Art Tatum was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso. He was not totally blind, but blind enough to make it into this weeks selection. From infancy he suffered from cataracts which left him blind in one eye and with only very limited vision in the other. A number of surgical procedures improved his eye condition to a degree but the benefits of the operations were swiftly reversed when he was assaulted in 1930.
Art was a considered to be child prodigy with perfect pitch. He learned to play the piano by ear, a task of both ability (due to his perfect pitch) and disability (due to his limited vision). From the age of three he was was able to pick out church hymns, learn songs he heard on the radio, and copy piano-roll recordings his mother owned. While playing piano was the best known of his talents, he also possessed an encyclopedic memory for Major League Baseball statistics.
Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. Critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Tatum's quick reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with fresh (and sometimes futuristic) ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries ... Art Tatum's recordings still have the ability to scare modern pianists."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Tatum
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