Tatum, Art(hur)

Felicity Howlett and J. Bradford Robinson

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.27553
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

(b Toledo, OH, Oct 13, 1909; d Los Angeles, Nov 5, 1956). American jazz pianist .

1. Life.

Despite seriously impaired vision (he was blind in one eye and had only partial sight in the other), he
received some formal piano training as a teenager at the Toledo School of Music, and learnt to read
sheet music with the aid of glasses as well as by the Braille method. Otherwise he was self-taught,
learning from piano rolls, phonograph recordings, radio broadcasts and various musicians whom he
encountered as a young man in the area around Toledo and Cleveland. Tatum acknowledged Fats
Waller as his primary inspiration, with the popular radio pianist Lee Sims, whose interpretations
contained many interesting harmonies, as an important secondary influence. He was playing
professionally in Toledo by 1926, and performed on radio in 1929–30. In 1932 he travelled to New York
as the accompanist for Adelaide Hall. There, in March 1933, he made his first solo recordings, for
Brunswick (including Tea for Two and Tiger Rag). After leaving Hall he worked in Cleveland (1934–5)
and led a group in Chicago (1935–6). His reputation as the outstanding pianist in jazz was consolidated
in 1937 with his performances in various New York clubs and on radio shows. He toured England the
following year, and appeared regularly in New York and Los Angeles in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Taking Nat ‘King’ Cole’s successful jazz trio as a model, Tatum founded his own influential trio with
Slam Stewart (double bass) and Tiny Grimes (electric guitar) in 1943. Grimes left the following year,
but Tatum continually returned to this format, using in particular Everett Barksdale.

In 1944 Tatum played in a jazz concert at the Metropolitan Opera House, and in 1947 he made a cameo
appearance in the film The Fabulous Dorseys. Although he was regularly active in night clubs, radio
shows and recording studios, and was lionized by jazz musicians and critics, during this period he did
not acquire a large popular following and he was bypassed in jazz popularity polls. In 1953 he began an
association with the record producer Norman Granz that led to a number of outstanding small-group
recordings with such mainstream musicians as Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge and Ben Webster. More
importantly, he was recorded in a long series of solo performances which indicated both the extent of
his repertory and his extraordinary imagination. Tatum remained active until shortly before his death,
constantly improving his art.

2. Musical style.

Tatum transported the art of jazz piano improvisation beyond the real and imagined confines of his day.
His first professional solo recordings in 1933 were seen as a challenge to his own and future
generations of jazz and popular pianists. His technical abilities, lightness of touch and control of the
full range of the instrument were unprecedented among popular pianists; he had an unerring sense of
rhythm and swing, a seemingly unlimited capacity to expand and enrich a melody and a profound and

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continually evolving grasp of substitute harmonies. Throughout his career he retained the original
melody and harmonies of a tune as starting-points for his improvisations. Most often he chose models
from the standard popular repertory, including Sweet Lorraine/Get Happy (1940, Decca) and Willow
weep for me (1949, Cap.), though he also interpreted the blues and sometimes performed parodies on
light classical pieces. Only occasionally did he play original works. Tatum was often described as
having two distinct musical personalities: in his professional appearances he was thoroughly
businesslike, obliging audiences with almost literal repetitions of his recorded performances, seldom
taking encores and, in a studio, rarely recording more than one take of a performance. Among friends
he was inclined to play (and sing) the blues, to improvise for hours on given chord sequences and to
depart radically and dramatically from the original tune. He made more than 600 recordings (as
unaccompanied soloist, with his trios and with other small and large ensembles), which provide ample
evidence of his uncommonly creative genius as an improviser.

Tatum integrated the practices and characteristic gestures of the stride and swing keyboard traditions,
at the same time transforming them through his virtuosity. Simple decorative techniques became
complex harmonic sweeps of colour; traditional repetitive patterns became areas of unpredictable and
ever-changing shifts of rhythm. Later generations of jazz musicians were particularly impressed by his
intensification of the original harmonies of a tune ( ex.1, from Aunt Hagar’s Blues (1949, Cap.), shows
his celebrated recasting of the simple tonic 7th of the blues), particularly his interpolation of passing
harmonies, and the textural variety of his work, which frequently led to contrapuntal relationships
among lines in different registers. Also important were his ability to apply different variation
techniques simultaneously and his astonishing rhythmic sleight of hand. His influence on later jazz
pianists was enormous: even musicians of radically different outlook, such as Bud Powell, Lennie
Tristano and Herbie Hancock, learnt key Tatum performances by rote, though few could compass his
technical range or re-create his inimitable, plush tone. Other musicians, among them Charlie Parker,
were inspired by Tatum’s technical accomplishments to bring a similar virtuosity to their own
instruments.

Ex.1 Aunt Hagar’s Blues (1949, Cap); transcr. J. Mehegan

Bibliography
W. Balliett: ‘Art and Tatum’, Saturday Review (24 Oct 1955)

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A. Hodeir: ‘Art Tatum: a French Critic Evaluates the Music of a Great Pianist’, Down Beat, 22/17
(1955), 9

O. Keepnews: ‘Art Tatum’, The Jazz Makers, ed. N. Shapiro and N. Hentoff (New York, 1957/R),
156–7

D. Katz: ‘Art Tatum’, Jazz Panorama, ed. M. Williams (New York, 1962/R), 64–70

J. Mehegan: Jazz Improvisation, ii: Jazz Rhythm and the Improvised Line (New York,1962)

J. Mehegan: Jazz Improvisation, iii: Swing and Early Progressive Piano Styles (New York, 1964)

W. Balliett: ‘One Man Band’, New Yorker (7 Sept 1968); repr. in Ecstasy at the Onion (New York,
1971), 111–16

J.A. Howard: The Improvisational Techniques of Art Tatum (diss., Case Western Reserve U.,1978)

D.C. Brigaud: Art Tatum: essai pour une discographie des enregistrements hors commerce
(Paris, 1980) [incl. listings of radio broadcasts, film music and V-discs]

Keyboard, 7/10 (1981) [special issue]

J. Distler: Art Tatum (New York, 1981)

A. Laubich and R. Spencer: Art Tatum: a Guide to his Recorded Music (Metuchen, NJ, 1982) [bio-
discography]

F.A. Howlett: An Introduction to Art Tatum’s Performance Approaches: Composition,

Improvisation, and Melodic Variation (diss., Cornell U., 1983)

M. Williams: ‘Art Tatum: Not for the Left Hand Alone’, American Music, 1/1 (1983), 36–40

G. Schuller: ‘The Great Soloists: Art Tatum’, The Swing Era: the Development of Jazz, 1930–1945
(New York 1989), 476–502

J. Lester: Too Marvelous for Words: the Life and Genius of Art Tatum (New York, 1994)

See also

and jazz piano playing

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