There had never before been anyone like Art Tatum. He emerged in the 1930s as a fully formed musician whose improvisational skill quickly became legend. Legally blind and largely self-taught, Tatum memorized entire piano rolls, and absorbed music from the radio and the Victrola. The musical prodigy was born in Toledo, Ohio, to a mechanic and a domestic who worked in white homes. The great stride pianist Fats Waller famously announced one night when Tatum walked into the club where Waller was playing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house." It's hard to summon enough superlatives for Tatum's piano playing: his harmonic invention, his technical virtuosity, his rhythmic daring. He's been called one of the piano geniuses of all time, in any genre.
Tatum at the piano, in a photo taken sometime in 1937.įifty years ago Sunday, the jazz musician Art Tatum died.
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