EVENTS
Dartmouth House
PAST EVENTS REVIEWS
11 April
JAMES PEARSON
By Lucy Conlon
On 11 April James Pearson , Artistic Director at Ronnie Scott ’ s Jazz Club came to Dartmouth House to take us through 100 years of jazz piano with stories and anecdotes of what made these musicians the icons of jazz that they are today .
James started by playing Scott Joplin , whose composition “ the Maple Leaf Rag ” sold over a million copies in 1899 . “ Scott Joplin took rhythm and syncopated it which means as a pianist your hands are playing against each other … this became the basic art of rag time which was the earliest form of jazz piano as we know it ”. Jazz piano evolved like a tree which started with Scott Joplin and then became James P . Johnson and Jelly Role Morton , who is recognised as the one who ‘ invented ’ jazz . “ The guys we remember are the musicians who have either changed something or have added their own particular personality or stamp ”. James gives the example of Jelly Role Morton , who wrote a piece of music called Finger Buster which is similar to silent movie music . According to James Rag Time and Stride Piano have influenced nearly every pianist through the history of jazz piano .
“ One of the things about jazz piano is that out of all of the instruments it plays itself … the piano is probably the most versatile and richest out of all the instruments .” Soon after Stride Piano started , other musicians wanted to get involved with jazz piano and suddenly the bass player and others instruments incorporated themselves into the music . By this time the record industry was beginning to grow and personalities began to shine through . “ When I was younger , Fats Waller was the guy that got me into playing the jazz piano .” Fats Waller gave a certain character by talking to the audience while he was playing .
“ For me , jazz piano is all about the personalities and what they brought to the table ”. Another piano player many will have heard of is Erroll Garner . Erroll was one of the first guys to take jazz out of the nightclubs and into the concert arena . “ Another thing about Erroll is a thing I like to call ‘ Gruntology ’”. Gruntology happens in all spheres of music – it is the art of the grunt in the music .
By the late 1940s jazz moved to New York , where it was all happening in tiny jazz clubs . Thelonius Monk was probably the most idiosyncratic of all jazz pianists of that generation . He had the most obscure piano technique because he played with flat fingers . According to James , Monk changed the harmony of jazz .
James discussed what he described as “ the virtuouso pianists ” ( Art Taton and Oscar Peterson ). Art Taton transcended the gap between Fats Waller and Theoneous Monk , with him there was a new side to jazz music called the cutting contests . According to James no one apart from Oscar Peterson could come close to him as far as technique .
James was an amazing jazz pianist who not only entertained but educated the audience on the varieties in jazz piano . He left us with the thought that “ the hardest thing about jazz music for young musicians now is they never got to hear some of these legends live ”.
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