It is a principal law that nature abhors a vacuum. If that is true, then Art Tatum defied that law when he died in 1956, because no one could touch his command of the entire range of the piano, his musical ideas that were generations ahead of his time, his harmonic palette, monstrous technique, style and the absolute joy he brought to listeners of his music.
Here is a brief sample of what I'm talking about, from the series of recordings he did for Norman Granz in the early 1950's, called "She's Funny That Way."
http://www.youtube.com/...
Tatum never received the accolades he deserved during his lifetime (1909-1956) and continues to be underappreciated in jazz circles today. In fact, he is unknown to many present-day jazz musicians, possibly because his repertoire was centered in the "Great American Songbook" tunes of the 1920s and 1930s (Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans and others), whereas mainstream jazzers are much more familiar with the "Bebop" and "Cool Jazz" eras of the late 1940s and 50s, where jazz musicians were experimenting with their own tunes. Also, Tatum was "the whole band," and although he played with his own trio for many years, he was most comfortable playing by himself, where he had total control of the style and groove. Some jazz critics fault him for this, saying jazz is a "collaborative undertaking" and that Tatum was a talented freak who didn't want to work with anyone else. I think these criticisms are off-base - everyone is his own artist, and whatever you want to call it - jazz or otherwise - Tatum's accomplishment is undiminishable by any means.
In any case, Art Tatum deserves his own full-length biography and retrospective moment in the sun. It may not happen, but exposing the new generation to Tatum's ideas will bear fruit for those who have the patience and the motivation to understand them.