Background
He was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1910, the only child of a mechanic from North Carolina. At the age of three he reputedly played on the family organ a hymn that he had heard at his mother's choir practice.
((Artist Transcriptions). This fabulous songbook features ...)
(Artist Transcriptions). This fabulous songbook features note-for-note transcriptions of pianist supreme Art Tatum's interpretations of 15 jazz standards: After You've Gone * Ain't Misbehavin' * Aunt Hagar's Blues * Blue Skies * Body and Soul * Cocktails for Two * Honeysuckle Rose * How High the Moon * Jitterbug Waltz * The Man I Love * St. Louis Blues * Sweet Lorraine * Tea for Two * Tiger Rag (Hold That Tiger) * Willow Weep for Me.
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He was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1910, the only child of a mechanic from North Carolina. At the age of three he reputedly played on the family organ a hymn that he had heard at his mother's choir practice.
Although he played piano for several years before he received any formal training, the first instrument he studied was the violin, when he was thirteen; only later did he take piano lessons.
He made his first appearance at sixteen before a large audience on an amateur program at a Toledo radio station. As a result, he was hired as a staff pianist by radio station WSPD in Toledo and given a fifteen-minute morning program that so impressed the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) that it was sent out on NBC's Blue Network.
In 1932 the singer Adelaide Hall, who had heard him when she was appearing in Toledo, brought him to New York as her accompanist. Tatum made his first records that year as her accompanist and the following year cut his first solo records. He remained in New York for two years, playing officially at the Onyx Club, a musicians' hangout on New York's West Fifty-second Street (then known as "Swing Street") and unofficially at after-hours clubs in Harlem, an atmosphere he particularly enjoyed because of the opportunities for "cutting" contests in which Tatum could unleash his virtuoso prowess in competition with other pianists.
His playing was an intricate tapestry of changing keys, musical lines that he slyly twisted as they were about to reach a seemingly inevitable climax, rapid juggling of several figures simultaneously, an implied beat, a rocking caress, and sudden tremendous bursts of stride piano, all performed with seemingly offhand ease. He owed relatively little to other pianists, although there were occasional touches in his work of Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson, and particularly Fats Waller. Tatum readily admitted his debt to Waller. "Fats, man - that's where I come from, " he once said, adding, "Quite a place to come from. " Waller was also fond of Tatum. When Tatum entered a club one night while Waller was playing, Fats stopped his performance, stood up, and declared, "Ladies and gentlemen, I play piano. But God is in the house tonight. " Other jazz musicians also stood in awe of Tatum's technique, but, as Dan Morgenstern, a jazz historian, has pointed out, technique was merely the vehicle through which he expressed himself. "What others could imagine, Tatum could execute, " Morgenstern said. "And what he could imagine went beyond the wildest dreams of most musical mortals. " "He leaves you with a sense of futility, " said Everett Barksdale, a guitarist who frequently played with Tatum. "What you've studied years to perfect, he seems able to perform with such ease. "
In the mid-1930's Tatum settled in Chicago at the Three Deuces, where he led a small band, building such a reputation that he was invited to play in London in 1938. On his return, he embarked on a solo career, a reasonable move, according to Billy Taylor, one of his disciples, "because he was a whole band in himself. " In 1943 he formed a trio (with Lloyd "Tiny" Grimes on guitar and Slam Stewart on bass) that for the next two years was one of the top attractions on Fifty-second Street.
By the late 1940's his popularity had declined. Some critics claimed that Tatum's playing had become too florid, but Billy Taylor attributed Tatum's alleged floridity to the fact that "he heard so much. " Tatum wanted to "fill in all the other things he could hear besides just a normal piano part. " By 1950, however, Tatum was once again appearing with great success in concerts and at clubs. In 1953, 1954, and 1955 Norman Granz, the impresario of "Jazz at the Philharmonic, " recorded Tatum in four marathon sessions during which Tatum played more than 200 selections, from which Granz drew thirteen long-playing records entitled "The Genius of Art Tatum. "
He died of uremia in Los Angeles.
Tatum is widely considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. A year before his death, the esteem in which Tatum was held by his peers was made apparent when the Encyclopedia of Jazz asked 126 jazz pianists to name their prime influence: 78 named Art Tatum. In 1964, Art Tatum was posthumously inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. Jazz critic Leonard Feather called Tatum "the greatest soloist in jazz history, regardless of instrument. "
((Artist Transcriptions). This fabulous songbook features ...)
Quotations:
“I don't think I'm ready for New York. ”
“Look, you come in here tomorrow, and anything you do with your right hand I'll do with my left.
“There is no such thing as a wrong note. ”
From birth he was blind in one eye and could see only large objects or smaller ones held very close to his other eye.
He had been a heavy drinker all his life.
Quotes from others about the person
The pianist Teddy Wilson observed, "Maybe this will explain Art Tatum. If you put a piano in a room, just a bare piano. Then you get all the finest jazz pianists in the world and let them play in the presence of Art Tatum. Then let Art Tatum play . .. everyone there will sound like an amateur. "
In 1955 he married Geraldine, his second wife. His first wife was Ruby Arnold Tatum.
