Art Tatum

Art Tatum

Virtually universally agreed to have been the greatest jazz pianist of all time, particularly by other pianists. A fantastically baroque and technically accomplished player who was probably too far ahead of everyone else to found his own school of piano players.

His playing matured into the 1950s up to the time of his early death, when he had integrated more successfully the various elements of his playing and made a long series of solo and small group masterpieces for recording impresario Norman Granz.