Art Tatum

Art Tatum (1909-1956) grew up in Toledo, Ohio, blind in one eye and with only partial sight in the other. He absorbed music from piano rolls, radio and church, and by his early twenties his technique was already the talk of every pianist who passed through town. When he arrived in New York in 1932, the story goes that Fats Waller announced him from the bandstand with: I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house.

What set Tatum apart was not just speed, though nobody matched it. He rebuilt songs in flight: substitute harmonies stacked on substitute harmonies, cascading runs woven between the beats, and a stride left hand that never lost its swing. Classical virtuosos from Horowitz to Rachmaninoff reportedly came to hear him and left shaking their heads.

His late-career solo recordings for Norman Granz preserved hundreds of performances, and their influence runs through Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson and virtually every pianist who came after. The files in this store are transcribed from those recordings note for note, so you can slow down and study what stunned everybody.