I have been a stride jazz pianist for 60 years. I studied with Willie the Lion Smith, Donald Lambert, Cliff Jackson, Luckey Roberts and Eubie Blake, appeared in concert with most of them and made archive recordings of them for RCA. As years go by it, with your piece, it seems more necessary to clear up misconceptions about what stride jazz piano is. FOUR PIANISTS in part of the “top ten stride pianists DID NOT perform stride jazz piano. 1)Scott Joplin was a great pioneer RAGTIME COMPOSER. Ragtime is a written form (not jazz) usually of 3 themes. Unlike the stride jazz left hand, his was verticlly in time with the right hand, and lacked the harmonic variations, a characteristic of stride jazz piano. 2)Dave McKenna was a fantastic individualized jazz pianist who developed a unique style using mainly single note, fifths, sixths, and broken tenth figures in the left hand, but NO stride jazz. We were friends, and at a gig, he admitted wanting to learn stride jazz and did not. 3)Jelly Roll Morton, brilliant jazz pioneer pianist and composer, developed the NEW ORLEANS style of jazz piano, with bass patterns close to ragtime. His left hand had no stride jazz indices. 4) Earl Hines, tremendous jazz influence, whom I recorded, and appeared in concert with, was specifically the first pioneer jazz pianist to develop his own jazz piano style phrase-wise. Delineating his departure from stride jazz early on would take a page in itself. For accuracy and so as not to mislead listeners and jazz history students, please revise your Ten Top Stride Pianists presentation. Maybe add Donald Lambert and Art Tatum. See my piece - stride jazz piano on my website, mikelipskinjazz.com.
Mike I've been a fan and stride playerer many years ,the high point of my life was meeting Willie the lion smith and Earl Hines..thanks for the post ...
i WILL ANSWER YOU IF YOU FIRST CORRECT THE NARRATORS OF THIS JUMBLE OF STRIDE JAZZ AND NON STRIDE JAZZ PIANISTS. tHIS CLIP HAS MISINFORMATION. WHO EVER WROTE THIS CANNOT HEAR JAZZ PIANO. I have been a stride jazz pianist for 60 years. I studied with Willie the Lion Smith, Donald Lambert, Cliff Jackson, Luckey Roberts and Eubie Blake, appeared in concert with most of them and made archive recordings of them for RCA. As years go by it, with your piece, it seems more necessary to clear up misconceptions about what stride jazz piano is. FOUR PIANISTS in part of the “top ten stride pianists DID NOT perform stride jazz piano. 1)Scott Joplin was a great pioneer RAGTIME COMPOSER. Ragtime is a written form (not jazz) usually of 3 themes. Unlike the stride jazz left hand, his was verticlly in time with the right hand, and lacked the harmonic variations, a characteristic of stride jazz piano. 2)Dave McKenna was a fantastic individualized jazz pianist who developed a unique style using mainly single note, fifths, sixths, and broken tenth figures in the left hand, but NO stride jazz. We were friends, and at a gig, he admitted wanting to learn stride jazz and did not. HE WAS NOT A STRIDE JAZZ PIANIST 3)Jelly Roll Morton, brilliant jazz pioneer pianist and composer, developed the NEW ORLEANS style of jazz piano, with bass patterns close to ragtime. His left hand had no stride jazz indices. 4) Earl Hines, tremendous jazz influence, whom I recorded, and appeared in concert with, was specifically the first pioneer jazz pianist to develop his own jazz piano style phrase-wise. Delineating his departure from stride jazz early on would take a page in itself. For accuracy and so as not to mislead listeners and jazz history students, please revise your Ten Top Stride Pianists presentation. Maybe add Donald Lambert and Art Tatum. See my piece - stride jazz piano on my website, mikelipskinjazz.com.@@Downecker
It would be interesting to have a list of top 10 CURRENT players of stride... such as Stephanie Trick, Brian Holland, Paul Asaro, etc. I'm sure there are many more to choose from, including Hyman...
I 'd place Thomas Fats Waller at the top simply because he was the best combination of pianist and composer, with over 400 songs and many hits. He was a great singer and personality too...although Johnson was the best pure stride piano player and I'm sure Waller would agree.
Is this for real? You list several pianists who didn't play stride, and left off Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum, arguably the greatest jazz pianist of all time. Also might have made the list was Donald Lambert, Teddy Wilson, Mary Lou Williams.. this list is laughable, although I do appreciate the time you took to put together an otherwise entertaining and educational video.
I completely agree that Art Tatum is the greatest pianist of all time! Amen there. For this list, I tried to choose more traditional pianists who are close to stride. Although Oscar is great I don't think he's in the category of more traditional "stride influenced" pianists. Teddy Wilson is of course fantastic - you're right, maybe he should have been up here. Thanks for checking it out!
Glad James P. made # 1. Please note Mike Lipskin's comments below. He is arguably the leading authority on stride piano in the world today. Any list is going to be fraught with the bias of its compiler. And set him / her up for potentially endless criticism. With these caveats,and removing the 4 who are NOT stride pianists, it is clear that Don Ewell and Johnny Guarnieri certainly belong on the list. Dick Hyman is also a world class jazz pianist, one of the finest and most versatile, in fact. Although not dedicated to stride,, he plays awesome stride piano. Because of this, I would put him at the top of the second ten, along with Ralph. I would round out the first ten with Donald Lambert, and Pat Flowers. I would include Luckey Roberts, Willie, Cliff Jackson, Hank Duncan, and Dick Wellstood in the second ten. One can also make a good case for Mike Lipskin. Art Tatum is problematic. Clearly the most brilliant pianist on any list where one would find him, he was not a dedicated stride pianist, although he could swing with the best of them. Best to put him into a category all by himself.
I don't recognize the " top ten" of any discipline. Every stride player had his own style and I love them all! The top ten here is a mix of ragtime and stride. I'll give an " F " for lack of simple research.
Hi again! Reading the comments, I have to say this guy's top 10 is not my top ten! Most importantly, I don't believe in anyone's top ten. I play Stride and I love all of the players. Each has a style to enjoy for sure! There's no " The Best" ! They're all THE BEST!!
A great episode, and it's grand to see Dick Hyman on your Stride Piano salute. But we'd have to consider Joplin's inclusion as a bit of an honorific, since his compositions and piano playing - while using a "march bass" - really don't quite check all the boxes for true Stride Piano. That Joplin paved the way is true enough though. Carry on!
Number one,Earl hines.and Joplin,are not stride pianists..but art tatum was . Don lambert was to and Barry Gordon also.while it's easy to leave people out..people like Morton were not stride pianists great as they were.it is a language on the piano.
Sure earl who I was blessed to meet,could play great stride when he wanted to,but as one of the greatest and most original jazz pianists of all time he didn't generally play like fats waller or James p Johnson,his was a brake from ragtime and stride.more modern and jazzer.with his hornlike phrasing .. without Hines,Tatum,Garner,Wilson,wouldn't sound like they did.so. Great
'Wish you would edit the video, and remove the pianists who were NOT stride jazz pianists. I mentioned them in an earlier comment. 1)Scott Joplin was a great pioneer RAGTIME COMPOSER. Ragtime is a written form (not jazz) usually of 3 themes. Unlike the stride jazz left hand, his was verticlly in time with the right hand, and lacked the harmonic variations, a characteristic of stride jazz piano. 2)Dave McKenna was a fantastic individualized jazz pianist who developed a unique style using mainly single note, fifths, sixths, and broken tenth figures in the left hand, but NO stride jazz. We were friends, and at a gig, he admitted wanting to learn stride jazz and did not. 3)Jelly Roll Morton, brilliant jazz pioneer pianist and composer, developed the NEW ORLEANS style of jazz piano, with bass patterns close to ragtime. His left hand had no stride jazz indices. 4) Earl Hines, tremendous jazz influence, whom I recorded, and appeared in concert with, was specifically the first pioneer jazz pianist to develop his own jazz piano style phrase-wise. Delineating his departure from stride jazz early on would take a page in itself.
Thanks for your comments. They are much appreciated. You seem very knowledgeable. Seems a bit strange for you to ask that the video be changed. Given your expertise, if you made a similar video I'm sure it would get a lot of great attention. You have a lot to offer. Thanks for chiming in.
@@PeterAndWillAnderson Thanks for your polite response, which is a non sequitur. Facebook and internet sites seem to allow compounding of all sorts of musical errors. Few ever take the time to CORRECT. I read song written by Gershwin or Kern being stated as written by Frank Sinatra, Boogie piano being called "swing,"., and much more. However for some reason you insist on perpetuating history of jazz piano MISINFORMATION and possibly are ignorant about THE ELEMENTS OF STRIDE JAZZ PIANO. I cut and paste my original comment below: Maybe LISTEN more carfully and read below, again.. The reason I am emphatic, is that as time passes commentors or those who set themselves up as knowledgeable about certain idioms of jazz, show they CAN'T hear. Mis- labeling Joplin, McKenna Morton and Hines stride pianists COMPOUNDS THE ERRORs. McKenna PARTICULARLY NEVER PLAYED anything even close to stride jazz piano. To repeat: 1)Scott Joplin was a great pioneer RAGTIME COMPOSER living BEFORE stride jazz was perfected. Ragtime is a written form (not jazz) usually of 3 themes. Unlike the stride jazz left hand, his was verticlly in time with the right hand, and lacked the harmonic variations, a characteristic of stride jazz piano. 2)Dave McKenna was a fantastic individualized jazz pianist who developed a unique style using mainly single note, fifths, sixths, and broken tenth figures in the left hand, but NO stride jazz. We were friends, and at a gig, he admitted wanting to learn stride jazz and did not. 3)Jelly Roll Morton, brilliant jazz pioneer pianist and composer, developed the NEW ORLEANS style of jazz piano, with bass patterns close to ragtime. His left hand had no stride jazz indices. 4) Earl Hines, tremendous jazz influence, whom I recorded, and appeared in concert with, was specifically the first pioneer jazz pianist to develop his own jazz piano style phrase-wise. Delineating his departure from stride jazz early on would take a page in itself.
Scott Joplin didn't play stride and he has no real reputation as a player. You included him. Art Tatum played stride and is frequently considered the greatest technician in the history of Jazz, and you left him off. Very odd.
