Fats Waller was a major influence on Tatum.įrom infancy, Tatum had impaired vision. The Tatum family was regarded as conventional and church-going.

Karl went to college and became a social worker. He was followed by Arline nine years later and Karl after another two years. The couple had four children Art was the oldest to survive, and was born in Toledo on October 13, 1909. In 1909, they made their way from North Carolina to begin a new life in Toledo, Ohio. His father, Arthur Tatum Sr., was born in Statesville, North Carolina, and had steady employment as a mechanic. Tatum's mother, Mildred Hoskins, was born in Martinsville, Virginia, around 1890, and was a domestic worker. 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. His popularity diminished towards the end of the decade, as he continued to play in his own style, ignoring the rise of bebop. 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. 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 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 consumption of alcohol. 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. 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. 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. From early in his career, fellow musicians acclaimed Tatum's technical ability as extraordinary. ( / ˈ t eɪ t əm/, Octo– November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever.

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