Kay's shopping chat program and soon had his own program.^[10] By the age of 19, Tatum was playing with singer Jon Hendricks, also an Ohioan, at the local Waiters' and Bellmens' Club.^[11] As word of Tatum spread, national performers passing through Toledo, including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Joe Turner and Fletcher Henderson, would make it a point to drop in to hear the piano phenomenon.

Musical career[link]

Tatum drew inspiration from the pianists James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, who exemplified the stride piano style, and from the more "modern" Earl Hines, six years Tatum's senior. Tatum identified Waller as his main influence, but according to pianist Teddy Wilson and saxophonist Eddie Barefield, "Art Tatum's favorite jazz piano player was Earl Hines. He used to buy all of Earl's records and would improvise on them. He'd play the record but he'd improvise over what Earl was doing ..... 'course, when you heard Art play you didn't hear nothing of anybody but Art. But he got his ideas from Earl's style of playing – but Earl never knew that."^[12] A major event in his meteoric rise to success was his appearance at a cutting contest in 1933 at Morgan's bar in New York City that included Waller, Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith. Standard contest pieces included Johnson's "Harlem Strut" and "Carolina Shout" and Fats Waller's "Handful of Keys." Tatum triumphed with his arrangements of "Tea for Two" and "Tiger Rag", in a performance that was considered to be the last word in stride piano. James P. Johnson, reminiscing about Tatum's debut afterward, simply said, "When Tatum played Tea For Two that night I guess that was the first time I ever heard it really played." ^[13] Tatum's debut was historic because he outplayed the elite competition and heralded the demise of the stride era. He was not challenged further until stride specialist Donald Lambert initiated a half-serious rivalry with him.

Tatum worked in New York at the Onyx Club for a few months and recorded his first four solo sides on the Brunswick label in March, 1933.^[5] He returned to Ohio and played around the American midwest in the mid-1930s and played on the Fleischman Hour radio program hosted by Rudy Vallee in 1935. He also played stints at the Three Deuces in Chicago and in Los Angeles played at The Trocadero, the Paramount and the Club Alabam.^[14] In 1937 he returned to New York where he appeared at clubs and played on national radio programs.^[11] The following year he embarked on the Queen Mary for England where he toured,^[15] playing for three months at Ciro's Club owned by bandleader Ambrose. In the late 1930s he returned to play and record in Los Angeles and New York.

1940s[link]

In 1941, Tatum recorded two sessions for Decca Records with singer Big Joe Turner, the first of which included "Wee Wee Baby Blues", which attained national popularity. Two years later Tatum won Esquire Magazine's first jazz popularity poll. Perhaps believing there was a limited audience for solo piano, Tatum formed a trio in 1943 with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart, whose perfect pitch enabled him to follow Tatum's excursions. Tatum recorded exclusively with the trio for almost two years, but abandoned the trio format in 1945 and returned to solo piano work. Although Tatum was idolized by many jazz musicians, his popularity faded in the mid to late forties with the advent of bebop - a movement which Tatum did not embrace.

The last two years of his life, Tatum regularly played at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, including his final public performance in April 1956.^[16] Earlier, Tatum had personally selected and purchased for Clarence Baker the Steinway piano at Baker's, finding it in a New York showroom, and shipping it to Detroit.^[17]

Death[link]

Art Tatum died at Queen of Angels Medical Center in Los Angeles, California from the complications of uremia (as a result of kidney failure). He was originally interred at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, but was moved to the Great Mausoleum of Glendale's Forest Lawn Cemetery in 1991^{[citation needed]}. He was survived by his wife, Geraldine Tatum. Geraldine died on May 4, 2010 in Los Angeles, and was interred beside Art at Forest Lawn Cemetery.^[18]

Style[link]

Tatum built upon stride and classical piano influences to develop a novel and unique piano style. He introduced a strong, swinging pulse to jazz piano, highlighted with spectacular cadenzas that swept across the entire keyboard. His interpretations of popular songs were exuberant, sophisticated, grandiose and intricate. Jazz soloing in the 1930s had not yet evolved into the free-ranging extended improvisations that flowered in the bebop era of the 1940s, 1950s and beyond. But jazz musicians were beginning to incorporate improvisation while playing over the chord changes of tunes, and Tatum was a leader in that movement. He sometimes improvised lines that presaged bebop and later jazz genres, although generally not venturing far from the original melodic line. Tatum embellished melodic lines, however, with an array of signature devices and runs that appeared throughout his repertoire. As he matured, Tatum became more adventurous in abandoning the written melody and elongating his improvisations.

Tatum's unique sound was attributable to his harmonic inventiveness as well as technical prowess. He was an innovator in reharmonizing melodies by changing the supporting chord progressions or by altering the root movements of a piece. This technique casts a familiar theme in a fresh light and gives the music an unexpected quality. Many of his harmonic concepts and larger chord voicings (e.g., 13th chords with various flat or sharp intervals) were well ahead of their time in the 1930s (except for their partial emergence in popular songs of the jazz age) and they would be explored by bebop-era musicians a decade later. He worked some of the upper extensions of chords into his lines, a practice which was further developed by Bud Powell and Charlie Parker, which in turn was an influence on the development of 'modern jazz'. Tatum also pioneered the use of dissonance in jazz piano, as can be heard, for example, on his recording of "Aunt Hagar's Blues",^[19] which uses extensive dissonance to achieve a bluesy effect. In addition to using major and minor seconds, dissonance was inherent in the complex chords that Tatum frequently used.

Tatum could also play the blues with authority. Pianist Jay McShann, not known for showering compliments on his rivals said "Art could really play the blues. To me, he was the world's greatest blues player, and I think few people realized that." ^[20] His repertoire, however, was predominantly Broadway and popular standards, whose chord progressions and variety better suited his talents. His approach was elaborate, pyrotechnic, dramatic and joyous. His protean style combined stride, jazz, swing, boogie-woogie and classical elements, while the musical ideas flowed in rapid-fire fashion. Benny Green wrote in his collected work of essays, The Reluctant Art, that "Tatum has been the only jazz musician to date who has made an attempt to conceive a style based upon all styles, to master the mannerisms of all schools and then synthesize those into something personal." ^[21] He was playful, spontaneous and often inserted quotes from other songs into his improvisations.^[22] Tatum was not inclined toward understatement or expansive use of space. He seldom played in a simplified way, preferring interpretations that displayed his great technique and clever harmonizations. When jazz pianist Stanley Cowell was growing up in Toledo, his father prevailed upon Tatum to play piano at the Cowell home. Stanley described the scene as, "Tatum played so brilliantly and so much . . . that I thought the piano was gonna break. My mother left the room . . . so I said 'What's wrong, Mama?' And she said 'Oh, that man plays too much piano.'" ^[23] A handful of critics, notably Keith Jarret, have complained that Tatum played too many notes^[24] or was too ornamental or was even 'unjazzlike'. Jazz critic Gary Giddins opined, "That is the essence of Tatum. If you don't like his ornament, you should be listening to someone else. That's where his genius is." ^[25]

From the foundation of stride, Tatum made great leaps forward in technique and harmony and he honed a groundbreaking improvisational style that extended the limits of what was possible in jazz piano. His innovations were to greatly influence later jazz pianists, such as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Billy Taylor, Bill Evans, Tete Montoliu and Chick Corea. One of Tatum's innovations was his extensive use of the pentatonic scale, which may have inspired later pianists to further mine its possibilities as a device for soloing. Herbie Hancock described Tatum's unique tone as "majestic" and devoted some time to unlocking this sound and to noting Tatum's harmonic arsenal.^[26]

The sounds that Tatum produced with the piano were also distinctive. It was said that he could make a bad piano sound good. Generally playing at mezzoforte volume, he employed the entire keyboard from deep bass tones to sonorous mid-register chords to sparkling upper register runs. He used the sustain pedal sparingly so that each note was clearly articulated and chords were cleanly sounded. He played with boundless energy and occasionally his speedy and precise delivery produced an almost mechanical effect not unlike the sound of a player piano.

Technique[link]

Critic Gunther Schuller declared, "On one point there is universal agreement: Tatum's awesome technique."^[27] That technique was marked by a calm physical demeanor and efficiency. He did not indulge in theatrical physical or facial expression. The effortless gliding of his hands over difficult passages puzzled most who witnessed the phenomenon. He especially mystified other pianists to whom Tatum appeared to be "playing the impossible."^[28] Even when playing scintillating runs at high velocity, it appeared that his fingers hardly moved. Hank Jones said, "When I finally met him and got a chance to hear him play in person, it seemed as if he wasn’t really exerting much effort, he had an effortless way of playing. It was deceptive. You’d watch him and you couldn’t believe what was coming out, what was reaching your ears. He didn’t have that much motion at the piano. He didn’t make a big show of moving around and waving his hands and going through all sorts of physical gyrations to produce the music that he produced, so that in itself is amazing. There had to be intense concentration there, but you couldn’t tell by just looking at him play."^[29] Using self-taught fingering, including an array of two-fingered runs, he executed the pyrotechnics with meticulous accuracy and timing. His execution was all the more remarkable considering that he drank prodigious amounts of alcohol when performing,^[30] yet his recordings are never sloppy. Tatum also displayed phenomenal independence of the hands and ambidexterity, which was particularly evident while improvising counterpoint. Jazz historian and commentator Ira Gitler declared that Tatum's "left hand was the equal of his right." ^[31] Around 1950 when Bud Powell was opening for Tatum at Birdland, Powell reportedly said to Tatum, "Man, I'm going to really show you about tempo and playing fast. Anytime you're ready." Tatum laughed and replied, "Look, you come in here tomorrow, and anything you do with your right hand, I'll do with my left." Powell never took up the challenge.^[32]

Tatum played chords with a relatively flat-fingered technique compared to the curvature taught in classical training. Composer/pianist Mary Lou Williams told Whitney Balliett, "Tatum taught me how to hit my notes, how to control them without using pedals. And he showed me how to keep my fingers flat on the keys to get that clean tone." ^[33] Jimmy Rowles said, "Most of the stuff he played was clear over my head. There was too much going on — both hands were impossible to believe. You couldn't pick out what he was doing because his fingers were so smooth and soft, and the way he did it — it was like camouflage."^[34] When his fastest tracks of "Tiger Rag" are slowed down, they still reveal a coherent, syncopated rhythm.

After hours[link]

Art Tatum headlining at the Famous Door nightclub on 52nd Street, May 1948

After regular club dates, Tatum would decamp to after-hours clubs to hang out with other musicians who would play for each other. Biographer James Lester notes that Tatum enjoyed listening to other pianists and preferred to play last when several pianists played. He frequently played for hours on end into the dawn, to the detriment of his marriages.^[30] Tatum was said to be more spontaneous and creative in those free-form nocturnal sessions than in his scheduled performances.^[30] Evidence of this can be found in the set entitled 20th Century Piano Genius which consists of 40 tunes recorded at private parties at the home of Hollywood music director Ray Heindorf in 1950 and 1955. According to the review by Marc Greilsamer, "All of the trademark Tatum elements are here: the grand melodic flourishes, the harmonic magic tricks, the flirtations with various tempos and musical styles. But what also emerges is Tatum's effervescence, his joy, and his humor. He seems to celebrate and mock these timeless melodies all at once."^[35]

Group work[link]

Tatum tended to work and to record unaccompanied, partly because relatively few musicians could keep pace with his fast tempos and advanced harmonic vocabulary. Other musicians expressed amazed bewilderment at performing with Tatum. Drummer Jo Jones, who recorded a 1956 trio session with Tatum and bassist Red Callender is quoted as quipping, "I didn't even play on that session [...] all I did was listen. I mean, what could I add? [...] I felt like setting my damn drums on fire."^[36] Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco said that playing with Tatum was "like chasing a train."^[31] Tatum said of himself, "A band hampers me."^[37]

Tatum did not readily adapt or defer to other musicians in ensemble settings. Early in his career he was required to restrain himself when he worked as accompanist for vocalist Adelaide Hall in 1932-33. Perhaps because Tatum believed there was a limited audience for solo piano, he formed a trio in 1943 with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart, whose perfect pitch enabled him to follow Tatum's excursions. He later recorded with other musicians, including a notable session with the 1944 Esquire Jazz All-Stars, which included Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and other jazz greats, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He also recorded memorable group sessions for Norman Granz in the mid-1950s.

Repertoire[link]

Tatum's repertoire consisted mainly of music from the Great American Songbook — Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and other popular music of the 20s, 30s and 40s. He played his own arrangements of a few classical piano pieces as well, most famously Dvořák's Humoresque no. 7 and Massenet's "Elegie". These interpretations are unsurpassed in conception and inventiveness by anything that has been recorded since^{[citation needed]}. Although Tatum was not known as a composer,^[38] his versions of popular numbers were so original as to border on composition.

Emulators[link]

Mainstream jazz piano has gone in a different direction than that pioneered by Tatum. Nevertheless, transcriptions of Tatum are popular and are often practiced assiduously.^[39] But perhaps because his playing was so difficult to copy, only a handful of musicians — such as Oscar Peterson, Johnny Costa, Johnny Guarnieri, Adam Makowicz, Luther G. Williams, Steven Mayer and Christopher Jordan, and, outside of the usual roster of jazz pianists, Andre Previn — have attempted to seriously emulate or challenge Tatum. Although Bud Powell was of the bebop movement, his prolific and exciting style showed Tatum influence.^{[citation needed]}

Recordings[link]

Tatum recorded commercially from 1932 until near his death. Although recording opportunities were somewhat intermittent for most of his career due to his solo style, he left copious recordings.^[40] He recorded for Decca (1934–41), Capitol (1949, 1952) and for the labels associated with Norman Granz (1953–56). Tatum demonstrated remarkable memory when he recorded 68 solo tracks for Norman Granz in two days, all but three of the tracks in one take. He also recorded a series of group recordings for Granz with, among others, Ben Webster, Jo Jones, Buddy DeFranco, Benny Carter, Harry Sweets Edison, Roy Eldridge and Lionel Hampton.

Film[link]

Although only a small amount of film showing Tatum playing exists today, several minutes of professionally-shot archival footage can be found in Martin Scorsese's documentary The Blues. Footage also appears in Ken Burns' documentary Jazz, which includes a short passage on Tatum's life and work, including comments from Jimmy Rowles and Gary Giddins. Tatum appeared in the 1947 movie The Fabulous Dorseys, first playing a solo and then accompanying Dorsey's band in an impromptu song.

Tatum appeared on Steve Allen's Tonight Show in the early 1950s, and on other television shows from this era. Unfortunately, all of the kinescopes of the Allen shows, which were stored in a warehouse along with other now defunct shows, were thrown into a local rubbish dump to make room for new studios. However, the soundtracks were recorded off-air by Tatum enthusiasts at the time, and many are included in Storyville Records extensive series of rare Tatum recordings.

Tatum is portrayed briefly (by actor Johnny O'Neill) in Ray, a 2004 biopic about R&B artist Ray Charles. When Charles enters a nightclub he remarks, "Are my ears deceiving me or is that Art Tatum?" O'Neill captures Tatum's cool and collected presence at the keyboard.

Legacy and tributes[link]

Tatum posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989.

Numerous stories exist about other musicians' respect for Tatum. Perhaps the most famous is the story about the time Tatum walked into a club where Fats Waller was playing, and Waller stepped away from the piano bench to make way for Tatum, announcing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house."^[41] Fats Waller's son confirmed the statement.^[42]

Charlie Parker (who helped develop bebop) was highly influenced by Tatum. When newly arrived in New York, Parker briefly worked as a dishwasher in a Manhattan restaurant where Tatum was performing and often listened to the legendary pianist. Parker once said, “I wish I could play like Tatum’s right hand!”^[43]

When Oscar Peterson was still a young boy, his father played him a recording of Art Tatum performing "Tiger Rag". Once the young Peterson was finally persuaded that it was performed by a single person, Peterson was so intimidated that he did not touch the piano for weeks.^[44] Interviewing Oscar Peterson in 1962, Les Tompkins asked, "Is there one musician you regard as the greatest?" Peterson replied, "I’m an Art Tatum–ite. If you speak of pianists, the most complete pianist that we have known and possibly will know, from what I’ve heard to date, is Art Tatum."^[45] "Musically speaking, he was and is my musical God, and I feel honored to remain one of his humbly devoted disciples."^[46]

"Here's something new .... " pianist Hank Jones remembers thinking when he first heard Art Tatum on radio in 1935, " .... they have devised this trick to make people believe that one man is playing the piano, when I know at least three people are playing."^[47]

The jazz pianist and educator Kenny Barron commented, "I have every record [Tatum] ever made — and I try never to listen to them … If I did, I'd throw up my hands and give up!"^[48] Jean Cocteau dubbed Tatum "a crazed Chopin." Count Basie called him the eighth wonder of the world. Dave Brubeck observed, "I don't think there's any more chance of another Tatum turning up than another Mozart."^[49] Pianist Mulgrew Miller, a noted fan of Tatum, commented on personal growth by saying, "When I talk to the people I admire, they're always talking about continuous growth and development and I look at them and say, 'Well...what are YOU going to do?' But, as Harold Mabern says, 'There's always Art Tatum records around'".^[50] Dizzy Gillespie said, "First you speak of Art Tatum, then take a long deep breath, and you speak of the other pianists."^[51]

The elegant pianist Teddy Wilson observed, "Maybe this will explain Art Tatum. If you put a piano in a room, just a bare piano. Then you get all the finest jazz pianists in the world and let them play in the presence of Art Tatum. Then let Art Tatum play ... everyone there will sound like an amateur."^[51]

Other luminaries of the day including Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Godowsky and George Gershwin marveled at Tatum's genius.^[30]

Jazz critic Leonard Feather has called Tatum "the greatest soloist in jazz history, regardless of instrument."^[51]

In 1993, J. A. Bilmes, a MIT student invented a term that is now in common usage in the field of computational musicology: The Tatum. It means "the smallest perceptual time unit in music" and is a tribute to Tatum's pianistic velocity.^[52]

The Toledo Jazz Society presents an annual event dedicated to Tatum entitled the Art Tatum Jazz Heritage Festival.^[53]

Zenph Studios, a software company focused on precisely understanding how musicians perform, recorded a new album of Tatum’s playing with Sony Masterworks in 2007. Using computer equipment coupled with an electronic incarnation of the player piano, they created re-performances of Tatum’s first four commercial tracks, from March 21, 1933, and the nine tracks from the April 2, 1949 live concert at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium. Sony recorded these anew in the same venue, in front of a live audience. These 13 tracks are on the album, Piano Starts Here: Live from The Shrine, which was recorded in high-resolution surround-sound and in binaural, as well as regular stereo. The binaural recording, when heard in headphones, let you hear what Tatum may have heard as he played on stage, with the piano spatially in front (bass on the left, treble on the right) and the live audience clearly downstage on the righthand side.^[54] Zenph’s re-performances have been performed live in numerous venues, including the Toronto Jazz Festival ^[55] and New York’s Apollo Theater. Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson requested a live presentation, which he heard in an emotional re-performance in his home in March 2007.

Tatum's work was used and referenced heavily in the WB TV series Everwood (2002–2006), with some actual sound recordings used and compositions being performed in concerts by Ephram Brown (portrayed by Gregory Smith) in select episodes. James Earl Jones' character Will Cleveland introduced these works to young Ephram, who was an aspiring pianist, in the second season episode "Three Miners From Everwood".

For his 2008 album Act Your Age, Gordon Goodwin wrote a new big band arrangement to accompany Zenph’s re-performance of “Yesterdays,” and the track was recognized with a Grammy Nomination for Best Instrumental Arrangement.^[56]

In 2009 in Toledo at the new Lucas County Arena a memorial was placed to Art Tatum.^[57]

Non pianist musicians influenced by Tatum's improvisational virtuosity include Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead who was quoted in the June 1985 edition of Frets Magazine as saying: "Art Tatum is my all-time favorite. Yeah, he’s my all-time favorite. He’s the guy I put on when I want to feel really small [laughs]. When I want to feel really insignificant [laughs]. He’s a good guy to play for any musician, you know. He’ll make them want to go home and burn their instruments. [Laughs.] Art Tatum is absolutely the most incredible musician – what can you say?"

Pianist Yuja Wang, herself an admirer of Tatum's improvisational freedom, has recorded his 1933 arrangement of Tea for Two in her album, Fantasia.^[58][59] This was included in the iTunes release of the album.^[60] She is also known to have played it as an encore during a concert in Avery Fisher Hall.^[61]

Discography[link]

• Art Tatum Piano Impressesions, ARA A-1, date unknown c.1940s
• Art Tatum Piano Solos, Asch 356, c.1945
• Footnotes to Jazz, Vol. 2: Jazz Rehearsal, II- Art Tatum Trio, Folkways Records, 1952
• Makin' Whoopee, Verve, 1954
• The Greatest Piano Hits of Them All, Verve, 1954
• Genius Of Keyboard 1954–56, Giants Of Jazz
• Still More of the Greatest Piano Hits of Them All, Verve, 1955
• More of the Greatest Piano Hits of All Time, Verve, 1955
• The Art Tatum-Ben Webster Quartet, Verve, 1956, reissued as The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Volume Eight, Pablo, 1975
• The Essential Art Tatum, Verve, 1956
• Capitol Jazz Classics - Volume 3 Solo Piano, Capitol M-11028, 1972
• Masterpieces, Leonard Feather Series MCA2-4019, MCA, 1973
• God is in the House, Onyx, 1973 [re-released on High Note, 1998]

• Piano Starts Here, Columbia, 1987
• The Complete Capitol Recordings, Vol. 1, Capitol, 1989
• The Complete Capitol Recordings, Vol. 2, Capitol, 1989
• Solos 1940, Decca/MCA, 1989

• The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 6, Pablo, 1990
• The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 7, Pablo, 1990
• The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 4, Pablo, 1990
• The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 2, Pablo, 1990
• The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 3, Pablo, 1990
• The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 1, Pablo, 1990
• Art Tatum at His Piano, Vol. 1, Crescendo, 1990
• The Complete Pablo Group Masterpieces, Pablo, 1990
• Classic Early Solos (1934–37), Decca Records, 1991
• The Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces, Pablo, 1991
• The Best of Art Tatum, Pablo, 1992
• Standards, Black Lion, 1992
• The V-Discs, Black Lion, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 1, Pablo, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 2, Pablo, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 3, Pablo, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 4, Pablo, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 5, Pablo, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 6, Pablo, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 7, Pablo, 1992
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 8, Pablo, 1992
• I Got Rhythm: Art Tatum, Vol. 3 (1935–44), Decca Records, 1993
• Fine Art & Dandy, Drive Archive, 1994
• The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 2, Pablo, 1994
• Marvelous Art, Star Line Records, 1994
• House Party, Star Line Records, 1994
• Masters of Jazz, Vol. 8, Storyville (Denmark), 1994
• California Melodies, Memphis Archives, 1994
• 1934–40, Jazz Chronological Classics, 1994
• 1932–44 (3 CD Box Set), Jazz Chronological Classics, 1995
• The Rococo Piano of Art Tatum, Pearl Flapper, 1995
• I Know That You Know, Jazz Club Records, 1995
• Piano Solo Private Sessions October 1952, New York, Musidisc (France), 1995
• The Art of Tatum, ASV Living Era, 1995
• Trio Days, Le Jazz, 1995
• 1933–44, Best of Jazz (France), 1995
• 1940–44, Jazz Chronological Classics, 1995
• Vol. 16-Masterpieces, Jazz Archives Masterpieces, 1996
• 20th Century Piano Genius (20th Century/Verve, 1996
• Body & Soul,Jazz Hour (Netherlands), 1996
• Solos (1937) and Classic Piano, Forlane, 1996
• Complete Capitol Recordings, Blue Note, 1997
• Memories Of You (3 CD Set) Black Lion, 1997
• On The Sunny Side Topaz Jazz, 1997
• 1944, Giants Of Jazz, 1998
• Standard Sessions (2 CD Set), Music & Arts, 1996 & 2002/Storyville 1999
• Piano Starts Here - Live at The Shrine (Zenph Re-Performance), Sony BMG Masterworks, 2008
• Art Tatum - Ben Webster: The Album (Essential Jazz Classics) 2009

Actress Tatum O'Neal states in her book A paper life that she was named for him.

Notes[link]

Tatum recorded commercially from 1932 until near his death. Although recording opportunities were somewhat intermittent for most of his career due to his solo style, he left copious recordings.[37] He recorded for Decca (1934–41)

References[link]

• Jed Distler (1981/1986) Art Tatum: Jazz Masters Series: intro and notes to Tatum Piano Transcriptions: Amsco Publications: ISBN 0-8256-4085-7
• James Lester (1994) Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-509640-1
• Gunther Schuller (1989) The Swing Era - The Development of Jazz 1930-1945, "Art Tatum" p 476-502, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-507140-5
• Riccardo Scivales (1998) The Right Hand According to Tatum, Ekay Music, Inc. ISBN 0-943748-85-2

External links[link]

• Art Tatum African American Resource Center
• JAZZ (Ken Burns) Artist Biography: Art Tatum
• NPR Jazz Profiles: Art Tatum
• NPR Music Artist Profile: Art Tatum

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011)

Buddy Rich
Buddy Rich at the Arcadia Ballroom in New York City in May 1947.
Background information
Birth name	Bernard Rich
Also known as	Traps the Drum Wonder (as a boy) and "B" (as an adult)
Born	(1917-09-30)September 30, 1917
Origin	Brooklyn, New York, US
Died	April 2, 1987(1987-04-02) (aged 69)
Genres	Jazz, big band, swing, bebop
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, bandleader, actor
Instruments	Drums, percussion
Years active	1919–1987
Associated acts	Joe Marsala Bunny Berigan Artie Shaw Tommy Dorsey Benny Carter Harry James Les Brown Frank Sinatra Charlie Ventura Jazz at the Philharmonic Nat King Cole Ella Fitzgerald Gene Krupa and Louis Armstrong
Website	http://www.buddyrich.com/

Bernard "Buddy" Rich (September 30, 1917 – April 2, 1987) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer"^[1] and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.

Early life[link]

Rich was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish vaudevillians Robert and Bess Rich.^[2] His talent for rhythm was first noted by his father, who saw that Buddy could keep a steady beat with spoons at the age of one. He began playing drums in vaudeville when he was 18 months old, billed as "Traps the Drum Wonder." At the peak of Rich's childhood career, he was reportedly the second-highest paid child entertainer in the world (after Jackie Coogan).^[3] At 11 he was performing as a bandleader. He received no formal drum instruction, and went so far as to claim that instruction would only degrade his musical talent. He also never admitted to practicing, claiming to play the drums only during performances^{[citation needed]} and was not known to read music. He expressed great admiration for, and was influenced by, the playing of Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Dave Tough, and Jo Jones, among others.^{[citation needed]}.

Jazz career[link]

Buddy Rich in New York City in August 1946.

Rich first played jazz with a major group in 1937 with Joe Marsala and guitarist Jack Lemaire. He then played with Bunny Berigan (1938) and Artie Shaw (1939), and even instructed a 14-year-old Mel Brooks in drumming for a short period when playing for Shaw.^[4] At 21, Rich participated in his first major recording with the Vic Schoen Orchestra (the band that backed the Andrews Sisters).^[5] In 1938, he was also hired to play in Tommy Dorsey's orchestra where he met and performed with Frank Sinatra. In 1942, Rich left the Dorsey band to join the United States Marine Corps. He rejoined the Dorsey group after leaving the Marines two years later. In 1946, Rich formed his own band with financial support from Sinatra, and continued to lead different groups on and off until the early fifties.^[6][7]

Buddy Rich performing with a jazz group in the 1940s.

In addition to Tommy Dorsey (1939–1942, 1945, 1954–1955), Rich also played with Benny Carter (1942), Harry James (1953-1956–1962, 1964, 1965), Les Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Jazz at the Philharmonic, as well as leading his own band and performing with all-star groups. In the early fifties Rich played with Dorsey and also began to perform with trumpeter Harry James, an association which lasted until 1966. In 1966, Rich left James in order to develop a new big band. For most of the period from 1966 until his death, he led successful big bands in an era when the popularity of big bands had waned from their 1930s and 40s peak. In this later period, Rich continued to play clubs but he had stated in multiple interviews that the great majority of his big band's performances were at high schools, colleges and universities, with club performances done to a much lesser degree. Rich also served as the session drummer for many recordings, where his playing was often much more understated than in his own big-band performances. Especially notable were Rich's sessions for the late-career comeback recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, on which he worked with pianist Oscar Peterson and his famous trio featuring bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis.

Drumming technique and well known performances[link]

Buddy Rich drumming at a concert in Cologne, Germany on March 3, 1977.

Rich's technique has been one of the most standardized and coveted in drumming. His dexterity, musicality of playing style, speed and smooth execution are considered "holy grails" of drum technique and have been considered next to impossible to duplicate. While Rich typically held his sticks using traditional grip, he was also a skilled "match grip" player, and was one of few drummers to master the one-handed roll on both hands. Some of his more spectacular moves are crossover riffs, where he would criss-cross his arms from one drum to another, sometimes over the arm, and even under the arm at great speed.

He often used contrasting techniques to keep long drum solos from getting mundane. Aside from his energetic explosive displays, he would go into quieter passages. One passage he would use in most solos starts with a simple single-stroke roll on the snare picking up speed and power, then slowly moving his sticks closer to the rim as he gets quieter and then eventually playing on just the rim itself while still maintaining speed. Then he would reverse the effect and slowly move towards the center of the snare while increasing power.

Rich also demonstrated incredible skill at brush technique. On one album, 1955's The Lionel Hampton Art Tatum Buddy Rich Trio, Rich plays brushes almost exclusively throughout.

Another Rich technique that few drummers have been able to perfect is the stick-trick – a fast roll performed by slapping two drumsticks together in a circular motion.

In 1942, Rich and drum teacher Henry Adler co-authored the instructional book Buddy Rich's Modern Interpretation of Snare Drum Rudiments, regarded as one of the more popular snare-drum rudiment books.^{[citation needed]}

One of Adler's former students introduced Adler to Rich. "The kid told me Buddy played better than [Gene] Krupa. Buddy was only in his teens at the time and his friend was my first pupil. Buddy played and I watched his hands. Well, he knocked me right out. He did everything I wanted to do, and he did it with such ease. When I met his folks, I asked them who his teacher was. 'He never studied,' they told me. That made me feel very good. I realized that it was something physical, not only mental, that you had to have."

In a 1985 interview^{[citation needed]}, Adler clarified the extent of his teacher-student relationship to Rich and their collaboration on the instructional book:

"I had nothing to do with [the rumor that I taught Buddy how to play]. That was a result of Tommy Dorsey's introduction to the Buddy Rich book," Adler said. "I used to go around denying it, knowing that Buddy was a natural player. Sure, he studied with me, but he didn't come to me to learn how to hold the drumsticks. I set out to teach Buddy to read. He'd take six lessons, go on the road for six weeks and come back. He didn't have time to practice."^{[citation needed]}

"Tommy Dorsey wanted Buddy to write a book and he told him to get in touch with me. I did the book and Tommy wrote the foreword. Technically, I was Buddy's teacher, but I came along after he had already acquired his technique."^{[citation needed]}

When asked about Rich's ability to read music, Bobby Shew, lead trumpeter in Rich's mid-60s big band replied,

"No. He’d always have a drummer there during rehearsals to read and play the parts initially on new arrangements... He’d only have to listen to a chart once and he’d have it memorized. We'd run through it and he'd know exactly how it went, how many measures it ran and what he'd have to do to drive it... The guy had the most natural instincts."^[8]

[edit] The West Side Story Medley

Perhaps his most popular later performance was a big band arrangement of a medley derived from the Leonard Bernstein classic West Side Story, first released on the 1966 album Buddy Rich's Swingin' New Big Band

The West Side Story medley is a complex and difficult-to-perform big-band arrangement which highlights Rich's remarkable ability to blend the rhythm of his drumming into his band's playing of the musical chart. Penned by Bill Reddie, Rich received the West Side Story arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's melodies from the famed musical in the mid-1960s and found it to be very challenging even for him. It consists of many rapid-fire time changes and signatures and took almost a month of constant rehearsals to perfect. It since became a staple in all his performances, clocking in at various lengths from seven to fifteen minutes. Bernstein himself had nothing but praise for it.^{[citation needed]} In 2002, a DVD was released called The Lost West Side Story Tapes that captured a 1985 performance of this along with other numbers.^[9] These tapes had been previously thought to have been lost in a fire. Rich's ability to create spontaneous drum solos that matched and melded with the musical intricacies and intensity of big band scores was chief among his musical brilliance.

[edit] Channel One Suite

After the West Side Story Medley, Rich's most famous performance was the Channel One Suite by Bill Reddie. Like the West Side Story Medley, the Channel One Suite generally was a quite long performance ranging from about 12 minutes to about 26 minutes and usually contained 2 or 3 drum solos. Although 26 minute performances of the Channel One Suite were not incredibly common, they were not unheard of. A recording of one of his live performances was released in 2006 which contained a 26 minute Channel One Suite.^[10]

In Italy, Rich's version of Winning the West was from 1973 to 1976 the musical theme of a weekly TV sports magazine broadcast, La domenica sportiva.

TV appearances[link]

In the 1950s, Rich was a frequent guest on The Steve Allen Show and other television variety shows.^[11] Beginning in 1962, Rich was also a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show, among others, and appeared with his Big Band on British television, on Michael Parkinson's talk show Parkinson and on the Terry Wogan Show (the last on October 29, 1986, only a few months prior to his death).^[12] Along with singer Buddy Greco and comedian George Carlin, Rich starred in a 1967 summer replacement television series called Away We Go.^[13] One of his most widely seen television performances was in a 1981 episode^[14] of The Muppet Show, where he engaged Muppet drummer "Animal" (played by Ronnie Verrell) in a drum battle. Rich also made guest appearances on the TV shows Here's Lucy and Hee Haw.

In an episode of Michael Parkinson's British talk show, Parkinson kidded Rich about his Donny Osmond kick, by claiming that Rich was the president of The Osmonds' fan club.^{[citation needed]}

Instruments[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Buddy was known as a performer and endorser of Slingerland Radio King, and Rogers Drums. He switched to Ludwig drums for much of the 1970s to the early 1980s. While recovering from a heart attack in 1959,^[15] Rich was presented with an original Slingerland Radio King 5X14 wood snare drum completely reconditioned by the Eames drum company. Later, a mismatched Radio King set was completely refurbished for Rich and he used that set right up to his death in 1987. His typical setup included a 14"X26" bass drum, 9"X13" mounted tom, two 16"X16" floor toms (although he rarely used the second tom where he would simply place a towel on the surface), and a 5"X14" snare drum. His cymbals were typically Zildjian consisting of standard 14" hi hats, 20" ride, either a 6" or 8" splash, two 18" crashes, and a 20" swish.

Personality[link]

Although Rich was usually helpful and friendly, he had a short temper. While he threatened many times to fire members of his band, he seldom did so, and for the most part he lauded his band members during television and print interviews. Dusty Springfield allegedly slapped Rich after several days of "putting up with Rich's insults and show-biz sabotage."^[16][17]

In the Beastie Boys song "Sabotage", the lyrics "I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle," referred to Rich's temper. Buddy Rich held a black belt in karate, as mentioned in a CNN television interview with Larry King, c. 1985.

Band member and lifelong friend David Lucas says that "Rich had a soft heart underneath it all. His favorite song was "It's Not Easy Being Green".

The tapes[link]

Rich's temper, mercurial attitude and imposing personality are documented in secret recordings that pianist Lee Musiker made during some of his tantrums on tour buses and backstage in the early 1980s.^[18] These recordings, long circulated in bootleg form, have done much to fuel the reputation of Rich's personality. The tapes were popular with comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who used three quotes from them more or less verbatim on Seinfeld:^[19]

• "If I have to tell you again, we're gonna take it outside and I'm gonna show you what it's like!" ("The Opposite")
• "This guy – this is not my kind of guy." ("The Understudy")
• "Then let's see how he does, up there, without all the assistance!" ("The Butter Shave")

On one recording, Rich threatens to fire Dave Panichi, a trombonist, for wearing a beard.^[20][21] Days before Rich died, he was visited by Mel Tormé, who claims that one of Rich's last requests was "to hear the tapes" that featured his angry outbursts.^{[citation needed]} At the time, Tormé was working on an authorized biography of Rich which was released after Rich's death, titled Traps, The Drum Wonder: The Life of Buddy Rich.

Death and legacy[link]

Buddy Rich remained active performing until the end of his life. On April 2, 1987, Rich died of heart failure following surgery for a malignant brain tumor. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. He was 69.

Since Rich's death, a number of memorial concerts have been held. In 1994, the Rich tribute album Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich was released. Produced by Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, the album features performances of Rich staples by a number of rock and jazz drummers such as Kenny Aronoff, Carl Palmer, Matt Sorum, Dave Weckl, Steve Gadd, Vinnie Colaiuta, Max Roach, Steve Smith, and Peart himself, accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band. A second volume was issued in 1997.

Discography[link]

Studio and live albums as leader or co-leader[link]

References[link]