Art Tatum
Art Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio, and despite being blind in one eye and only partially sighted in the other he became arguably the greatest jazz piano player who ever lived. In his improvisations, he was prone to spontaneously inserting entirely new chord progressions (sometimes with a new chord on each beat) into the small space of one or two measures. His reharmonization of pop tunes became a standard practice among modern jazz musicians, horn players as well as pianists. In rhythmically...