Who's Who

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the greatest classical composers of all time, as well as a formidable pianist. He was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770, and received his early music training from his father, who was a court musician. In the early 1790s, Beethoven moved to Vienna and studied with Haydn, before embarking on a career as a pianist and composer. In the early 1800s, he began to notice his hearing loss, but it did not prevent him from composing a series of groundbreaking works, most famously including his symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas. Beethoven’s work was a huge influence on other 19th century symphonic composers such as Brahms and Wagner, as well as on Romantic song composers such as Schubert. Although Beethoven’s music was revolutionary, it has very broad appeal due to its very human and dramatic qualities.

Recommended listening:

• Piano Sonata No. 14 (“Moonlight”) in C sharp minor, Opus 27/2.
• Piano Sonata No. 23 (“Appassionata”) in F minor, Opus 57.
• Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”) in E flat major, Opus 73.

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt has been called the greatest virtuoso pianist of all time, and a visionary composer. An icon of the Romantic period, he had a tremendous instinct for showmanship, and was definitely a “rock star” in his time. In his youth, he was already a prodigious improviser, but it was not until he was an adult that his compositional brilliance began to emerge. Liszt studied with Czerny in Vienna, and then tried but failed to get into the Paris Conservatory. Nonetheless, he became a wellknown society figure in Paris, where both his romantic life and his piano wizardry caused much sensation. Inspired by the phenomenal technique and stage presence of the violinist Nicolò Paganini, he wrote progressively more challenging works for the piano, mostly for his own use. In his later years, Liszt mellowed somewhat, writing sacred works and more introspective compositions.

Recommended listening:

• Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S. 124.
• Hungarian Rhapsody for Piano No. 2 in C sharp minor, S. 244/2.
• Transcendental Etude for Piano No. 11, S. 139/11.

Art Tatum

Art Tatum was one of the most phenomenally gifted jazz pianists of the 20th century. The sophistication and complexity of his boogie-woogie, stride, and swing playing left his competitors in the dust. Apart from some early training at the Toledo School of Music, he was largely self-taught. By the early 1930s, Tatum was stunning audiences with solo piano tunes like “Tiger Rag” which sounded like multiple pianists playing together. Although he worked in various trio and other lineups in the 1940s and ’50s, the bulk of his work was done on solo piano. He was not a composer, but his highly inventive re-workings of standard tunes were in a class by themselves. Tatum’s harmonic concepts were easily a generation ahead of their time, and his recordings still inspire (and intimidate!) modern-day pianists.

Recommended listening:

• Art Tatum Live, Volume 3, 1945-49 (Storyville)
• Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Volume 1, 1953 (Pablo)
• The Best of the Pablo Group Masterpieces, 1975 (recorded 1954-56) (Pablo)

Bill Evans

Bill Evans remains a huge influence on modernday jazz pianists. He came to the fore in the late 1950s with the Miles Davis Sextet, and co-wrote and played on their 1959 album Kind of Blue, perhaps the most famous acoustic jazz record of all time. Evans used the impressionist influences of Debussy and Ravel to craft a new, more “open” chord voicing method, which together with his relaxed sensibility was well suited to the “cool jazz” pioneered by Davis at the time. He also went on to record as a leader in various lineups, most famously in trios with bassists including Scott LaFaro, Gary Peacock, and Marc Johnson, and drummers including Paul Motian, Jack DeJohnette, and Joe La Barbera. Evans also unselfishly shared the spotlight with the other members of his trios, another way he influenced the many pianists who followed in his footsteps.

Recommended listening:

• Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, 1959 (Columbia/Legacy)
• Sunday at the Village Vanguard, 1961 (Riverside/OJC)
• Conversations With Myself, 1963 (Verve)

Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett is one of the most significant pianists to emerge in the last fifty years. He is perhaps most renowned for his solo performances and recordings, many of which are spontaneously improvised. He collaborated with Miles Davis in the early days of jazz-fusion, which was the only time he has used electronic keyboards in his career. By the 1970s, he was leading various jazz trios and quartets, and in the 1980s he began performing a lot of classical music as well as jazz. By the 1990s, he was also interpreting standards in a jazz trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, and this group is documented extensively on recordings. Anyone familiar with Jarrett’s work knows that he sometimes “sings along” when playing the piano, which can be distracting. However, he remains a formidable force in jazz and improvised music.

Recommended listening:

• The Köln Concert, 1975 (ECM)
• The Survivor’s Suite, 1976 (ECM)
• Tokyo 96, 1998 (recorded 1996) (ECM)

Chick Corea

Chick Corea has continually re-invented himself since emerging on to the scene in the 1960s. He came to the fore around the same time as Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock, and these three pianists are considered the main successors to mid-20th century jazz icons Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner. Corea started recording albums as a leader in the 1960s, before collaborating with Miles Davis on his classic album Bitches Brew (which is credited with launching the jazz-rock era). By the 1970s, he was playing highoctane fusion with his band Return to Forever. After this band broke up, he played acoustic piano in a variety of all-star lineups, before forming his Elektric band in the mid-1980s, adding a heavy dose of funk to his inventive jazz stylings. In the 21st century, he continues to juggle straight-ahead acoustic jazz with cutting-edge fusion, and remains a potent force in the jazz world.

Recommended listening:

• Return to Forever, 1972 (ECM)
• Three Quartets, 1981 (Warner Bros)
• Eye of the Beholder, 1988 (GRP)

Elton John

Elton John is one of the biggest pop superstars of the late 20th century, and is also an innovative and influential piano stylist. Elton met his long-time lyricist collaborator Bernie Taupin in the late 1960s, and they started off writing songs for other artists. By the early 1970s, Elton’s solo albums were charting in Britain and America, and he hit the peak of his commercial success between 1972 and 1976, with seven consecutive Number One albums and sixteen consecutive Top 20 hit singles. He effortlessly blended pop, rock, and soul styles, and brought a unique melodic sensibility to his song craft. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, his sales slumped somewhat, but he bounced back strongly with 1983’s Too Low for Zero album, which generated another string of hit singles. In the ’90s, he began writing songs for Disney productions (The Lion King and Aida) and in 1997 he recorded a new version of his song “Candle in the Wind” as a tribute to Princess Diana, which became his biggest-ever hit.

Recommended listening:

• Tumblewood Connection, 1971 (UNI)
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973 (Rocket/Island)
• Two Low for Zero, 1983 (MCA)

Keith Emerson

Keith Emerson has been an idol of many piano and keyboard players since his days with the progressive rock band The Nice in the 1960s. He is an acknowledged master of classically-influenced rock, and is known for both his showmanship and his technical accomplishments. He formed ELP (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) in 1970, and they became the first supergroup of the progressive rock era. ELP significantly increased the audience for this type of music (due in part to the heavy radio airplay they received), and they paved the way for successor “prog” bands such as Yes and Genesis. These bands collectively produced some of the most creative and interesting rock music of the 1970s. After ELP broke up in 1980, Emerson began scoring movies (including The Inferno and Nighthawks), and the band re-united in the early 1990s for a successful tour and album.

Recommended listening:

• Emerson, Lake and Palmer, 1970 (Rhino)
• Brain Salad Surgery, by ELP, 1973 (Manticore)
• Emerson Plays Emerson, 2002 (EMI)