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Despite serious vision, Art Tatum (he is blind in one eye and had only partial sight in the other), trained in piano as a teenager at the school of music in Toledo and has learned to read music with glasses and the braille method. In addition, it was a self-taught, learning from piano rolls, phonograph recordings, radio broadcasts and various musicians he met a young man in the region of Toledo and Cleveland. Tatum acknowledged Fats Waller as his main inspiration, with the popular radio pianist Lee Sims, the contents of many interpretations and interesting harmonies, as an important secondary influence.

Tatum played professionally in Toledo in 1926 and played on radio in 1929-30. In 1932, he traveled to New York as accompanist to Adelaide Hall. There,in March 1933, he made his first solo recording for Brunswick. After leavingHall, he worked in Cleveland, starting in 1934-5 and led a group in Chicago 1935-6. His reputation as an excellent jazz pianist was consolidated in 1937 with his performances in various New York clubs and on radio. He toured England the following year, and regularly in New York and Los Angeles in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Taking Nat “King” Cole trio jazz with success as a model, Tatum founded his own influential trio with Slam Stewart (double bass) and Tiny Grimes (electric guitar) in 1943. Grimes left the following year, but continually Tatum returned to this format, playing with Everett Barksdale in particular.

In 1944, Tatum has played in a jazz concert at the Metropolitan Opera House, and in 1947 he made a cameo appearance in the film The Fabulous Dorsey. Although he was regularly in nightclubs, radio, recording studios, and was lionized by jazz musicians and critics, it has not gained great popularity during the next period and was ignored in the polls of popularity of jazz. In 1953 he began a collaboration with producer Norman Granz, which led to a number of small groups of records with great musicians as Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge, and Ben Webster. More importantly, it was recorded in a long series of solo performances, which indicates the extent of his repertoire and his extraordinary imagination. Tatum has remained active and constantly improve his art until shortly before his death.