Art Tatum behind Adelaide Hall

Art Tatum's first records are accompaniments. In August 1932 he went into a Brunswick studio in New York to back the singer Adelaide Hall, alongside a second pianist, Francis J. Carter.

Four songs survive in two takes each. Brunswick issued the A takes in 1932; the B takes sat unissued for decades and reached collectors on Meritt 24, letting you compare what the two pianists did with the same arrangement.

The two dates are different bands. On August 5, Hall has a full group behind her: a trumpet, Jimmy Dorsey on clarinet and alto, Larry Gomar on vibraphone, Dick McDonough on guitar and probably Artie Bernstein on bass. On August 10 it is Hall and the two pianos alone: pull the voice and pianos off those sides and what remains is silence.

The trumpet is disputed. Lord names Bunny Berigan, following Bozy White's 2013 book on him; the booklet for the Affinity set instead names Charlie Teagarden. That booklet also omits the bass and vibraphone, though the bass is audibly there.

Every take is pitch-corrected to A440 by resampling, which moves pitch and tempo together the way a turntable would. The August 5 sides split into pianos, voice, bass, horns, guitar and vibraphone. The horns share one fader because they don't separate cleanly: a model asked for saxophone returns a stem that's sometimes Dorsey, sometimes the trumpet, so neither label fits. The piano fader carries both pianists.

Listen

The eight takes

Matrix and issue number, how much of the record the piano stem covers, and the speed correction applied. Click a title to load it; the waveform plays the piano alone.