The house lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as a burly Negro was led to the piano. He seated himself, cocked his head to one side and played three smashing chords. Then he was off in a cascade of flashing arpeggios which resolved themselves into the haunting strains of Jerome Kern's Yesterdays. After a two-year absence, Art Tatum was back in Manhattan.
Almost totally blind, Tatum is generally acknowledged as the most brilliant technical virtuoso of the jazz piano. A musician's musician, he has been praised by such men as Paul Whiteman ("Tatum is a genius") and the late Thomas ("Fats") Waller...