Arthur Tatum Jr. (, October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever. From early in his career, fellow musicians acclaimed Tatum's technical ability as extraordinary. Tatum also extended jazz piano's vocabulary and boundaries far beyond his initial stride influences, and established new ground through innovative use of reharmonization, voicing, and bitonality.
Tatum grew up in Toledo, Ohio, where he began playing piano professionally and had his own radio program, rebroadcast nationwide, while still in his teens. He left Toledo in 1932 and had residencies as a solo pianist at clubs in major urban centers including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In that decade, he settled into a pattern he followed for most of his career – paid performances followed by long after-hours playing, all accompanied by prodigious alcohol consumption. He was said to be more spontaneous and creative in such venues, and although the drinking did not hinder his playing, it did damage his health.
In the 1940s, Tatum led a commercially successful trio for a short time and began playing in more formal jazz concert settings, including at Norman Granz–produced Jazz at the Philharmonic events. His popularity diminished towards the end of the decade, as he continued to play in his own style, ignoring the rise of bebop. Granz recorded Tatum extensively in solo and small group formats in the mid-1950s, with the last session only two months before Tatum's death from uremia at the age of 47.
Tatum's mother, Mildred Hoskins, was born in Martinsville, Virginia, around 1890, and was a domestic worker. His father, Arthur Tatum Sr., was born in Statesville, North Carolina, and had steady employment as a mechanic. In 1909, they made their way from North Carolina to begin a new life in Toledo, Ohio. The couple had four children: Art, the oldest surviving child, was born in Toledo on October 13, 1909; his sister, Arline, was born nine years later; followed by his brother, Karl, two years after that. Karl went to college and became a social worker. The Tatum family was regarded as conventional and church-going.
From infancy, Tatum had impaired vision. Several explanations for this have been posited, most involving cataracts. As a result of eye operations, by the age of 11, Tatum could see objects close to him and perhaps distinguish colors. Any benefits from these procedures were reversed, however, when he was assaulted, probably in his early twenties. The attack left him completely blind in his left eye and with very limited vision in his right. Despite this, there are multiple accounts of him enjoying playing cards and pool.
Accounts vary on whether Tatum's parents played any musical instruments, but it is likely that he was exposed at an early age to church music, including through the Grace Presbyterian Church that his parents attended. He also began the piano at a young age, playing by ear and aided by an excellent memory and sense of pitch. Other musicians reported that he had perfect pitch. As a child he was sensitive to the piano's intonation and insisted it be tuned often. He learned tunes from the radio and records, and by copying piano roll recordings. In an interview as an adult, Tatum denied the story that his playing ability developed because he had attempted to reproduce piano roll recordings that, without his knowing, had been made by two performers. His interest in sports was lifelong, and he displayed an encyclopedic memory for baseball statistics.
Tatum first attended Jefferson School in Toledo, then moved to the School for the Blind in Columbus, Ohio, late in 1924. After less than a year, he transferred to the Toledo School of Music. Overton G. Rainey, who gave him formal piano lessons in the classical tradition for six years beginning at the age of 12, at either the Jefferson School or the Toledo School of Music, was also visually impaired, did not improvise, and discouraged his students from playing jazz. Based on this history, it is reasonable to assume that Tatum was largely self-taught as a pianist. By the time he was a teenager, Tatum was asked to play at various social events, and he was probably being paid to play in Toledo clubs from around 1924–25.
Growing up, Tatum drew inspiration principally from Fats Waller and James P. Johnson, who exemplified the stride piano style, and to some extent from the more modern Earl Hines, six years Tatum's senior. Tatum identified Waller as his biggest influence, while pianist Teddy Wilson and saxophonist Eddie Barefield suggested that Hines was one of his favorite jazz pianists. Wilson declared that Tatum was “the strongest influence of all" on his own playing and that "Art Tatum was the master of all of us and we were all awestruck when
he sat down to play the most phenomenal playing." Another influence on Tatum was pianist Lee Sims, who did not play jazz, but used chord voicings and an orchestral approach – that is, one that encompassed a full, rich sound instead of highlighting one or more timbres.
In 1927, after winning an amateur competition, Tatum began playing on Toledo radio station WSPD during interludes in a morning shopping program and soon had his own daily program. After regular club dates, he often visited after-hours clubs to be with other musicians; he enjoyed listening to other pianists and preferred to play after all the others had finished. He frequently played for hours on end into the dawn; his radio show was scheduled for noon, allowing him time to rest before evening performances. During 1928–29, the radio program was rebroadcast nationwide by the Blue Network. According to jazz vocalist Jon Hendricks, a neighbor of the Tatums, around 1930 the player piano at Tatum’s house was replaced by a better instrument: “Art Tatum’s mother scrubbed floors at the First National Bank to help him get a second-hand baby grand.” Tatum also began to play in larger Midwestern cities outside his home town, including Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit.
As word of Tatum spread, national performers passing through Toledo, including Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, visited clubs where he was playing. They were impressed by what they heard: from near the start of his career, "his accomplishment [...] was of a different order from what most people, from what even musicians, had ever heard. It made musicians reconsider their definitions of excellence, of what was possible", his biographer reported. Although Tatum was encouraged by comments from these and other established musicians, he felt that he was not yet, in the late 1920s, musically ready to move to New York City, the center of the jazz world and home to many of the pianists he had listened to growing up.
Around 1930, Tatum joined the Milton Senior and his Chateau La France Orchestra, a highly regarded four piece band in Toledo, consisting of piano, bass, guitar and clarinet. In 1932, vocalist Adelaide Hall, touring the United States with two pianists, heard Tatum play in Toledo and recruited him. She was introduced to Tatum by Ella Stewart, the wife of William W. Stewart, with whom Tatum entered a management contract. Stewart was a local pharmacist who had connections in the music business but not enough to properly represent Tatum, who two years later went under contract to a professional manager in Chicago named Sam Beers.
Upon joining with Hall, Tatum traveled to New York as part of her band. In July 1932, Tatum nearly lost his job with Hall while performing at New York's Palace Theatre. During a costume change, Tatum strayed from the rehearsed routine and delivered a brilliant solo that received deafening applause from the audience. Although Hall threatened to fire him for upstaging her, Tatum later agreed with her decision, recognizing that it was ultimately her show.
That same summer, the legendary John Hammond, Sr. became a disc jockey at New York radio station WEVD. After listeners responded positively to his favorite records, Hammond started a live Saturday night jazz jam session financed out of his own pocket, attracting top talent including Tatum, Fletcher Henderson, and Benny Carter. On August 5 that year, Hall and her band recorded two sides ("I'll Never Be the Same" and "Strange as It Seems") that were Tatum's first studio recordings. Two more sides with Hall followed five days later, as did a solo piano test-pressing of "Tea for Two" that was not released for several decades.