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(b Toledo, oh, 13 Oct 1909; d Los Angeles, 4 Nov 1956). American jazz pianist. He played in nightclubs and on radio before going to New York in 1932 and made many recordings. He worked with bands and his own trio but usually appeared as a soloist in clubs. His technical abilities, lightness of touch and control of the instrument's range were unprecedented; he had an unerring sense of rhythm and swing, a seemingly unlimited capacity to expand and enrich a melody and a profound grasp of substitute harmonies.
Gale Contemporary Black Biography:
Art Tatum |
jazz musician; pianist
Personal Information
Born Arthur Tatum on October 13, 1909, in Toledo, Ohio; died November 5, 1956; son of Arthur Sr. (a mechanic) and Mildred Hoskins; married Ruby Arnold, August of 1935; children: Orlando (by Marnette Jackson).
Education: Toledo School (Conservatory) of Music.
Career
Won amateur contest which led to appearance on WSPD radio, 1927; worked clubs and speakeasies in Toldeo and Cleveland; moved to New York City in 1932 as accompanist for singer Adelaide Hall; Onyx Club, soloist, 1933; recorded for Brunswick label, 1933-34; performed in Cleveland, 1935; appeared on the "Fleischman Hour" radio program, 1935; performed at Three Dueces in Chicago and formed a small band at the club, 1936; played Los Angeles clubs and Hollywood parties, 1936-37; performed and recorded in Los Angeles and New York City; toured England and recorded for Decca, 1938; played Los Angeles and New York, 1939-40; hit record, "Wee Wee Baby Blues," 1941; formed trio, 1943-45; concert stage debut, 1945; continued to play concert dates until mid-1950s; recorded for Verve records 1953-56.
Life's Work
Idolized by jazz instrumentalists and lauded by musicians such as Vladimir Horowitz and composer George Gerschwin, jazz pianist Art Tatum possessed a name synonymous with genius. Like trumpeter Louis Armstrong, Tatum had an impact on the entire strata of jazz instrumentation. As A.B. Spellman observed in the liner notes to Giants of Jazz, Art Tatum, Tatum was "blessed with fingers that moved almost as fast as his endless stream of ideas." Tatum's repertoire consisted primarily of a few original compositions, popular songs, jazz standards, and concert music pieces by such composers as Antonin Dvorak and Jules Massenet. Despite gaining popularity with a trio during the 1940s, Tatum's numerous solo performances still awe listeners and represent some of the finest music of the twentieth century America.
Arthur Tatum Jr. was born partially blind on October 13, 1909, in Toledo, Ohio. Tatum's father, Art Sr., a mechanic, and his mother, Mildred Hoskins, were members of the Grace Presbyterian Church. Art Sr. played the guitar and Mildred played the piano. Family members later recalled three year old Tatum playing melodies on piano. Tatum studied violin and later, around age 13, took up the piano. He learned to read Braille at Toledo's Jefferson School. In 1924, 15-year-old Tatum attended The School For the Blind in Columbus. As Tatum's biographer, James Lester, asserted in Too Marvelous For Words, "Clearly, the Tatum's wanted to do everything they could for their son, and the move to Columbus was made easier by the fact that a cousin was there who would keep tabs on him." In 1925 Tatum enrolled at the Toledo School (Conservatory) of Music where he studied with a classically trained African American instructor, Overton G. Rainey. At home he listened to a wide range of music including jazz piano rolls and recordings of concert pianists.
With end of his formal education in 1927, 16-year-old Tatum embarked on a professional music career in the jazz idiom which offered creative and lucrative opportunities. As Lester wrote, "Within jazz [Tatum] could improvise a career, make a career out of improvising, invent a path for himself, take advantage of fast-changing musical developments, and even influence the course of those developments." He first played in local dance bands, and around 1927 won a local amateur contest which led to his regular appearance on Toledo radio station WSPD. The broadcast was eventually picked up nationally on NBC Blue Network. Tatum's weekday fifteen minute show sometimes featured his playing duets with another young pianist, Teddy Wilson. In the liner notes to Giants of Jazz, Art Tatum, Wilson recounted that Tatum already employed, "flatted fifths and all the added tones, and improvising these wonderful progressions in the middle of a tune....No other pianist had, even remotely, that conception of playing."
Tatum's employment in Toledo speakeasies and premiere nightclubs allowed him to work out the music he had formally learned by instruction and by listening to records and radio. Even as a teenager Tatum astounded fellow musicians. Noting Tatum's impact on musicians, Benny Green stressed in The Reluctant Art, "Tatum shattered everyone; Tatum caused all other musicians to lose confidence; Tatum terrified those who thought they knew how far jazz could be taken." In 1929, the "father of the tenor saxophone" Coleman Hawkins, then a member of Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, heard Tatum at a small Toledo club and immediately incorporated the pianist's harmonic ideas into his playing. Around this time, Duke Ellington encountered Tatum in Cleveland and encouraged him to move to New York City.
Relocated To New York City
Tatum went to New York City in 1932 as the accompanist for singer Adelaide Hall. He recorded four sides with Hall and toured with her, until landing jobs as a solo pianist in New York City. "His first visit to New York," recounted Duke Ellington in his memoir, Music is My Mistress, "stirred up quite a storm. In a matter of hours, it got to all piano players--and musicians who played other instruments, too--that a real Bad Cat had arrived...." Not long after his arrival, Tatum agreed to meet Harlem's three leading pianists--James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Fats Waller--at Morgan's, a Harlem bar with a suitable piano. Pitted in a piano battle against these musical giants, Tatum, overwhelmed his challengers. Looking back on that evening Waller confessed, as quoted in Fats Waller, "That Tatum, he was just too good....He had too much technique. When that man turns on the powerhouse don't know one play him down. He sounds like a brass band." Tatum had bested his rivals and thus established himself as one of the greatest pianists on the New York City jazz scene.
In 1933 Tatum played the Onyx Club on 52nd Street. In March of that same year, he recorded his first official solo session, which included "Tiger Rag," "Tea For Two," "St. Louis Blues," and Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady." In assessing these first sides recorded for the Brunswick label, Leonard Feather, in the liner notes to Art Tatum, Piano Starts Here, observed "The characteristics that were to remain Tatum's trademarks until the day he died were already evident: the incessantly creative left hand, now striding, now playing four different chords to the bar; the use of substitute chords and unprecedented harmonic subtlety; the sixteenth note runs at tempos that gave most pianists trouble maintaining an even flow of eighth notes."
In August and September of 1934 Tatum returned to the studio, and in the following year, without steady work in New York City, he performed in Cleveland. In 1935 he performed on the "Fleischman Hour" radio program hosted by Rudy Valee. He also played the Three Dueces in Chicago, and eventually formed a quartet at the club. After the end of his stint at the Three Deuces in 1936, Tatum traveled to Los Angeles, where his reputation had already been established. He played Hollywood parties and venues like the Tracadero, Paramount, and the Club Alabam on Central Avenue in the heart of Los Angeles's black entertainment scene. After several months in Los Angeles Tatum returned to New York City in 1936, and then, during the following year, returned to the west coast and recorded with a group, Art Tatum and His Swingsters. In 1937 he also recorded for the Brunswick label in New York City, producing the numbers "Stormy Weather," "The Sheik of Araby," "Chlo-e," and "Gone With the Wind."
Traveled Overseas
In 1938 Tatum left for England on the Queen Mary, and played a three month engagement in various English clubs and appeared on the BBC. As Lester explained in Too Marvelous For Words, "Art's appearances in England were not concerts," but the quiet attentiveness of the audiences "made them something closer to concerts than anything Tatum had experienced at home." By 1938 Tatum's music began to be transcribed and notated in publications, and his bookings resulted in residencies at various clubs. His recordings for Decca included Jules Massenet's "Elegie" (1938) and eighteen numbers in 1939, including "Get Happy" and Atonin Dvorak's "Humoresque." His 1940 output for Decca included a more popular version of "Humoresque," "Cocktails For Two," and "Begin the Beguine."
Between 1939 and 1940 Tatum worked in New York City and made frequent trips to Los Angeles where he made seventeen sides for Decca. A recently issued live recording, Art Tatum, California Melodies, captures the pianist in a series of Los Angeles (KHJ) broadcasts that aired from April to July of 1940. Tatum's recordings from this weekly program "is perhaps the most valuable and historically important addition to [Tatum's] recorded legacy," noted Stephen C. LaVere in the liner notes to California Melodies.
Art Tatum Trio
During January of 1941 Tatum recorded a Decca session under the title Art Tatum and His Band, a small pickup group including blues vocalist Joe Turner. The session produced four numbers including the big-selling number, "Wee Wee Baby Blues." The success of "Wee Wee Baby Blues" prompted another recording session with Turner, and in June of 1941, four sides were cut, including "Corrine Corina." His next commercial recordings did not emerge until 1943, when he won Esquire's first jazz popularity poll. Without steady bookings as a solo artist, Tatum looked to other opportunities to support himself; in 1943 he formed a trio with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Leroy "Slam" Stewart. The trio, observed Lyons in The Great Jazz Pianists, "was celebrated for the inventive communication among the players as well as for Tatum's blistering speed, as they achieved a unity of sound that was rare at any tempo." Tatum's 1944 recordings were entirely made up of his trio work. During 1945 he appeared on the radio, attended only two studio sessions, and finally decided to quit working in a trio format.
At end of the Second World War in 1945, observed Lester in Too Marvelous For Words, Tatum's "standing and reputation were established beyond challenge, but his popularity," primarily due to the emergence of bebop, "faded seriously in the remainder of the 1940s." Tatum's music did not follow this modernist jazz trend, but it did have profound influence on its leading musicians, like Charlie Parker who, for one year, washed dishes in a Harlem restaurant just to listen to Tatum's playing in the front room, and bebop piano genius Bud Powell idolized the keyboard master from Toledo.
In the spring of 1949 Tatum performed at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium. That same year, Tatum signed with Capitol Records and recorded several critically acclaimed numbers. He made his concert stage debut in 1945, and subsequently played a circuit of university and community halls across the country, while continuing to play club and concert dates into the mid 1950s, including San Francisco's Black Hawk Club in 1955, and the Hollywood Bowl in August 1956.
Recorded For The Verve Label
In 1953 Tatum signed with Norman Granz's Clef/Verve label, for which he recorded over 120 piano solos. Discussing Tatum's recorded repertoire that included many of the same selections, Lyons, noted that, even during the 1950s, he "rarely repeated himself in his treatment of material. His harmonic variations were startling, especially when he soloed. Where another pianist might go directly from one chord to the next, Tatum's left hand would walk crablike through a cycle of four to six new chords between the original two. Meanwhile, his right hand would spin out a web of interconnecting lines of thirty-second notes."
Apart from his solo recordings the Verve label recorded Tatum in several small group settings with jazzmen such as Benny Carter, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. His session with Webster, recorded in September of 1956, is considered by most critics as the finest of these small group recordings. In his review of The Art Tatum-Ben Webster Quartet for Jazz Review, critic Dick Katz, stated, as reprinted in the book Jazz Panorama, how "Tatum's and Webster's respective conceptions complement each other beautifully....Art Tatum and Ben Webster represent to me a kind of romanticism in jazz which has now itself become classic. Theirs is a an artistry rarely matched in any era of jazz."
But this session would be Tatum's last. For years Tatum, a heavy beer drinker, had, later in his life, suffered from diabetes. By the mid 1950s he fell ill with uremia. He died in Queens Hospital in Los Angeles, on November 5, 1956. In tribute to the keyboard master, Leonard Feather wrote, in the liner notes to Art Tatum the Piano Starts Here, "How many frustrations Tatum had to suffer during his forty six years, none of us can ever quite know. He was black in a society that awarded honors to white musicians with a tenth of his talent." But Tatum's legacy is one of a committed brilliant musician. Not long after Tatum's death, Benny Green, wrote in his collected work of essays, The Reluctant Art, that "Tatum has been the only jazz musician to date who has made an attempt to conceive a style based upon all styles, to master the mannerisms of all schools and then synthesize those into something personal." In the liner notes to Giants of Jazz, Art Tatum, Spellman also emphasized that "Tatum conceived a style based on all styles...No one more than Tatum summarized the art of his generation, and no one more than he pointed the way to the generation of pianists who followed him."
Awards
Esquire jazz popularity poll 1943; Esquire gold medal, 1945, silver medal, 1947.
Works
Selected Discography
Further Reading
Books
— John Cohassey
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Art Tatum |
Gale Musician Profiles:
Art Tatum |
| For The Record... |
| Full name, Arthur Tatum, Jr.; born October 13, 1909, in Toledo, OH; died November 5, 1956, in Los Angeles, CA; father was a factory worker/mechanic and played some amateur piano; mother was an amateur pianist, violinist; son, Orlando, born 1933; married Ruby Arnold August 1, 1935; divorced, February, 1955; married Geraldine Williamson, November, 1955. Began with lessons at home, followed by more formal studies at Jefferson School for the Handicapped in Toledo and School for the Blind in Columbus; later at Toledo School of Music and privately with Overton G. Rainey; played at church, neighborhood functions and local clubs, c. 1924-25; formed own small band, 1926; own WSPD radio program c. 1927; jobbed around Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, 1928-32; went to New York as accompanist to vocalist Adelaide Hall, 1932; first recordings, 1932; established reputation in New York clubs and on recordings, 1932-35; in residence at Chicago’s Three Deuces, 1935; moved to California, 1936; successful trip to London, 1938; formed famous trio, 1943; continued touring, recording, 1943-1956. Awards: Esquire Gold Award, 1944; Silver, 1945; Metronome poll, 1945; Down Beat Critics poll, 1954, 1955, 1956. |
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Artists:
Art Tatum |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Art Tatum |
| Art Tatum | |
|---|---|
Art Tatum, 1946 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Arthur Tatum, Jr. |
| Born | October 13, 1909 |
| Origin | Toledo, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died |
November 5, 1956 (aged 47) Interred: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California |
| Genres | Jazz, stride |
| Occupations | Jazz pianist |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Years active | 1927–1956 |
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.
Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time.[1] Critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Tatum's quick reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with fresh (and sometimes futuristic) ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries ... Art Tatum's recordings still have the ability to scare modern pianists."[2]
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Contents
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For a musician of such stature, there is very little published information available about Tatum's life. Only one full-length biography has been published, Too Marvelous for Words, by James Lester.[3] Lester interviewed many of Tatum's contemporaries for the book and drew from many articles published about him.[4]
Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio. His father, Arthur Tatum, Sr., was a guitarist and an elder at Grace Presbyterian Church, where his mother, Mildred Hoskins, played piano.[5] He had two siblings, Karl and Arlene.[6] From infancy he suffered from cataracts (of disputed cause) which left him blind in one eye and with only very limited vision in the other. A number of surgical procedures improved his eye condition to a degree but some of the benefits were reversed when he was assaulted in 1930 at age 20.[7]
A child prodigy with perfect pitch, Tatum learned to play by ear, picking out church hymns by the age of three, learning tunes from the radio and copying piano-roll recordings his mother owned. In a Voice of America interview, he denied the widespread rumor that he learned to play by copying piano roll recordings made by two pianists.[8] He developed an incredibly fast playing style, without losing accuracy. As a child he was also very sensitive to the piano's intonation and insisted it be tuned often.[9] While playing piano was the most obvious application of his mental and physical skills, he also had an encyclopedic memory for Major League Baseball statistics.
In 1925, Tatum moved to the Columbus School for the Blind, where he studied music and learned braille. Subsequently he studied piano with Overton G. Rainey at either the Jefferson School or the Toledo School of Music. Rainey, who too was visually impaired, likely taught Tatum in the classical tradition, as Rainey did not improvise and discouraged his students from playing jazz.[10] In 1927, Tatum began playing on Toledo radio station WSPD as 'Arthur Tatum, Toledo's Blind Pianist', during interludes in Ellen Kay's shopping chat program and soon had his own program.[11] By the age of 19, Tatum was playing with singer Jon Hendricks, also an Ohioan, at the local Waiters' and Bellmens' Club.[12] As word of Tatum spread, national performers passing through Toledo, including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Joe Turner and Fletcher Henderson, would make it a point to drop in to hear the piano phenomenon.
Tatum drew inspiration from the pianists James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, who exemplified the stride piano style, and from the more "modern" Earl Hines, six years Tatum's senior. Tatum identified Waller as his main influence, but according to pianist Teddy Wilson and saxophonist Eddie Barefield, "Art Tatum's favorite jazz piano player was Earl Hines. He used to buy all of Earl's records and would improvise on them. He'd play the record but he'd improvise over what Earl was doing ..... 'course, when you heard Art play you didn't hear nothing of anybody but Art. But he got his ideas from Earl's style of playing – but Earl never knew that."[13] A major event in his meteoric rise to success was his appearance at a cutting contest in 1933 at Morgan's bar in New York City that included Waller, Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith. Standard contest pieces included Johnson's "Harlem Strut" and "Carolina Shout" and Fats Waller's "Handful of Keys." Tatum triumphed with his arrangements of "Tea for Two" and "Tiger Rag", in a performance that was considered to be the last word in stride piano. James P. Johnson, reminiscing about Tatum's debut afterward, simply said, "When Tatum played Tea For Two that night I guess that was the first time I ever heard it really played." [14] Tatum's debut was historic because he outplayed the elite competition and heralded the demise of the stride era. He was not challenged further until stride specialist Donald Lambert initiated a half-serious rivalry with him.
Tatum worked in New York at the Onyx Club for a few months and recorded his first four solo sides on the Brunswick label in March, 1933.[6] He returned to Ohio and played around the American midwest in the mid-1930s and played on the Fleischman Hour radio program hosted by Rudy Vallee in 1935. He also played stints at the Three Deuces in Chicago and in Los Angeles played at The Trocadero, the Paramount and the Club Alabam.[15] In 1937 he returned to New York where he appeared at clubs and played on national radio programs.[12] The following year he embarked on the Queen Mary for England where he toured,[16] playing for three months at Ciro's Club owned by bandleader Ambrose. In the late 1930s he returned to play and record in Los Angeles and New York.
In 1941, Tatum recorded two sessions for Decca Records with singer Big Joe Turner, the first of which included "Wee Wee Baby Blues", which attained national popularity. Two years later Tatum won Esquire Magazine's first jazz popularity poll. Perhaps believing there was a limited audience for solo piano, Tatum formed a trio in 1943 with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart, whose perfect pitch enabled him to follow Tatum's excursions. Tatum recorded exclusively with the trio for almost two years, but abandoned the trio format in 1945 and returned to solo piano work. Although Tatum was idolized by many jazz musicians, his popularity faded in the mid to late forties with the advent of bebop - a movement which Tatum did not embrace.
The last two years of his life, Tatum regularly played at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, including his final public performance in April 1956.[17] Earlier, Tatum had personally selected and purchased for Clarence Baker the Steinway piano at Baker's, finding it in a New York showroom, and shipping it to Detroit.[18]
Art Tatum died at Queen of Angels Medical Center in Los Angeles, California from the complications of uremia (as a result of kidney failure). He was originally interred at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, but was moved to the Great Mausoleum of Glendale's Forest Lawn Cemetery in 1991[citation needed]. He was survived by his wife, Geraldine Tatum. Geraldine died on May 4, 2010 in Los Angeles, and was interred beside Art at Forest Lawn Cemetery.[19]
Tatum built upon stride and classical piano influences to develop a novel and unique piano style. He introduced a strong, swinging pulse to jazz piano, highlighted with spectacular cadenzas that swept across the entire keyboard. His interpretations of popular songs were exuberant, sophisticated, grandiose and intricate. He sometimes improvised lines that presaged bebop and later jazz genres but generally he did not venture far from the original melodic lines of songs. Jazz soloing in the 1930s had not yet evolved into the free-ranging extended improvisations that flowered in the bebop era of the 1940s and 1950s and beyond. But Tatum embellished those melodic lines with an array of signature devices and runs that appeared throughout his repertoire. As he matured, Tatum became more adventurous in abandoning the melodies and elongating those improvisations.
Tatum was an innovator in reharmonizing melodies by changing the supporting chord progressions or by altering the root movements of a piece. This technique casts a familiar theme in a fresh light and gives the music an unexpected quality. Many of his harmonic concepts and larger chord voicings (e.g., 13th chords with various flat or sharp intervals) were well ahead of their time in the 1930s (except for their partial emergence in popular songs of the jazz age) and they would be explored by bebop-era musicians a decade later. He worked some of the upper extensions of chords into his lines, a practice which was further developed by Bud Powell and Charlie Parker, which in turn was an influence on the development of 'modern jazz'. Tatum also pioneered the use of dissonance in jazz piano, as can be heard, for example, on his recording of "Aunt Hagar's Blues",[20] which uses extensive dissonance to achieve a bluesy effect. In addition to using major and minor seconds, dissonance was inherent in the complex chords that Tatum frequently used.
Tatum could also play the blues with authority. Pianist Jay McShann, not known for showering compliments on his rivals, is on record as saying, "Art could really play the blues. To me, he was the world's greatest blues player, and I think few people realized that." [21] His repertoire, however, was predominantly Broadway and popular standards, whose chord progressions and variety better suited his talents. His approach was elaborate, pyrotechnic, dramatic and joyous. His protean style combined stride, jazz, swing, boogie-woogie and classical elements, while the musical ideas flowed in rapid-fire fashion. Benny Green wrote in his collected work of essays, The Reluctant Art, that "Tatum has been the only jazz musician to date who has made an attempt to conceive a style based upon all styles, to master the mannerisms of all schools and then synthesize those into something personal." [22] He was playful, spontaneous and often inserted quotes from other songs into his improvisations.[23] Tatum was not inclined toward understatement or expansive use of space. He seldom played in a simplified way, preferring interpretations that displayed his great technique and clever harmonizations. When jazz pianist Stanley Cowell was growing up in Toledo, his father prevailed upon Tatum to play piano at the Cowell home. Stanley described the scene as, "Tatum played so brilliantly and so much . . . that I thought the piano was gonna break. My mother left the room . . . so I said 'What's wrong, Mama?' And she said 'Oh, that man plays too much piano.'" [24] A handful of critics have complained that Tatum played too many notes[25] or was too ornamental or was even 'unjazzlike'. Jazz critic Gary Giddins opined, "That is the essence of Tatum. If you don't like his ornament, you should be listening to someone else. That's where his genius is." [26]
From the foundation of stride, Tatum made great leaps forward in technique and harmony and he honed a groundbreaking improvisational style that extended the limits of what was possible in jazz piano. His innovations were to greatly influence later jazz pianists, such as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Billy Taylor, Bill Evans and Chick Corea. One of Tatum's innovations was his extensive use of the pentatonic scale, which may have inspired later pianists to further mine its possibilities as a device for soloing. Herbie Hancock described Tatum's unique tone as "majestic" and devoted some time to unlocking this sound and to noting Tatum's harmonic arsenal.[27]
The sounds that Tatum produced with the piano were also distinctive. It was said that he could make a bad piano sound good. Generally playing at mezzoforte volume, he employed the entire keyboard from deep bass tones to sonorous mid-register chords to sparkling upper register runs. He used the sustain pedal sparingly so that each note was clearly articulated and chords were cleanly sounded. Tatum's harmonic invention produced tonal colors that identified his musical palette. He played with boundless energy and occasionally his speedy and precise delivery produced an almost mechanical effect not unlike the sound of a player piano.
Critic Gunther Schuller declared, "On one point there is universal agreement: Tatum's awesome technique."[28] That technique was marked by a calm physical demeanor and efficiency. He did not indulge in theatrical physical or facial expression. Hank Jones said, "When I finally met him and got a chance to hear him play in person, it seemed as if he wasn’t really exerting much effort, he had an effortless way of playing. It was deceptive. You’d watch him and you couldn’t believe what was coming out, what was reaching your ears. He didn’t have that much motion at the piano. He didn’t make a big show of moving around and waving his hands and going through all sorts of physical gyrations to produce the music that he produced, so that in itself is amazing. There had to be intense concentration there, but you couldn’t tell by just looking at him play." [29] The effortless gliding of his hands over difficult passages puzzled most who witnessed the phenomenon. He especially mystified other pianists to whom Tatum appeared to be "playing the impossible."[30] Even when playing scintillating runs at high velocity, it appeared that his fingers hardly moved. Using self-taught fingering, including an array of two-fingered runs, he executed the pyrotechnics with meticulous accuracy and timing. His execution was all the more remarkable considering that he drank prodigious amounts of alcohol when performing,[31] yet his recordings are never sloppy. Tatum also displayed phenomenal independence of the hands and ambidexterity, which was particularly evident while improvising counterpoint. Jazz historian and commentator Ira Gitler declared that Tatum's "left hand was the equal of his right." [32] Around 1950 when Bud Powell was opening for Tatum at Birdland, Powell reportedly said to Tatum, "Man, I'm going to really show you about tempo and playing fast. Anytime you're ready." Tatum laughed and replied, "Look, you come in here tomorrow, and anything you do with your right hand, I'll do with my left." Powell never took up the challenge.[33]
Tatum played chords with a relatively flat-fingered technique compared to the curvature taught in classical training. Composer/pianist Mary Lou Williams told Whitney Balliett, "Tatum taught me how to hit my notes, how to control them without using pedals. And he showed me how to keep my fingers flat on the keys to get that clean tone." [34] Jimmy Rowles said, "Most of the stuff he played was clear over my head. There was too much going on — both hands were impossible to believe. You couldn't pick out what he was doing because his fingers were so smooth and soft, and the way he did it — it was like camouflage."[35] When his fastest tracks of "Tiger Rag" are slowed down, they still reveal a coherent, syncopated rhythm.
After regular club dates, Tatum would decamp to after-hours clubs to hang out with other musicians who would play for each other. Biographer James Lester notes that Tatum enjoyed listening to other pianists and preferred to play last when several pianists played. He frequently played for hours on end into the dawn, to the detriment of his marriages.[31] Tatum was said to be more spontaneous and creative in those free-form nocturnal sessions than in his scheduled performances.[31] Evidence of this can be found in the set entitled 20th Century Piano Genius which consists of 40 tunes recorded at private parties at the home of Hollywood music director Ray Heindorf in 1950 and 1955. According to the review by Marc Greilsamer, "All of the trademark Tatum elements are here: the grand melodic flourishes, the harmonic magic tricks, the flirtations with various tempos and musical styles. But what also emerges is Tatum's effervescence, his joy, and his humor. He seems to celebrate and mock these timeless melodies all at once."[36]
Tatum tended to work and to record unaccompanied, partly because relatively few musicians could keep pace with his fast tempos and advanced harmonic vocabulary. Other musicians expressed amazed bewilderment at performing with Tatum. Drummer Jo Jones, who recorded a 1956 trio session with Tatum and bassist Red Callender is quoted as quipping, "I didn't even play on that session [...] all I did was listen. I mean, what could I add? [...] I felt like setting my damn drums on fire."[37] Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco said that playing with Tatum was "like chasing a train."[32] Tatum said of himself, "A band hampers me."[38]
Tatum did not readily adapt or defer to other musicians in ensemble settings. Early in his career he was required to restrain himself when he worked as accompanist for vocalist Adelaide Hall in 1932-33. Perhaps because Tatum believed there was a limited audience for solo piano, he formed a trio in 1943 with guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart, whose perfect pitch enabled him to follow Tatum's excursions. He later recorded with other musicians, including a notable session with the 1944 Esquire Jazz All-Stars, which included Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and other jazz greats, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He also recorded memorable group sessions for Norman Granz in the mid-1950s.
Tatum's repertoire consisted mainly of music from the Great American Songbook — Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and other popular music of the 20s, 30s and 40s. He played his own arrangements of a few classical piano pieces as well, most famously Dvořák's Humoresque no. 7 and Massenet's "Elegie". These interpretations are unsurpassed in conception and inventiveness by anything that has been recorded since[citation needed]. Although Tatum was not known as a composer,[39] his versions of popular numbers were so original as to border on composition.
Mainstream jazz piano has gone in a different direction than that pioneered by Tatum. Nevertheless, transcriptions of Tatum are popular and are often practiced assiduously.[40] But perhaps because his playing was so difficult to copy, only a handful of musicians — such as Oscar Peterson, Johnny Costa, Johnny Guarnieri, Adam Makowicz, Luther G. Williams, Steven Mayer and Christopher Jordan, and, outside of the usual roster of jazz pianists, Andre Previn — have attempted to seriously emulate or challenge Tatum. Although Bud Powell was of the bebop movement, his prolific and exciting style showed Tatum influence.[citation needed]
Tatum recorded commercially from 1932 until near his death. Although recording opportunities were somewhat intermittent for most of his career due to his solo style, he left copious recordings.[41] He recorded for Decca (1934–41), Capitol (1949, 1952) and for the labels associated with Norman Granz (1953–56). Tatum demonstrated remarkable memory when he recorded 68 solo tracks for Norman Granz in two days, all but three of the tracks in one take. He also recorded a series of group recordings for Granz with, among others, Ben Webster, Jo Jones, Buddy DeFranco, Benny Carter, Harry Sweets Edison, Roy Eldridge and Lionel Hampton.
Although only a small amount of film showing Tatum playing exists today, several minutes of professionally-shot archival footage can be found in Martin Scorsese's documentary The Blues. Footage also appears in Ken Burns' documentary Jazz, which includes a short passage on Tatum's life and work, including comments from Jimmy Rowles and Gary Giddins. Tatum appeared in the 1947 movie The Fabulous Dorseys, first playing a solo and then accompanying Dorsey's band in an impromptu song.
Tatum appeared on Steve Allen's Tonight Show in the early 1950s, and on other television shows from this era. Unfortunately, all of the kinescopes of the Allen shows, which were stored in a warehouse along with other now defunct shows, were thrown into a local rubbish dump to make room for new studios. However, the soundtracks were recorded off-air by Tatum enthusiasts at the time, and many are included in Storyville Records extensive series of rare Tatum recordings.
Tatum is portrayed briefly (by actor Johnny O'Neill) in Ray, a 2004 biopic about R&B artist Ray Charles. When Charles enters a nightclub he remarks, "Are my ears deceiving me or is that Art Tatum?" O'Neill captures Tatum's cool and collected presence at the keyboard.
Tatum posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989.
Numerous stories exist about other musicians' respect for Tatum. Perhaps the most famous is the story about the time Tatum walked into a club where Fats Waller was playing, and Waller stepped away from the piano bench to make way for Tatum, announcing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house."[42] Fats Waller's son confirmed the statement.[43]
Charlie Parker (who helped develop bebop) was highly influenced by Tatum. When newly arrived in New York, Parker briefly worked as a dishwasher in a Manhattan restaurant where Tatum was performing and often listened to the legendary pianist. Parker once said, “I wish I could play like Tatum’s right hand!”[44]
When Oscar Peterson was still a young boy, his father played him a recording of Art Tatum performing "Tiger Rag". Once the young Peterson was finally persuaded that it was performed by a single person, Peterson was so intimidated that he did not touch the piano for weeks.[45] Interviewing Oscar Peterson in 1962, Les Tompkins asked, "Is there one musician you regard as the greatest?" Peterson replied, "I’m an Art Tatum–ite. If you speak of pianists, the most complete pianist that we have known and possibly will know, from what I’ve heard to date, is Art Tatum."[46] "Musically speaking, he was and is my musical God, and I feel honored to remain one of his humbly devoted disciples."[47]
"Here's something new .... " pianist Hank Jones remembers thinking when he first heard Art Tatum on radio in 1935, " .... they have devised this trick to make people believe that one man is playing the piano, when I know at least three people are playing."[48]
The jazz pianist and educator Kenny Barron commented, "I have every record [Tatum] ever made — and I try never to listen to them … If I did, I'd throw up my hands and give up!"[49] Jean Cocteau dubbed Tatum "a crazed Chopin." Count Basie called him the eighth wonder of the world. Dave Brubeck observed, "I don't think there's any more chance of another Tatum turning up than another Mozart."[50] Pianist Mulgrew Miller, a noted fan of Tatum, commented on personal growth by saying, "When I talk to the people I admire, they're always talking about continuous growth and development and I look at them and say, 'Well...what are YOU going to do?' But, as Harold Mabern says, 'There's always Art Tatum records around'".[51] Dizzy Gillespie said, "First you speak of Art Tatum, then take a long deep breath, and you speak of the other pianists."[52]
The elegant 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."[52]
Other luminaries of the day including Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Godowsky and George Gershwin marveled at Tatum's genius.[31]
Jazz critic Leonard Feather has called Tatum "the greatest soloist in jazz history, regardless of instrument."[52]
In 1993, Tristan Jehan, a MIT student invented a term that is now in common usage in the field of computational musicology: The Tatum. It means "the smallest perceptual time unit in music" and is a tribute to Tatum's pianistic velocity.[53]
The Toledo Jazz Society presents an annual event dedicated to Tatum entitled the Art Tatum Jazz Heritage Festival.[54]
Zenph Studios, a software company focused on precisely understanding how musicians perform, recorded a new album of Tatum’s playing with Sony Masterworks in 2007. Using computer equipment coupled with an electronic incarnation of the player piano, they created re-performances of Tatum’s first four commercial tracks, from March 21, 1933, and the nine tracks from the April 2, 1949 live concert at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium. Sony recorded these anew in the same venue, in front of a live audience. These 13 tracks are on the album, Piano Starts Here: Live from The Shrine, which was recorded in high-resolution surround-sound and in binaural, as well as regular stereo. The binaural recording, when heard in headphones, let you hear what Tatum may have heard as he played on stage, with the piano spatially in front (bass on the left, treble on the right) and the live audience clearly downstage on the righthand side.[55] Zenph’s re-performances have been performed live in numerous venues, including the Toronto Jazz Festival [56] and New York’s Apollo Theater. Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson requested a live presentation, which he heard in an emotional re-performance in his home in March 2007.
Tatum's work was used and referenced heavily in the WB TV series Everwood (2002–2006), with some actual sound recordings used and compositions being performed in concerts by Ephram Brown (portrayed by Gregory Smith) in select episodes. James Earl Jones' character Will Cleveland introduced these works to young Ephram, who was an aspiring pianist, in the second season episode "Three Miners From Everwood".
For his 2008 album Act Your Age, Gordon Goodwin wrote a new big band arrangement to accompany Zenph’s re-performance of “Yesterdays,” and the track was recognized with a Grammy Nomination for Best Instrumental Arrangement.[57]
In 2009 in Toledo at the new Lucas County Arena a memorial was placed to Art Tatum.[58]
Non pianist musicians influenced by Tatum's improvisational virtuosity include Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead who was quoted in the June 1985 edition of Frets Magazine as saying: "Art Tatum is my all-time favorite. Yeah, he’s my all-time favorite. He’s the guy I put on when I want to feel really small [laughs]. When I want to feel really insignificant [laughs]. He’s a good guy to play for any musician, you know. He’ll make them want to go home and burn their instruments. [Laughs.] Art Tatum is absolutely the most incredible musician – what can you say?"
Actress Tatum O'Neal states in her book A paper life that she was named for him.
Tatum recorded commercially from 1932 until near his death. Although recording opportunities were somewhat intermittent for most of his career due to his solo style, he left copious recordings.[37] He recorded for Decca (1934–41)
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