page_title: Art Tatum
section_title: 1938–1949
hierarchical_section_title: Art Tatum / Later life and career / 1938–1949
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Art Tatum, Rochester, N.Y.(?), ca. May 1946
context_page_description: Arthur Tatum Jr. was an American jazz pianist.
  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. 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. Throughout his career, Tatum also played in after-hours venues at which he was said to be more spontaneous and creative than in his regular paid performances. Tatum drank large quantities of alcohol when performing; although it did not negatively affect his playing, it damaged his health. 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. Granz recorded Tatum extensively in solo and small group formats in the mid-1950s, with the last session occurring only two months before the pianist's death from uremia at the age of 47.
  Tatum is widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz pianists. His playing encompassed the styles of earlier greats, while adding harmonic and rhythmic imagination and complexity.
context_section_description: In March 1938, Tatum and his wife embarked on the Queen Mary for England. He performed there for three months, and enjoyed the quiet listeners who, unlike some American audiences, did not talk over his playing. While in England, he twice appeared on the BBC television program Starlight. Four of his very limited number of compositions were also published in Britain. He then returned to the Three Deuces. The overseas trip appeared to have boosted his reputation, particularly with the white public, and he was able to have club residencies of at least several weeks at a time in New York over the following few years, sometimes with stipulations that no food or drink would be served while he was playing.
  Tatum recorded 16 tracks in August 1938, but they were not released for at least a decade. A similar thing happened the following year: of the 18 sides he recorded, only two were issued as 78s. A possible explanation is that big band music and vocalists were popular, so very few jazz pianists made solo recordings, and there was a very limited market for them. One of the releases, a version of "Tea for Two", was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1986. One recording from early in 1941, however, was commercially successful, with sales of perhaps 500,000. This was "Wee Baby Blues", performed by a sextet and with the addition of Big Joe Turner on vocals. Informal performances of Tatum's playing in 1940 and 1941 were released after his death on the album God Is in the House, for which he was awarded the 1973 Grammy for Best Jazz Performance by a Soloist. The album title came from Waller's words when he saw Tatum enter the club he was playing in: "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house."
  Tatum was, though, able to make a more than adequate living from his club performances. Billboard magazine suggested that he could make at least $300 a week as a soloist in 1943; when he formed a trio later that year, it was advertised by booking agents at $750 a week. The other musicians in the trio were guitarist Tiny Grimes and bassist Slam Stewart. They were a commercial success on 52nd Street, attracting more customers than any other musician, with the possible exception of vocalist Billie Holiday, and they also appeared briefly on film, in an episode of The March of Time. As a solo pianist up to that point, Tatum was praised by critics, but the paying public had given him relatively little attention; with the trio, he enjoyed more popular success, although some critics expressed disappointment. However, Tatum was awarded Esquire magazine's prize for pianists in its 1944 critics' poll.
  All of Tatum's studio recordings in 1944 were with the trio, and radio appearances continued. He abandoned the trio in 1944, possibly at an agent's behest, and did not record with one again for eight years. Early in 1945, Billboard reported that Tatum was being paid $1,150 a week as a soloist by the Downbeat club on 52nd Street to play four sets of twenty minutes each per night. This was described much later as an "unheard-of figure" for the time. The Billboard reviewer commented that "Tatum is given a broken-down instrument, some bad lights and nothing else", and observed that he was almost inaudible beyond the front seating because of the audience noise.
  Aided by name recognition from his record sales and reduced entertainer availability because of the World War II draft, Tatum began to play in more formal jazz concert settings from 1944 – appearing at concert halls in towns and universities all around the United States. The venues were much larger than jazz clubs – some had capacities in excess of 3,000 people – allowing Tatum to earn more money for much less work. Despite the more formal concert settings, Tatum preferred not to adhere to a set program of pieces for these performances. He recorded with the Barney Bigard Sextet and cut nine solo tracks in 1945.
  A fellow pianist from the years after World War II estimated that Tatum routinely drank two quarts (1.9 l) of whiskey and a case of beer over the course of 24 hours, but almost all repor
caption: Tatum in 1946
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