They were probably about equals when it comes right down to it. Though, to be fair, I believe Tatum and Lambert went sort of "back and forth" on a few occasions, where Tatum won some battles and Lambert won others.
I read another description of the same battle where it said that "he tore Tatum to bits," which may have been a bit of an exaggeration. Not only did Lambert beat him, but it also seems from the description that Tatum was in pretty good form that night.
BIGGEST RAGTIME ARTISTS PROFESSIONAL
He asked Don Lambert to team up with him as a professional piano duet, but Don said, 'No. I'll show you how it should be done.' Then Lambert sat down and played twenty-four different choruses of Grieg's 'Anitra's Dance.' Art Tatum declared himself beaten. When he had listened to Tatum for a while, Don said, 'A person has to excuse you, seeing that you don't see so well. Finally one of them said, 'Let's go get the Lamb.' So Willie Gant was sent to Newark in a cab to get Lambert out of bed. "One night Tatum outdid them all by doing tunes in their respective styles better than they could. Here's the passage, and this is actually from that book "Stride!" I mentioned: Quote from: Brian Healey on February 22, 2005, 03:35:13 AM It's definitely a good read and it has great musical examples too. There is a book called "Stride!" (I forget the author's name), which I think is probably the best resource on the subject. He was to piano players what Louis Armstrong was to horn players. However, The Lamb was a recluse, and wasn't the prolific recorder/performer that Tatum was, so we don't talk about him much (or even at all) today.īut really everybody during that time learned everything from James P. I wrote a thesis on stride piano last year for my master's research class, and I remember reading one account of a cutting contest (a one on one competition) between The Lamb and Tatum, and apparently The Lamb tore Tatum to bits.
Tatum was certainly an accomplished stride pianist, but his style really went beyond the stride idiom.Īnd actually, among the pianists themselves, a man named Donald "The Lamb" Lambert was considered the king. Just as Johnson served as a bridge, Tatum bridged the gap between stride and more modern styles. Johnson is usually credited with being the "link," so to speak between the styles of ragtime and stride, which incidentally are very similar (it's really a fine line).Īrt Tatum actually isn't usually grouped into the stride genre. Yes, Johnson was one of the originators of stride, but he was also very accomplished at playing ragtime, in fact much of what he played was actually ragtime. Well, I hate to nit-pick also, but Joplin is the most reknowned composer of ragtime, not neccessarily the king of ragtime in terms or performance.
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