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Em3rgent0rdr (talk | contribs) →Early life: instead of a large image of Fats Waller, which may be confusing to skimmers who see such a large image of Waller for this article on someone else (Tatum), I think better to have a smaller multi-image frame of the 3 influences listed (Waller, Johnson, Hines) positioned with the specific paragraph talking pianist influences on Tatum. |
Citation bot (talk | contribs) Add: isbn, title. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Spinixster | Category:American musicians with disabilities | #UCB_Category 83/315 |
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| birth_place = [[Toledo, Ohio|Toledo]], Ohio, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1956|11|5|1909|10|13|mf=y}}
| death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
| genre = [[Jazz]], [[Stride (music)|stride]]
| occupation = Musician
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==After hours and repertoire==
Tatum was said to be more spontaneous and creative in free-form nocturnal sessions than in his scheduled performances.{{sfn|Lester|1994|pp=13, 93}}{{sfn|Schuller|1989|p=481}} Whereas in a professional setting he would often give audiences what they wanted – performances of songs that were similar to his recorded versions – but decline to play encores, in after-hours sessions with friends he would play the blues, improvise for long periods on the same sequence of chords, and move even further away from a composition's melody.<ref name="GroveJazz">{{cite encyclopedia |entry=Tatum, Art(hur, Jr.) (jazz) |encyclopedia=Grove Music |last=Howlett |first=Felicity |title=Tatum, Art(hur, Jr.) (Jazz) |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2002 |doi = 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.J441700|isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 }}</ref> Tatum also sometimes sang the blues in such settings, accompanying himself on piano.{{sfn|Schuller|1989|p=488}} Composer and historian [[Gunther Schuller]] describes "a night-weary, sleepy, slurry voice, of lost love and sexual innuendos which would have shocked (and repelled) those 'fans' who admired Tatum for his musical discipline and 'classical' [piano] propriety".{{sfn|Schuller|1989|p=488}}
In after-hours performances, Tatum's repertoire was much wider than in professional appearances,{{sfn|Howlett|1982|p=xii}} at which his staples were American popular songs.{{sfn|Lester|1994|p=205}} During his career, he also played his own arrangements of a few classical piano pieces, including [[Antonín Dvořák|Dvořák]]'s ''[[Humoresques (Dvořák)|Humoresque]]'' and [[Jules Massenet|Massenet]]'s "[[Élégie (Massenet)|Élégie]]",{{sfn|Schuller|1989|p=485}} and recorded around a dozen blues pieces.{{sfn|Schuller|1989|p=478}} Over time, he added to his repertoire – by the late 1940s, most of the new pieces were medium-tempo ballads but also included compositions that presented him with harmonic challenges, such as the simplicity of "[[Caravan (Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington song)|Caravan]]" and complexity of "[[Have You Met Miss Jones?]]"<ref name="Williams" /> He did not add to the classical pieces he had used earlier.<ref name="Williams" />
==Style and technique==
Saxophonist [[Benny Green (saxophonist)|Benny Green]] wrote that Tatum was the only jazz musician to "attempt to conceive a style based upon all styles, to master the mannerisms of all schools, and then synthesize those into something personal".<ref name="Cohassey">{{cite journal |last1=Cohassey |first1=John |title=Art Tatum |journal=Contemporary Black Biography |volume=28 |pages=187–190}}</ref> Tatum was able to transform the styles of preceding jazz piano through virtuosity: where other pianists had employed repetitive rhythmic patterns and relatively simple decoration, he created "harmonic sweeps of colour [and] unpredictable and ever-changing shifts of rhythm".<ref name="Grove2">{{cite encyclopedia |entry=Tatum, Art(hur) |encyclopedia=Grove Music |last1=Howlett |first1=Felicity |last2=Robinson |first2=J. Bradford |title=Tatum, Art(hur, Jr.) |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2001 |doi = 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.27553|isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 }}</ref>
[[File:Art_Tatum,_Lonesome_Graveyard_Blues.ogg|thumb|right|Tatum's bitonal playing with [[Oscar Moore]] on "Lonesome Graveyard Blues" (1941)]]
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In 1989, Tatum's hometown of Toledo established the Art Tatum African American Resource Center in its Kent Branch Library.<ref name="lib" /> It contains print and audio materials and microfiche, and organizes cultural programs, including festivals, concerts, and a gallery for local artists.<ref name="lib">{{cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/legacies/loc.afc.afc-legacies.200003439/ |title=Local Legacies |publisher=The Library of Congress|access-date=May 6, 2020 }}</ref>
In 1993, Jeff Bilmes, an [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] student in the field of computational musicology coined the term "[[Tatum (music)|tatum]]" in recognition of the pianist's speed.<ref name="BilmesConf">{{Cite conference |last= Bilmes |first=Jeff |title=Techniques to Foster Drum Machine Expressivity |year=1993 |conference=International Computer Music Conference | location=Tokyo |pages=276–283 |citeseerx=10.1.1.76.1189 }}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |url=http://melodi.ee.washington.edu/~bilmes/mypapers/mit-thesis.pdf |title=Timing Is of the Essence: Perceptual and Computational Techniques for Representing, Learning, and Reproducing Expressive Timing in Percussive Rhythm |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology |type=MSc |first=Jeff |last=Bilmes |date=1993 |access-date=November 13, 2018 |archive-date=July 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728085128/http://melodi.ee.washington.edu/~bilmes/mypapers/mit-thesis.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> It has been defined as "the smallest time interval between successive notes in a rhythmic phrase",<ref name="BilmesConf" /> and "the fastest pulse present in a piece of music".<ref>{{Cite conference |last1=McLeod |first1=Andrew |last2=Steedman |first2=Mark |title=Meter Detection and Alignment of MIDI Performance|year= 2018|conference=International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference |location=Paris |pages=113–119 |citeseerx=10.1.1.26.9273 }}</ref>
In 2003, a historical marker was placed outside Tatum's childhood home at 1123 City Park Avenue in Toledo, but by 2017 the unoccupied property was in a state of disrepair.<ref name="house">{{cite news |last1=McGinnis |first1=Jeff |last2=Cocoves |first2=Athena |date=February 21, 2017 |url=http://toledocitypaper.com/the-city/remembering-art-tatum/ |title=Remembering Art Tatum |work=Toledo City Paper |access-date=October 13, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014091254/http://toledocitypaper.com/the-city/remembering-art-tatum/ |archive-date=October 14, 2018}}</ref> In 2021, Art Tatum Zone, a nonprofit organization, was awarded grants to restore the house and improve the neighborhood.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Snyder |first=Kate |date=February 22, 2021 |url=https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2021/02/22/Art-Tatum-Zone-receives-two-grant-awards/stories/20210222099 |title=Art Tatum Zone Receives Two Grant Awards |work=[[The Blade (Toledo, Ohio)|The Blade]] |access-date=October 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211015114730/https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2021/02/22/Art-Tatum-Zone-receives-two-grant-awards/stories/20210222099 |archive-date=October 15, 2021}}</ref> Also in Toledo, the [[Huntington Center (Toledo)|Lucas County Arena]] unveiled a 27-feet-high sculpture, the "Art Tatum Celebration Column", in 2009.<ref>{{cite web |title=Art Tatum Memorial |url=http://theartscommission.org/module-positions/recently-completed-projects/art-tatum-memorial|publisher=The Art Commission of Toledo|access-date=April 23, 2013 |date=September 11, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130410080733/http://theartscommission.org/module-positions/recently-completed-projects/art-tatum-memorial |archive-date=April 10, 2013 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>
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