Artist: Art Tatum

Art Tatum (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. 

After winning an amateur competition in 1927, 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. Tatum also began to play in larger Midwestern cities outside his hometown, including Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit.

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 California, Tatum also played for Hollywood parties and appeared on Bing Crosby's radio program in 1936. He recorded in Los Angeles for the first time early the following year – four tracks as the sextet named Art Tatum and His Swingsters, for Decca Records.  Tatum settled into a pattern of performances at major jazz clubs in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, interspersed with appearances at minor clubs where musicians of his standing did not normally play. 

Tatum improvised differently than is typical in modern jazz. He did not try to create new melodic lines over a harmonic progression. Instead, he implied or played the original melody or fragments of it, while superimposing countermelodies and new phrases to create new structures based around variation.

Tatum had a calm physical demeanor at the keyboard, not attempting crowd-pleasing theatrical gestures. This increased his playing's impact, as did his seemingly effortless technique, as pianist Hank Jones observed: the apparently horizontal gliding of his hands across the keys stunned his contemporaries. 

Tatum's improvisational style extended what was possible on jazz piano. The virtuoso solo aspects of his style were taken on by pianists such as Adam Makowicz, Simon Nabatov, Oscar Peterson, and  Martial Solal. Even musicians who played in very different styles, such as Bud Powell, Lennie Tristano, and Herbie Hancock, memorized and recreated some of his recordings to learn from them.