Donald Lambert- The Irrelevance of Talent
December 13 2008

Hallelujah, Amen, Huzzah and Yippee. Video of Donald Lambert playing Anitra's Dance has shown up on YouTube.

Donald Lambert. Who, you say?

When I was in my formative music years, my mind's ear was hijacked by stride piano. That's the jazz style that was popular in the 1920's and 30's. Its hallmark is the driving rhythm of the left hand: doo-PA doo-PA doo-PA doo-PA... It's happy, energetic, toe-tapping music. The most famous stride pianists were 'Fats' Waller, James P. Johnson, and my own favourite, Willie 'The Lion' Smith.

In these formative years, while I was listening to everything I could get my ears on, I came across four obscure tracks from an obscure strider on an obscure LP. Donald Lambert. They were recorded sometime in the 1940's. Hard to find.

As unpromising as their obscurity, was the fact that they were all classical music titles. Dullsville, though I.

I put it on the LP anyway. Anitra's Dance, a familiar tune by Edward Grieg. It started off with a semi-classical feel. Not dull at all. And then, about 30 seconds in, it broke into the most driving, arresting stride I had ever heard before, or have ever heard since. Lambert took the theme, wove a Persian tapestry of musical ideas out of it, corralling the notes into a disciplined stampede of forward momentum. I could not believe my ears.

I must have listened to Anitra's Dance a hundred times on that LP. Each time it was fresh. But the LP was borrowed from the Library. I had to return it. Over the years I borrowed it again and again. One inevitable day it disappeared. With it, disappeared Donald Lambert.

No matter where I looked, I could not find the track. There was only one mediocre recording of Lambert made in a bar. This titanic player, had never been recorded since those obscure tracks.

And so, Donald Lambert lived on as a legend in my mind. I could replay Anitra's Dance on my mental hard drive. But I couldn't hear it anywhere in the real world.

And the- just last week, rummaging around YouTube... Eu-DamnLambert-reka. footage of 'The Lamb' playing you-know-what at a jazz festival. Omigosh, it was just as he recorded it. And still as stunning as the first time I heard it. Thank you, thank you 'adamrag' for posting it.

A happy ending to my tale of quest.

Well, almost happy. For all my satisfaction, what about Donald Lambert's? Why wasn't or isn't he better know? What forces allowed talent, genius like his to languish in non-recognition? He could have been recorded and celebrated as much as his colleague stride pianists. He wasn't. Why?

No doubt a host of factors contributed to his lack of fame. Maybe he even wanted it that way. Maybe he didn't want to do the heavy loading of celebrity.

One thing is certain. Talent wasn't enough to propel him to the top. But then, talent is never enough.

On the contrary, talent often seems to be the minor attendant to fame, lower in rank than other far less substantive traits. We've all left performances asking how so-and-so got where they got, given that they're so untalented. How? An aggressive manager perhaps. A large marketing budget. Luck. Looks. Schlep.

Whatever the no-talent vehicle, the fact remains: talent is not a necessary or even sufficient condition for fame. It is no a deterrent to fame, not yet. But it takes more than talent to make it big.

It would have taken Donald Lambert more. Whatever it was, he didn't have it. But, by Zeuss' beard, he had talent. Listening and, glory be- watching, Lambert on YouTube reminds me that just because talent is not a financial asset, it is a gift that enriches the world and us by its existence.

So let us praise Donald Lambert, and listen to him with the respect and admiration he deserved. And sympathy, of course. The poor guy was talented. Bummer.

- Click here for the YouTube video of Donald Lambert playing Anitra's Dance

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