Art Tatum

Arthur "Art" Tatum Jr. was born on the thirteenth of October 1909 in Toledo, Ohio, the son of Arthur Tatum Sr., a mechanic, and Mildred Hoskins, a domestic worker who had come north from West Virginia. From infancy his sight was impaired — the cause most often given as cataracts. Eye operations in his boyhood restored a measure of vision: by about age eleven he could see objects held close before him and perhaps distinguish colors. He was not wholly blind, but sight in one eye was lost and the other left with very limited vision, a partial sightedness he carried all his life.

Largely self-taught, Tatum drew from the stride masters Fats Waller and James P. Johnson and from the modern touch of Earl Hines, yet outgrew every model. He learned partly by ear from piano rolls, unaware they had been cut by two hands, and so reached for a fullness others thought impossible. By his teens he had his own program on Toledo radio, rebroadcast nationwide.

Leaving Toledo in 1932, he made his mark in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and toured England in 1938. He extended the vocabulary of jazz piano through daring reharmonization, voicing, and passages in two keys at once. In 1943 he formed the Art Tatum Trio with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart, and later recorded a monumental body of solo work for Norman Granz.

Art Tatum died on the fifth of November 1956 in Los Angeles. Musicians from Fats Waller to classical virtuosos stood in awe of his hands. May the honored pianist who saw so little yet heard so vastly be remembered forever.