My newest project, one of Tatum's versions of Body & Soul, was no easy feat--I'd been working on it for quite a while until a few months ago when I decided to memorize it and make a video, and here it is! kind of!
Body and Soul was originally written in 1930 by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, Frank Eyton, and Johnny Green. Practically every jazz musician under the sun has interpreted it since, but not (IMO) as uniquely and brilliantly as Tatum (this particular version I believe was recorded in 1951).
As always, it would've been futile for me to attempt to mimic every aspect of Tatum's performance (which incidentally can be found on Disc 1 of the Pablo Solo Masterpieces), so again I give my own approximation, based partly on a transcribed version (made by Brent Edstrom) and from listening to the recording many times. In the end, after I became more familiar with the piece, I began to take a few liberties in some places, while others I tried to maintain as much accuracy to the original as possible. All in all, except for a few bumps and slips, I'm happy with this take, as this piece is monstrous. Other than the few "liberties" I took, the only other alterations I made to the music were to shift the melody up an octave in a few places, as the G above middle C on this piano is missing 2 out of 3 strings, and can get lost in the melee.
Happy holidays/new year, and let's hope 2008 is an improvement over this year...........