To Inspire: Art Tatum
By Johnny Roosh
In the process of reading The Other 90% by Ken Cooper I came across a vignette about Art Tatum, a man that overcame seemingly insurmountable physical challenges and triumphed as one of the world’s foremost jazz pianists.
Born in Ohio in 1909, Tatum suffered from blindness in one eye; partial in the other.
Blessed with an extraordinary ear for music and largely self-taught, Tatum layed his hands on a player piano one day and while it played his fingers grasped the movement of the keys. He learned to play the piano and repetition lead to mastery. This despite his blissful ignorance of the fact that player pianos at the time played as though two pianists and four hands were at the keyboard.
When you listen to his work, the range, tempo and touch he exhibits leaves you unable to imagine one man’s fingers dancing with such pace and perfection. Other artists of the 1930’s called his performances “impossible.”
Ironically…
“Art Tatum’s incredibly fast playing style requires a level of precision beyond the capabilities of conventional player piano systems,” said John Q. Walker, founder of Zenph Studios
In fact, watching a player piano perform probably his most representative work “Tiger Rag,” reveals an amazingly complex range of keystrokes and leaves one wondering how any one artist could play the song.
Videos of his performances, rare as they are, reveal an exceedingly calm but rapid command of the keys. I don’t know much about jazz, so I poked around the web, looking for tidbits on this remarkable artist and was inspired by his ability to overcome, to produce such a large volume of work and to inspire other artists.
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