Heard that a college professor had coined this word to mean the smallest unit of time perceivable to the human brain. Brilliant I thought, and perhaps a candidate for WWTD. The term is an eponym from the blind jazz pianist, Art Tatum. Anyone know him? I didn't until hearing about him recently. He was famous for playing horrendous numbers of accidentals between the notes of standard songbook melodies. His illustrious friends preferred to call him just plain 'God'.
Sorry that's 'wwftd', of course.
Yes, I listened to Art Tatum and most of that generation of jazz musicians. Fats Waller, Art Blaky , Sten Getz, all those illustrious names. ( maybe spelled wrong)
But would that tatum or smallest unit of time percievable to the human brain be absolute or would it differ with each individual's brain? Is the human brain or just human brains?
my tatum is bigger than your tatum.
and that's no small potatums.
I dont't doubt it. ;>-,)
So I say potaitums and you say potaatums?
But,business: Tatums little cosmic joke was that early this morning, in a classic radio- channel program, a well know Dutch musician who could present his favorites and talk about it, also had a small Jazz issue . Before he announced his favorite I knew it would be Tatum. As it was. Oh, that's isn't cosmic, that's downright psychic. It was a 1955-take he offered: Begin the Beguin. (start of the day)!!
I hadn't thought of Art Tatum since 1960 till yesterday's topic and Jazz is rarely mentioned in this classic program.
Presentator added anecdote: Horowitz was his great admirer and they met several times. Horowitz asked if he could try to play one of Tatums pieces which he got and he studied it note by note and performed at Tatums place exactly like Tatum did. Tatum's reaction was: 'Fantstic! Now , you see, you could also still do it this way: he set down and played the piece in a variation that was even far greater than the first version.
Horowitz never came back .