{"id":97751,"date":"2016-06-13T09:44:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T09:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/6toplists.com\/?p=97751"},"modified":"2016-06-13T09:52:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T09:52:44","slug":"the-top-6-jazz-pianists-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/6toplists.com\/?p=97751","title":{"rendered":"The Top 6 Jazz Pianists of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

-Chick Corea<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what’s really inside, it’s just not going to be there.\u201d<\/em>[CustomTables]<\/strong><\/p>\n

-Herbie Hancock<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It started in the early years<\/strong> of the 20th century, with the coming-together of several musical strands. A crucial one was the vocal tradition of plantation work songs, spirituals, and the blues. The 12-bar blues<\/a> fueled the fundamentals of the hard-driving<\/strong> boogie-woogie piano style. Other key elements that turned jazz from a quirky local hybrid into a worldwide craze were brass bands, the adapted classical music<\/strong> of New Orleans’ French-educated Creole population<\/a>, and ragtime piano.<\/p>\n

Ragtime was an African-American makeover<\/strong> of European waltz and march themes, syncopated or “ragged” so that the beat of the right-hand melody fell between the steadily marching<\/strong> pulse of the left rather than on top of it. The effect was to create what Scott Joplin<\/a> – the “King of Ragtime” – described as “weird and intoxicating”.<\/p>\n

With the exception of players like Thelonious Monk<\/a> or Art Tatum<\/a>, piano players don’t quite have the name recognition<\/strong> of their horn playing counterparts. All the same, these ivory ticklers play an equally essential\u00a0role in jazz. One of the most significant innovations in the early history of jazz music was the dramatic transformation<\/strong> of piano playing that took place as jazz migrated from New Orleans to Chicago to New York, the capital of ragtime.<\/p>\n

In 1920, as the 25-year old fad of ragtime was beginning to wane and the blues was becoming the new craze<\/strong>, New York’s jazz pianist began to blend blues and ragtime. The sound that resulted from that fusion was dense and loud<\/strong>, and came to be called “stride” piano.<\/p>\n

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The place where the synthesis took place might actually have been Atlantic City<\/a>. Before World War I that was the city where pianists from all over the country converged<\/strong> during the summer to entertain the guests of the various establishments of the red-light district<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Pianists who performed in Atlantic City included Eubie Black from Baltimore (from 1906), Luckey Roberts from Philadelphia, Willie “The Lion” Smith and James Johnson (1914) from New York.<\/p>\n

When the summer season<\/strong> was over, most of these pianists would move to Harlem<\/a>, the black ghetto of New York, where an entire subculture of night-clubs for black people was booming. In the 1920s, following the vogue of blues<\/strong> music, Harlem was invaded by the white tourists, who came to check out the exotic music of the blacks. So those clubs (and their performers) began to cater<\/strong> to a white audience.<\/p>\n

Their authentic black-piano experience<\/strong> (and innovation) moved to the “rent parties”, i.e. parties meant to raise money to pay rent, that became extremely popular<\/strong> after the end of World War II among poor black tenants of Harlem. Those were the years when “stride” piano came into its own.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia-born Charles Roberts<\/a> \u201cLuckey\u201d\u00a0was in many ways the “founder” of the New York school of pianists<\/strong>. He was the first Harlem pianist to be published (Junk Man Rag<\/a><\/em>, 1913) and recorded (october 1916). His most famous and difficult tune<\/strong> was Ripples of the Nile<\/em>(1912), reworked as Moon Light Cocktail <\/em>(may 1942) for Glenn Miller. He also composed classical music: a three-movement<\/strong> Spanish Suite <\/em>(1939), and the “miniature syncopated rhapsody” for piano and orchestra Whistlin’ Pete <\/em>(1941).<\/p>\n

Jazz music appropriated<\/strong> the instruments that were popular in the community, such as the brass bands of New Orleans. New York (and particularly Harlem, which\u00a0was rapidly becoming a black ghetto) did not have a musical culture based on brass bands<\/strong> but rather one based on the piano, an instrument that had become extremely popular<\/strong> everywhere during the first decade, and even so in the big cities of the Northeast.<\/p>\n

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Of course, ragtime was the main driver<\/strong> for piano sales in New York. Ragtime pianist and composer Eubie Blake <\/a>best represents the link between ragtime and “stride”.<\/p>\n

The latter was a style that developed in response to the need of providing both rhythm and melody<\/strong>: the left hand was in charge of the beat, but it was allowed to “stride” all over the keyboard to enliven the piece, while the right hand improvised difficult melodic figures<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Stride piano produced an “orchestral” sound, the sound of pianists who could not afford a backing band<\/strong>.\u00a0Despite the brisk pace and the syncopation, stride piano was also important in providing the foundations to bring jazz and classical music. These pianists were aware of and intrigued by the European musical tradition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Kansas City<\/a> bandleader Count Basie played piano like a bluesier<\/strong> – and more tightly edited – Waller, while Ohio’s Art Tatum resembled a faster and more torrentially virtuosic one. Tatum, who was active between the late 1920s and 1957, is widely regarded as the most technically complete<\/strong> jazz pianist ever. He has few peers, including\u00a0the recently departed Canadian legend Oscar Peterson<\/a>, the Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander<\/a>, and the most formidable yet relaxed virtuoso, Errol Garner<\/a>.\u00a0Bebop, a more intense, technical and harmonically subtle approach, turned everything in jazz on its head<\/strong> in the early 1940s.<\/p>\n

By 1960 rock had displaced<\/strong> jazz’s dominance of pop. Jazz hit back by adopting rock and funk<\/strong> rhythms – particularly in Hammond organ<\/a> bands led by virtuosi including bop-pianist-turned-organ-blaster Jimmy Smith<\/a>. Jazz’s admission of the Hammond, with its what-the-hell, sound-generating openness, opened the genre<\/strong> up to Moog synthesisers, computer music and more.<\/p>\n

Herbie Hancock began playing Fender’s chiming Rhodes<\/a> keyboard on Miles Davis records in the late 1960s, and the instrument – with exponents such as Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul – dominated the jazz-rock<\/strong> style throughout the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Let’s investigate now the top 6 jazz pianists of all time:<\/p>\n

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6. Oscar Peterson<\/h2>\n

Born in Montreal<\/a>, Canada on August 15, 1925, Oscar Peterson was a famous jazz pianist in the 1950s, \u201860s and \u201870s. He moved to the U.S. in 1949 and appeared at Carnegie Hall<\/a> and began touring<\/strong> with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe. He teamed up<\/strong> with some of the best jazz musicians at the time. His recordings won eight Grammy Awards<\/strong>. He performed publically until 2006 and died one year later.<\/p>\n