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The Piano |
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in classical music. Believe me, Bnibeck is childish. In classical music he's childish, and it's the same in what he calls his jazz."
According to John Mehegan, the jazz pianist and critic, "Dave is not by jazz standards a good pianist although he somewhat makes up for this by his excellent musicianship ... in his album Brubeck Plays Brubeck there is not one swinging moment on the entire record . . . the much-touted lessons with Schoenberg and Milhaud are not evident in the rather senile romanticism of Dave's playing."
Steve Race, the distinguished British composer, pianist and critic, wrote in the London Melody Maker: "Brubeck does his exploring and discovering not in some remote atonal language but in the most time-honored musical tongue of all. The great challenge, which most innovators shirk, is to play a new game on old ground. The old ground here is tonality . . . Brubeck is the most uniquely significant jazzman of our time. In him, I believe, lies the future of a large part of our music and of a tiny but important corner of the world's culture/*
No such differences exist among the reactions to Erroll Garner. First heard in New York in 1944, already building the style he has now brought to perfection, he has become a universal favorite of fans, musicians and critics. Garner's regally emphatic touch and right-hand rubato are among the most personal of his many attributes; others are the use of a guitar-like strumming of chords with the left hand, the use of spread chords on ballads, and the ability to propel his right hand through a lengthy passage of eighth notes at a breakneck tempo while scattering chords like seeds. Often likened to an imp or sprite in tribute to his visual as well as his musical personality, Garner, like Brubeck, uses few original compositions, preferring to improvise on popular songs. Because his beat is uniquely compelling and his harmonic approach less complex, he has enjoyed even greater popular success than Brubeck.
Oscar Peterson, a more recent arrival than Garner, was known only in his Canadian bailiwick until Norman Granz brought him to New York for a concert in 1949. The Peterson style is a constantly swinging synthesis of some of the Wilson-era elements, played with more attack, blended with harmonic knowl- |
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