Johnny O’Neal
piano, vocals
A younger jazz pianist and singer, once with Art Blakey, whose closeness to Art Tatum amazed Barry; he came to play at Barry’s house in Detroit and told him he had learned Tatum by speeding the records up.
- mentions
- 2
- recordings
- 1
- Barry speaking
- 2
What Barry says
Talking about learning by ear, Barry brings up Johnny O’Neal as a pianist who could play astonishingly close to Art Tatum. Barry first heard him in Chicago and could not work it out, because hardly any young players try to sound like Tatum.
O’Neal later came to Barry’s house when Barry was in Detroit, because people told him he had to play for Barry, as if he needed Barry’s approval, which Barry laughs off as nonsense. Playing there, he still sounded like Tatum.
Barry says O’Neal’s church playing was something you had never heard the like of, and that he could have tossed off what Barry calls Chopin’s left-hand octave piece with ease, hard as it is.
Asked how he learned to play like Tatum, O’Neal told Barry that he took his mother’s Tatum records and sped them up; when he slowed them back to normal speed he could hear everything. Barry calls it the funniest thing he ever heard.
Barry sets this against his own generation, who slowed records down to learn them, and jokes to Panken that he will now try speeding up a Tatum record himself.
The young pianist who played like Tatum1:11Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶323
In a short workshop clip Barry tells the same story without naming the pianist: a young player who sounded like Tatum came to play at his house, played for church, and learned by speeding his mother’s records up.
The young pianist who played like Tatum0:00
In his own words
He can play so close to Art Tatum, it’s unbelievable.
He listened to them sped up, and then he’d slow them down and heard everything. That’s the funniest thing I ever heard in my life.
But we used to do the opposite. We slowed it down. He sped it up!
I said to him, I said, how the hell did you learn to play like Artie [Tatum], young as you are?
Every mention
2 moments in the recordings, 2 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
The young pianist who played like Tatum
In the interviews and notes
On WKCR Barry describes Johnny O’Neal as a young pianist who sounded remarkably like Art Tatum, first heard by Barry in Chicago and later at Barry’s house in Detroit.
O’Neal told Barry he learned Tatum from his mother’s records by listening to them fast and then at normal speed, when every detail could be heard; Barry notes that his own generation did the reverse and slowed records down.
Panken places O’Neal as the pianist who spent a while with Art Blakey, and Barry confirms that is the man he means.