The record changer (Feb-Dec 1948)

9 erroll garner The piano style of Erroll Garner is one of the remarkable contradictions of contemporary jazz. Garner appears at a time when the prevailing trends are towards harmonic sophistication and technical attainment, and jazz is becoming progressively nervous ami cerebral. Moreover, Garner's style is a revolt against the piano style predominant for fifteen years, that of Hines and Wilson and its most fabulous exponent, Art Tat urn. Garner stands securely in the midst of the complexity and dazzling energy of modern jazz. Erroll Garner's music is simple. It is quiet and relaxed. It is always melodic. It is technically naive. It springs from the heart rather than the head. It is everything that the modern piano of Tatum, Nat Cole, Dodo Marmarosa, Thelonious Monk and Buddy Powell is not. As a historical phenomenon Erroll Garner is a throwback to the free-swinging, twohanded style of Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller. He might be called a modernized version of those great pianists. Like them, Garner uses his left hand to provide a constant rhythmic bass. He has not their power, hut his beat, while lighter and more tranquil, is nevertheless quite solid. Like Morton and Waller, his melody is subservient to harmony. Garner is one of the few contemporaries who thinks of his instrument not as an orchestral component but as a means of personal communication. Like Art Tatum, Garner plays we.1 in a small band. But he plays better in a trio, and still better alone. Erroll Garner's professional career has been -confined chiefly to club work. He was bom in Pittsburgh* June 15, 1921, and his interest in music began very early under the guidance of his father, a self-taught pianist. Garner says that he began playing at the age of three and has never stopped. The styles of other pianists never interested him and he never consciously tried to play like anyone. Today he is as unfamiliar with the mechanics of Tatum as with those of Jelly Roll Morton. What did interest him were the jazz bands, to which he listened arduously— Ellington, Basie, Goodman, Luncefortl, everything that swung and had an interesting sound. In working out his own stvle he sought one which would be full and polytonal, like an orchestra. But Erroll never studied formally or even learned to read music. * As were Earl Hines. Mary Lou Williams, Dodo Marmarosa. During his adolescent years Garner gigged around Pittsburgh with local bands, but his unorthodox background proved a handicap in the field, which was being invaded by young musicians of high technical abilities. Garner soon turned his back on orchestra work and began playing as a single. Between 1940 and 1944 he jobbed back and forth between Pittsburgh and New York, finally settling down for a two-year stay on 52nd Street where his fresh approach, modern palette and exceptional improvisatory powers won him ready acceptance. Garner worked Hollywood clubs in 1946 and 1947 and, as this is written, has just returned to 52nd Street where he leads his own trio with J. C. G. Heard and Oscar Pettiford. At the age of 28, Erroll Garner has established a firm place for himself and has the greater part of his career ahead of him. The records he has made in the past four years (he did not record before the first Petrillo ban) show progress towards instrumental mastery but no important shift in style. Garner's piano is a miniature orchestra which furnishes its own rhythm section and polyphony. By means of a very minimum of materials he achieves a variety of effects which include tonal texture and counterpoint. Garner's music is warm and friendly, graceful, insinuating and lyrical. Much of its beauty lies in the surface qualities, its fluidity and sparkling texture. The closest parallels in other arts are the novels of Marcel Proust, and the sensuous, dreamy piano music of Claude Debussy. As with Debussy, the listener has the same suggestion of extra-auditory sensation, as the touch of silk or the scent of perfume. Harmonically Garner is close to Debussy in his use of chromatics and sixth and ninth intervals. Garner's piano music differs from that of Debussy mainly because it is polyrhythmic. Garner not only swings freely, but his deeper rhythmics create suspense and climax. The intervals of ErroII's left hand chords are so arranged and the notes struck in such a way as to produce a guitar timbre. This effect softens his strong percussive quality and gives his bass a singing tone. Garner's right hand is very light and his sense of shading surpassed by no other pianist in jazz. Another unique quality of Garner's piano playing is his ability to play just behind the beat with his right hand, so that the beat always seems to be flowing under his music and drawing it irresistibly along. The Second in a Series of Discussions of Modern Music and Musicians by the "irst Major Critical Writer in This Field In common with all artists who rely on inspiration, Garner suffers from unevenness. When pianists like Tatum have off days, the public is seldom aware of them. But Garner's entirely subjective style responds to any disaffection of the player, and an "off day" is quite evident. His other faults are extrinsic. Technical limitations tend to make his style rigid. He is at home on ballads, mood pieces, blues and bounce tempos, but he does not play up tempos well. Transitory concessions to commercialism have been made by Garner with the usual unhappy results. His contract year with Mercury records produced mostly flowery and often effete renditions of Tin Pan Alley material. Soon after its termination Garner made some of his best records. Judged off records Garner's reputation depends upon a handful of sides which rank with the best of the decade. Night and Day in which he alternates beguine and jazz rhythms is evocative of Debussy's Puerto Del Vino and Morton's Creepy Feeling. Laura sets a standard for elegant rendition of a ballad. On Cool Blues Garner collaborates with Charlie Parker in communicating the timeless feeling of the blues in a modern idiom. The introduction to A Fantasie on Frankie and Johnny is an amazing statement of rhythmic and melodic suspense. Garner is not a musical dialectician, but a lyrical poet who expresses himself in a very direct and simple manner. His long, lone search has been for a transparent style which will permit him to communicate moods. Erroll Garner's recent New York opening (Erroll Garner Trio, Three Deuces) revealed even further mastery of his means of expression. His touch, and power of shading and coloring chords has become even greater and his relaxation is absolute. The choice of Pettiford on bass is particularly appropriate and results in many happy improvisations. Erroll is one of those well-adjusted and self-contained people who seem to move among the disturbing realities of their times with an unshakable detachment, like dream walkers. Garner is not a great musical thinker and even less an artist at grips with the conflicts of his day. He lives in a small, peaceful ivory tower and it is this private world that he shares with the listener. Musicians like Art Tatum and Charlie Parker are manifestations. of the turbulence of our contemporary life — Erroll Garner is an antidote for it.