He was forty-seven when he went, in 1956, and a few years before that he sat down for Norman Granz and cut something like seventy tunes in a couple of days, solo, no second takes to speak of. Just a man and a piano and whoever was minding the tape.

Back up. Toledo, 1909, and a boy who could see a little out of one eye and not much out of the other, sitting at a player piano while the roll went by. The story the musicians always told is that he learned the rolls hand for hand, every note that got punched, not knowing that some of them had two pianists on them — one fellow cutting a part and another laying his part over it. So he taught himself four hands' worth and only ever had two. Whether that's exactly how it happened I couldn't swear to, but it explains the rest of his life pretty well. He spent it sounding like more people than were in the room.

Listen for what the left hand is doing. Everybody goes to the right hand because it's running, but the left is the whole trick — stride where you expect it, then it strolls off into tenths, drops a bass note somewhere you weren't counting, and comes back like nothing happened. There's a picture of him in a loose double-breasted suit, patterned tie, little chains of round lights strung on the wall behind him, both hands resting on the keys, half a smile for the camera. And when he did take a trio, in '43, he had Tiny Grimes on guitar and Slam Stewart on bass, Slam bowing and humming along an octave up. Bass players will do that when they're happy.