Erroll Garner

As her performs at Bob City in Manhattan. When the master pianist Art Tatum lay dying, the legend goes, he had a word of warning for a younger pianist who had come to see him: "Watch out for the little man." Erroll Garner

Garner was so little that he carried a Manhattan telephone book with him wherever he went in order to reach the keys. He was silent onstage, rarely saying a word to the huge audiences that turned out to hear him. And he didn't know one note from another on paper but he was the most prolific, best loved jazz pianist of his era.

Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns