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Videos to dive deeper into Jazz History.
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Masters of Classic Piano Teaching.

Art Tatum, Sergej Rachmaninov and Vladimir Horowitz have met and knew each other. Rachmaninov said to Horowitz: 'If Art Tatum decides to play classical piano we are all in trouble'.
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Art Tatum: Documentary
History of the Blues, Part 1 & 2 and Robert Johnson

 

Bill Evans

'playing Jazz is not an intellectual process. You use your intellect to take apart the materials and learn to understand them and learn to work with them. But actually it takes years and years of playing to develop the facility so that you can forget all of that.

Bill Evans Trio, at Ilkka Kuusisto's home, Lauttasaari, Helsinki, Finland, October 1970 (colorized) This Finish composer bought this home from the designer Tapio Wirkkala who designed there beautiful and famous glasswork.

Helsinki October 2021
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Finland's national broadcasting company, YLE, broadcasted this performance with Evans in, I think, last July (2007). I had never heard about it before. Bill and his trio played at Ilkka Kuusisto's house in Lauttasaari, Helsinki.

Ilkka Kuusisto is a Finnish composer, and his two sons are famous violinists. Ilkka played some jazz on his spare time. His son Pekka Kuusisto is the first Finnish violinist who has won the Sibelius violin contest. Pekka has also played with, for example, finnish jazz trio Trio Töykeät, with Iiro Rantala playing the piano. Iiro is one of Finland's greatest jazz pianists. And has a great sense of humour. His current trio has a guitar player and a beat box. Yes, a beat box! That's crazy, but somehow it works. Yes, I was in heaven when I happened toturn on my TV last summer. I couldn't believe that this video existed, or that Bill had even been to Finland!

Of course he travelled to Sweden many times, and that's obvious, because we [the Finnish people] always lose to Sweden in some way. May it be ice hockey or sense of fashion. The best thing about this video might be the fact how happy Bill seems to be. He's joking and smiling. With the performances, you can sense there's a bit of tension in the air, but when the last piece, Nardis, ends, people start to clap and Bill cannot help smiling. That's mega- awesome. Unfortunately there's few seconds missing in that YouTube clip, but you get the idea.

Before the 1970 footage, YLE showed a new Ilkka Kuusisto interview, where Ilkka told about Evans' trio coming to visit his house. The grand piano was brand new, and Evans liked it. Bill gave Ilkka the At The Montreaux Jazz Festival vinyl [album] as a present. Ilkka also told that he liked Bill's touch on the piano, and that Bill's playing was always on a high level. In the audience there's some Finnish jazz people, and I happen to know one of them! Jukka Haavisto is a vibrafonist, who's in his late 70's now, but still playing actively. He told me about a year ago that he had seen Bill 'live', and mentioned that Bill's head was always near the keys. That's what he remembered best. I just didn't know that he had seen Bill live here in Finland. I get to talk to Jukka soon, haven't seen him in a while. When I first met Jukka, we talked about jazz in general, and I told him that Bill is absolutely my favorite pianist. Being old and wise, he answered casually and said: "Well, isn't he everyone's favorite?" That was great!

-- From "Raine" in Helsinki, FinlandDecember 2008
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Art Tatum: Documentary
Rob Franken

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Interesting Video's with Masters in Classical Piano
Jorge Bolet
Jorge Bolets masterclass from 1983
The following pianist are participating:
Ira Levin, USA
Jose Feghali, Brazil
Philip Smith, UK
Marc-Antionio Barone, USA
Wolfgang Manz, Germany
Barry Douglas, UK
 
Jacques de Tiège. Short docu (1999) about Jacques de Tiège (1936-2022), one of the most influential and outspoken Belgian piano teachers of the last century.
Jacques de Tiège was professor at the conservatories of Antwerp and Tilburg. Among his pupils and pianists who were looking for his advice were a.o. Enrico Pace, Leif Ove Andsnes, Bertrand Chamayou, Igor Roma, Marc-André Hamelin, Antony Hermus, Yuja Wang, Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort, Urbain Boodts, Sylvia Traey, Robert Groslot, Eliane Rodrigues, Edoardo Torbianelli, Michel Stas.
Leonard Bernstein told the television audience at the start of the first Young People's Concert: "No matter what stories people tell you about what music means, forget them. Stories are not what music means. Music is never about things. Music just is. It's a lot of beautiful notes and sounds put together so well that we get pleasure out of hearing them. So when we ask, 'What does it mean; what does this piece of music mean?' we're asking a hard question. Let's do our best to answer it." During the course of this first program, the New York Philharmonic performs portions of Rossini's "William Tell" Overture, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, and Ravel's La Valse.

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