Best Jazz Pianist Ever

**targuit** · 09-09-2014, 05:31 AM

Tonight I was listening and playing along with the great Red Garland. He is not an Art Tatum at the piano. But his interpretations of the standards just please me and are so lyrical. Red was so laid back and cool. For all the fireworks and virtuosity of OP, sometimes I just like to dream along with Red. Like a narcotic. Ease your pain...and of course he played with Trane.

I'm going to adapt a couple of his arrangements for guitar and vocals for My Romance, Over the Rainbow, and Since I Fell For You. Love his ballads.

**Greentone** · 09-09-2014, 06:20 AM

+1 on Red Garland.

**henryrobinett** · 09-09-2014, 07:17 AM

I love Red Garland. I've done several ear transcriptions of solos with Miles. Great and tricky. For some reason trickier than the Coltrane solos in the same tunes. Didn't sound that way.

**Greentone** · 09-09-2014, 07:34 AM

I think henryrobinett is correct in this analysis. Why hasn't Garland gotten the full measure of respect he is due? He seems to have been eclipsed by other pianists of the era.

Funny, I suspect that other instrumentalists than pianists give Garland the nod. It's the same with Grant Green. For years, guitarists raved about Green's contemporaries, but not Green. Yet, if you asked a horn player, they would all say Green had it going on.

**Greentone** · 09-09-2014, 07:40 AM

Henry,

I think the non-drummer trio goes back to Tatum and Cole. They each featured the guitar. In Tatum's case it was Tiny Grimes on tenor guitar--which worked very well with Tatum's use of all 88 keys. Grimes was a master of small chord forms, like Freddie Green. You really only need four strings for that.

As I have expressed elsewhere, I greatly enjoy the guitar/piano trios. I also greatly enjoy the sax/guitar/bass or sax/guitar/trombone trios that Jimmy Giuffre and Jim Hall worked in during the 50s.

If you are really unsure about guitar and piano, check out the Jim Hall and Bill Evans Duo work. Marvelous. Were there ever two more sensitive jazz musicians?

All this said, Thigpen was masterful.

**Nighthawks** · 09-09-2014, 10:21 AM

I think Bill Evans, but not only as Best Jazz Pianist Ever... Best Improvizational Musician of the 20th Century.

**henryrobinett** · 09-09-2014, 10:53 AM

Greentone - I'm not at all unsure of the non-drummer trios and am very familiar with the duets of Bill Evans and Jim Hall. Very nice. I just love drummers and what they bring to the table. I love the interplay with the drums. I can't help missing them. It always sounds empty to me. And I'm very well aware of Tatum/Cole. Those were two of OP's biggest influences. But I still prefer the trios with Thigpen and Brown. Its just so solid in ways the guitar/Bass trios can't be - IMHO.

**henryrobinett** · 09-09-2014, 10:54 AM

Oh, and most of the jazz pianists I know love Garland. They've all studied his block chords and his approach to comping. Very big in the jazz pianist world I've found.

**ah.clem** · 09-09-2014, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

Greentone - I'm not at all unsure of the non-drummer trios and am very familiar with the duets of Bill Evans and Jim Hall. Very nice. I just love drummers and what they bring to the table. I love the interplay with the drums. I can't help missing them. It always sounds empty to me. And I'm very well aware of Tatum/Cole. Those were two of OP's biggest influences. But I still prefer the trios with Thigpen and Brown. Its just so solid in ways the guitar/Bass trios can't be - IMHO.

While Scott LaFaro is a personal hero, I can't imagine the Vanguard sessions without Paul Motian - the interplay between the three of them was pretty much unheard in piano trios up until they hit the scene with the Bill Evans Trio. It's not surprising that Evans stopped playing for so long after LaFaro was killed. So much music came from that man and his associations. Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro were amazing together - Paul Motian made it more than a trio - it was a three-way conversation. Obviously, just my opinion.

**Greentone** · 09-09-2014, 04:46 PM

+1 Paul Motian. I concede. The best trio ever was Motian, LeFaro, and Evans.

**Captain Caravelle** · 09-11-2014, 09:20 PM

Wow!....leave the room for a minute and look what happens....lol!

Great picks all guys!
Oscar is still my #1....my goal when I started playing jazz was to solo on a guitar like Oscar soloed on piano.
Still working on it.....but yes...Red garland, Bill Evans, Tommy Flanagan, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea....
So many great players.....so little time.

Thanks kindly for chiming in...keep 'em coming!

**Stevebol** · 04-05-2015, 05:53 PM

The best I ever heard was Al Tinney.

**fep** · 04-05-2015, 10:09 PM

Well, Oscar Peterson thought Tatum was the best of all time...

Oscar Peterson cited Tatum as one of the most "intimidating" pianists, and said that "there wasn't a jazz pianist of the era who wasn't influenced by him".

Peterson also stated that, "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." "Musically speaking, he was and is my musical God, and I feel honored to remain one of his humbly devoted disciples."

**rickshapiro** · 04-06-2015, 08:17 AM

Look, all the players mentioned here are brilliant. What OP had was the effortness that made it seem he was channeling something from a higher power. Tone, technique and phrasing was also flawless. He was able to mix stride, blues, bop at a whim. He also connected well with his audience.

**Jonah** · 04-07-2015, 03:26 AM

Piano has so many advantages.... seems to have problem with intonations other jazz instruments do not have... pianists have to solve it somehow...

I love Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Sonny Clark... I respect many players of which I cannot say I will listne to them over and over again...
I love also old stride players - Nat King Cole could really do it... I love his recotdings with Lester Young the best in trio (without bass - Buddy Rich on drums?)

I cannot mention all of them...

Bu there are two that I can come back to ever.. Evans for sure - he did not just brought some ideas oustisde of jazz to jazz practice... what he did is he made piano jazz expressive instrument with means of piano... he is not making lines even when he does actually: he is somehow outlining architecturing the musical space in all dimensions - up, down, forward - backward... it is not only improtant for development of jazz means and piano playing.. but for it is just very fascinating...

And another one is Monk... I am not sure if anybody did it .. at least I never heard... he combines two qualities: he plays piano as if he just occasionally found it in a garbage on the street and began to play, his phrasing is not even phrasing it is real pronunciation, speach - he really speaks clearly and with so much tenderness, humour, sarcasm and sometimes pain, surprise ... his piano is really a voice, far cry - like a big sax or if Bessie Smith were a choire... on the other side he is modern and exquisite and pianistic - he knows the tools to make piano sound the way he needs.. his solo recitals combines that feel of wild directness with almost 'aristocratic salon' playing... he is a bit like Chopin pleasuring sophisticated lady at the party and at the same time mocking them ...

**GuyBoden** · 04-07-2015, 10:39 AM

I like Stan Tracey's use of space on this UK Jazz classic:

**Captain Caravelle** · 04-07-2015, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by grahambop

Not quite accurate - Oscar recorded with Bird on the Verve sessions in 1952. And he definitely played with Coltrane at least once:

One of my fave Peterson sides with Parker is Night And Day...

So many great players here on one list....
Oscar is still and always be "the man" in my books but only in a technicality sense. All of the players mentioned here are awesome, legendary greats....

**Jonah** · 04-07-2015, 11:53 AM

Oscar recorded with Bird on the Verve sessions in 1952

Oscar played Everything Happens To Me on Ballad medly with gentlest touch ever possible.. this moved to pick on piano when I was aonly begiinig to get interested in jazz...

**Doctor Jeff** · 04-07-2015, 02:18 PM

No doubt in my mind that Art Tatum was the best jazz pianist who ever lived, maybe the best player ever to touch a keyboard. Listen to his recording of Jitterbug Waltz and tell me someone else could outplay that.

Oscar Peterson would be a close second. While Oscar can play stride (and pretty much any style) with ease, he tends to be more bluesy and melodic than Tatum, who usually throws the melody around like a cat playing with a mouse. I have always found Peterson to be a graceful accompanist, kind of like Joe Pass. I've heard quite a few recordings with singers where he doesn't get in the way of the soloist at all.

Interesting story about AT/OP, from Wikipedia:

"One of his [OP's] first exposures to Tatum's musical talents came early in his teen years when his father played a recording of Tatum's "Tiger Rag" for him, and Peterson was so intimidated by what he heard that he became disillusioned about his own playing, to the extent of refusing to play the piano at all for several weeks. In his own words, "Tatum scared me to death," and Peterson was "never cocky again" about his mastery at the piano. Tatum was a model for Peterson's musicianship during the 1940s and 1950s. Tatum and Peterson eventually became good friends, although Peterson was always shy about being compared with Tatum and rarely played the piano in Tatum's presence."

Thank God there are so many good pianists. As far as modern players, I like Jarrett, whose fearlessness and invention set him apart from other players as much as his technical skill. Interestingly I saw him play a Mozart concerto about 25 years ago when he was in his classical phase--have never seen him live playing jazz.

**sgcim** · 04-07-2015, 07:43 PM

I was amazed to read an interview Ethan Iverson did with Fred Hersch on jazz pianists and find that they wouldn't even take OP seriously as a jazz pianist!
While I personally don't like some of OP's periods, I find that his up tempo stuff from the late 50s to early 70s has never been equaled.
As far as 'best pianist ever', I don't think that I can answer that, because of the sheer number of great pianists.

**docbop** · 04-07-2015, 08:07 PM

For me it's between McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. Herbie spans so many decades and playing with everyone, multiple styles of music, and being a Jazz ambassador to get Jazz bring Jazz to others. McCoy is just so great all his playing with Coltrane and since then.

Reality there is not just one Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett are two more that really had a great influence on Jazz.

**goldenwave77** · 04-07-2015, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by dasein

oscar peterson is great, but there's a reason that his great groups don't usually have drummers (and if they do, they're not too busy).

that clip with oscar peterson playing with Coltrane is a prime example. when Coltrane is soloing, Oscar does not stop playing the piano for even an instant

The reason Oscar Peterson is not the greatest jazz pianist ever, IMO, is that his groups are far from the greatest. He may be very good at playing the piano is a jazz style--but Tatum could play rings around him. Tatum also was not a fellow who brought out the best in other musicians---they were 2nd bananas to his playing. (I also think Tatum's playing sometimes is not even improvisation--but rather incredibly ornamented and curlicued elaborations of the main work. It is almost as if his technical facility, and desire to show it, gets in the way of his saying anything authentic.)

I vote for Earl Hines. He practically invented modern jazz piano, but is neglected. His work with Louie A. was groundbreaking and important. As a big band leader in the 30's and 40's, he was sympathetic to, and helped to nurture the nascent be boppers. He continued to record into his 70's, and a lot of people think the stuff that he did in his later years, after the advent of the LP record, surpassed his earlier output. I think he was also a capable and underrated arranger.

I'm told that a lot of pianists find Oscar P.'s stuff to be very predictable: To be honest, I can't listen to a whole album of his without my attention flagging---the sense of group dynamics and interaction is just not there. Horace Silver, is the other end of the spectrum----really much simpler and funkier---but his bands cooked, and created excitement on the bandstand....at least to me. Also his compositions are really memorable, and catchy---even to non-jazz fans, which is kind of an important indicator in my book.

Bill Evans' work also has this quality: I think for Oscar P. his most important tool/resource were the 88 keys in front of him, whereas with Bill E. it was the other human beings he was playing with. (Motian, LeFaro, Tony Bennett, or Jim Hall, being examples)

**mr. beaumont** · 04-07-2015, 08:55 PM

If you think Tyner's left hand is boring, you haven't transcribed it.

**Patrick2** · 04-07-2015, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

If you think Tyner's left hand is boring, you haven't transcribed it.

Wow! And here I thought I was the only one who felt that way. The boring repetion of his left hand would sometimes drive me to thinking . . "please . . do something different". But, then other times I'd hear him play and realize that what I had heard in other songs was not due to any lacking in capability. Sometimes his left hand really comp'd beautifully. Other times it sounded like they just couldn't find anything else to play. But, hey . . I'm just a sub novice jazz guitarist being critical of a master jazz pianist. That in itself is kinda silly.