Art Tatum
His eyes could barely see, yet on the keyboard his ten fingers moved as if they were twenty.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
Collaborators ⏳🌊
- FamilyMildred Tatum
She played organ and piano at church and filled her young son's ears with music.
- InfluenceFats Waller
Through player-piano rolls and cutting contests, he passed on the language of stride piano.
- ColleagueAdelaide Hall
She chose him as her accompanist and shared the New York stage with him.
- ColleagueTiny Grimes
In his 1940s trio, this colleague's guitar gave his harmonies steady support.
- PatronNorman Granz
The producer who organized marathon sessions that preserved his playing in a vast recorded legacy.
- InfluenceCharlie Parker
Revered him so deeply that, as the story goes, he volunteered to wash dishes just to hear him play.
I. The blind boy of Toledo · 1909–1932 (age 0–23)
(Toledo) He was born in October 1909 in Toledo, Ohio. His father, Arthur Tatum Sr., was a factory worker, and his mother, Mildred, played organ and piano at church. From early childhood he grew up hearing the piano in the family parlor and the reed organ at church. (Blindness) He was born with cataracts in both eyes and never had full sight. Several operations left him only partial vision in one eye, and it is said that as a young man he was beaten in a robbery and lost much of what sight remained. He was not completely blind, but he lived with low vision all his life. (Self-taught) He learned faster by ear and by feeling his way across the keys than through formal training. Tracing with his fingers the tunes that drifted from the radio and Fats Waller's performances punched into player-piano rolls, he taught himself the language of stride piano. He also had a brief stint of formal study at the Toledo School of Music. (Radio) In his late teens he got the chance to play on the Toledo radio station WSPD and made a name for himself locally. Among listeners, the dazzling harmonies pouring from a blind boy's fingertips became the talk of the town, and that word of mouth would later pave his way to New York.
II. New York, nights of cutting contests · 1932–1933 (age 23–24)
(Move) In 1932 he was chosen as accompanist to the singer Adelaide Hall and moved to New York. That July he appeared with Hall on the stage of New York's Palace Theatre, and in August he recorded with her band. (Harlem) At night he made the rounds of Harlem's after-hours clubs and rent parties, taking on stride pianists in cutting contests. Fats Waller is said to have stopped playing when Tatum walked into a club and announced that God was in the house tonight. Elders such as James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith also marveled at his hands. (Recordings) In 1933 he made his first solo recordings for the Brunswick label. On several sides, including "Tiger Rag," he shook the industry with reharmonizations that rebuilt the original harmony from the ground up and with runs at an almost unimaginable speed. (Response) Many stories tell of classical musicians astonished by his playing. The best known has Vladimir Horowitz and Sergei Rachmaninoff marveling after hearing him. Almost overnight, the twenty-three-year-old blind pianist became the talk of the jazz world.
His first solo recording, which struck the jazz world like a shock when he was twenty-three and newly arrived in New York.
- From the very opening, runs (rapid strings of notes) pour out, packing in notes so fast and so densely that they all but hide the familiar melody of the original.
- While the left hand keeps up the steady gait of stride piano, the right hand moves off in an entirely different rhythm, building tension.
- Here and there in the chord progression you can hear reharmonization, with chords absent from the original slipped quietly in.
- That he sounds like two people in conversation even when playing alone comes from a lifetime of carrying rhythm and melody at once.
III. The road of touring and discrimination · 1933–1943 (age 24–34)
(Touring) Once he had made his name in New York, he moved among Chicago, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, playing club and theater stages. A life on the road, never staying long in any one city, went on, and in 1935 he married Ruby Arnold. (Discrimination) On tours through the South, the racial segregation of Black performers was still rigidly enforced. Playing for white audiences only to be barred from the same hotels, or made to come and go by the back door, left a wound he seldom spoke of but clearly never forgot. (Legend) Even on the road he never missed the nightly after-hours jam sessions. A reputation followed him that the real playing began only at closing time, and it was around then that he came to be called the Toledo Storm. (Money) His official fees were modest, but the after-hours sets that ran all night at the clubs were filled out with tips. Record contracts were mostly one-off deals; it was a time when he had to count on each night's chance to play rather than on a steady income.
A performance that rebuilds a classical miniature by Massenet in jazz harmony, showing how he kept his love of classical music even on the road.
- It opens at a slow tempo, keeping the plaintive melody of the original intact, until midway a passage overflows like a cadenza (an ornamental passage that races freely, without a fixed beat).
- He swaps each simple chord of the classical piece for far more complex jazz harmony without harming the feeling of the original.
- Striking is his habit of drawing out the ends of phrases with rubato (a free tempo that gently stretches and compresses the set beat).
- He is said to have sat alone in the studio and improvised it straight through, without rehearsal.
IV. The trio years · 1943–1949 (age 34–40)
(Trio) In 1943 he formed a trio with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart and recorded for the Decca label. A lineup that held down the rhythm with only guitar and bass, without drums, was unfamiliar at the time, but it laid a solid foundation without obscuring his dazzling right hand. (Remarriage) His second marriage, to Geraldine Williamson, came much later, in 1955, after his divorce from Ruby. (Influence) To the young musicians of the bebop generation he was already a wall to be scaled. Charlie Parker is said to have volunteered to wash dishes at a New York club just to hear him play, and Bud Powell and other bebop pianists later recalled how deeply his harmonic sense had shaped them. (Change) Over the years the trio's personnel changed, but the framework of the lineup held. At the same time he never gave up the solo stage, and by the late 1940s the weight was shifting back toward solo recording.
A trio recording with Tiny Grimes and Slam Stewart, showing how swing comes alive even in a lineup without drums.
- While the piano leads the melody, Grimes's guitar fills in the harmony densely and Stewart's bass keeps the conversation going, mixing bowed arco with plucked pizzicato.
- Within a head (statement of the theme)–solo–head structure, each player's solo chorus stands clearly apart.
- Distinctively, with no drums, Stewart's bass carries the rhythmic frame while the left hand lays harmony on top of it.
- A performance that picks a light, buoyant standard to bring out the pleasure of the trio's conversation.
A solo recording made alongside his trio work, in which you can hear a harmonic exploration that deepens when he plays alone.
- Over a slow ballad tempo, low-register chords that heighten the sorrow of the original fill the opening.
- Each time a phrase of the melody ends, a reharmonization veers slightly into different harmony, again and again, so that hearing the same tune many times feels like walking a different path each time.
- At the climax, right-hand tremolo (a technique that rapidly repeats the same note as if trembling) overlaps with dazzling runs.
- He plays alone, with no rhythm section, yet the swing never flags across the whole piece, thanks to his left-hand stride technique.
V. Norman Granz and the marathon sessions · 1949–1955 (age 40–46)
(Granz) Around 1949 he formed a bond with the producer Norman Granz. Granz, who ran the "Jazz at the Philharmonic" tours, was convinced that his playing had to be captured whole on record. (Health) By this time he suffered from diabetes, and he was also fond of drink. Years of touring and all-night playing were wearing his body down, yet the density of his playing never diminished. (Marathon) From 1953 to 1955, Granz called him into the studio and, within a short span, recorded more than a hundred solo performances. These recordings, many tunes a day dashed off with almost no rehearsal, were issued as the "Tatum Solo Masterpieces" series. (Ensembles) Ensemble sessions followed, pairing him with the finest players of the day, such as Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Buddy DeFranco, Roy Eldridge, Lionel Hampton, and Buddy Rich. These "Tatum Group Masterpieces" recordings became the first broad record of how he conversed with other instruments.
A signature solo performance from the marathon sessions Norman Granz arranged, it is known as a take completed in one pass with almost no rehearsal.
- It follows the simple 32-bar AABA form of George Gershwin's original to the letter, yet re-weaves the harmony with every chorus, so that the same melody sounds different each time.
- The contrast is stark between the slow rubato of the opening and the rapid runs that take over from the midpoint on.
- It is said to have been recorded almost in a single take within a brief session, and many of his recordings from this period were made the same way.
- Left-hand stride and right-hand ornaments cross ceaselessly, yet the tender melody of the original is never lost.
VI. Last days in Los Angeles · 1955–1956 (age 46–47)
(Decline) From late 1955, complications of diabetes caused his health to deteriorate visibly. As symptoms of uremia set in, his performance schedule gradually dwindled. (Last recordings) In 1956 he still left several recordings in Los Angeles. The session with Ben Webster, made only months before his death, is regarded not as the work of a fading hand but as one that reveals an even calmer, more unhurried touch. (Death) On November 5, 1956, he died of uremia in a Los Angeles hospital. He was forty-seven. (Legacy) Oscar Peterson later confessed that when he first heard Tatum play, he wanted to give up the piano. His reharmonizations and sense of velocity became a textbook for later generations of pianists, and he remains one of the few performers honored alike in classical music and in jazz.
Lesser-known stories
Contrary to the common belief that he was totally blind, he retained a little sight in one eye until the day he died. As his biographer James Lester revealed in “Too Marvelous for Words,” he could read playing cards by holding them close to his eye and dimly gauge the positions of billiard balls, and there are accounts of him driving short distances himself in front of friends. The truth is far more dimensional than the familiar image of a genius in total darkness. He was also a man of everyday pleasures who loved baseball statistics, card games and billiards. According to fellow musicians, he could reel off players' batting averages and records by heart, and between all-night sessions he would stand at the billiard table and sink shots by the feel of his fingertips alone. It is a side of him rarely mentioned, hidden behind the myth of the prodigy at the keyboard. Many of his after-hours performances were not official records but were secretly captured by fans on home disc recorders. These unofficial recordings were formally released only decades later, revealing his world of improvisation more broadly; at the time, they were regarded as little more than a fan's personal keepsakes and long went unnoticed. Some critics of his day were rather grudging, claiming that his dazzling technique put skill ahead of feeling. Unlike the near-unanimous reverence of musicians, critical reappraisal came only much later — a lag often explained by the fact that his music could not be fully accounted for within the critical frameworks of the time.
Glossary notes 📚🔎
Stride piano
(Meaning) In English, stride means a long, sweeping step. The name comes from the way the left hand travels across the keys, alternating between a single low note and a chord. (In jazz) A Harlem piano style of the 1920s–30s in which the left hand carries both bass and rhythm while the right lays melody and improvisation on top. It is like accompanying yourself with the left hand while singing with the right. Picture a friend at a school talent show who plays the accompaniment and sings at the same time. (Elsewhere) In everyday use, stride can simply mean a long step or a marked advance.
Cutting contest
(Meaning) The English word cut originally means to slice, but in slang it also meant to overpower and beat a rival. That sense survives in the name. (In jazz) A Harlem improvisational duel in which two or more players took turns on the same stage to see who was better. As in an inter-school singing contest where each team steps up to show its skill, you won by outplaying your rival on the spot.
Reharmonization
(Meaning) A word formed from re (again) and harmonize (to set harmony to). In Korean it is rendered as jaehwaseong ('re-harmony'). (In jazz) The practice of setting new chords, different from the original's, under a familiar melody to give it an entirely different mood. It is like retelling the same story in a different tone of voice. Think of how a familiar nursery song sounds completely different when sung in a sad voice.
Cadenza
(Meaning) The Italian cadenza comes from the sense of falling, of coming to a close. Originally it referred to the passage near the end of a piece where the performer freely displays virtuosity. (In jazz) An ornamental flourish in which the player races freely alone, without a set meter or rhythmic accompaniment. It is like the moment in the middle of a story when you pause and pour out whatever you wish to say.
Bebop
(In jazz) A jazz idiom developed by young musicians in the 1940s, with fast tempos and complex harmonies. It focused on listening and appreciation rather than the dance-oriented character of swing. It is like building more difficult individual skills on top of the fundamentals in soccer.
Swing
(In jazz) The rhythmic feel peculiar to jazz, which, rather than dividing the beat exactly, drags the latter part slightly to create a push and pull. People often liken it to the back-and-forth rhythm of riding a swing. (Elsewhere) In everyday use, swing also refers to the hitting motion in golf or baseball, and in business it can mean a shift in momentum.