Fats Waller

Infobox musical artist
Name = Fats Waller

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Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Thomas Wright Waller
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Born = birth date|1904|5|21
Died = death date and age|1943|12|15|1904|5|21
Origin = New York City
Instrument = Piano, vocals
Voice_type =
Genre = Jazz
Occupation = Pianist, singer
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Fats Waller (born Thomas Wright Waller on May 21, 1904 — December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer and comedic entertainer.

A skilled pianist -- widely recognized as a master of stride piano -- Waller was one of the most popular performers of his era, finding critical and commercial success in his homeland and in Europe. Waller was also a prolific songwriter, with many songs he wrote or co-wrote still known to modern audiences, such as "Honeysuckle Rose", "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Squeeze Me". Fellow pianist and composer Oscar Levant dubbed Waller "the black Horowitz" in a favorable comparison to Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz [Palmer, David. "All You Need Is Love". Viking Press. 1976. ISBN 0670114480.] . A prolific composer of novelty swing tunes in the 1920s and 30s, Waller sold many of his compositions for relatively small sums, and as they became hits, other songwriters had already claimed them as their own. Thus many standards are alternatively, controversially attributed to Waller.

Biography

Not only was Fats Waller one of the greatest pianists jazz has ever known, he was also one of its most exuberantly funny entertainers -- and as so often happens, one facet tends to obscure the other. His extraordinarily light and flexible touch belied his ample physical girth; he could swing as hard as any pianist alive or dead in his classic James P. Johnson-derived stride manner, with a powerful left hand delivering the octaves and tenths in a tireless, rapid, seamless stream. Waller also pioneered the use of the pipe organ and Hammond organ in jazz -- he called the pipe organ the "God box" -- adapting his irresistible sense of swing to the pedals and a staccato right hand while making imaginative changes of the registration. As a composer and improviser, his melodic invention rarely flagged, and he contributed fistfuls of joyous yet paradoxically winsome songs like "Honeysuckle Rose," "Ain't Misbehavin,'" "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now," "Blue Turning Grey Over You" and the extraordinary "Jitterbug Waltz" to the jazz repertoire.

During his lifetime and afterwards, though, Fats Waller was best known to the world for his outsized comic personality and sly vocals, where he would send up trashy tunes that Victor Records made him record with his nifty combo, Fats Waller & His Rhythm. Yet on virtually any of his records, whether the song is an evergreen standard or the most trite bit of doggerel that a Tin Pan Alley hack could serve up, you will hear a winning combination of good knockabout humor, foot-tapping rhythm and fantastic piano playing. Today, almost all of Fats Waller's studio recordings can be found on RCA's on-again-off-again series The Complete Fats Waller, which commenced on LPs in 1975 and was still in progress during the 1990s.

Thomas "Fats" Waller came from a Harlem household where his father was a Baptist lay preacher and his mother played piano and organ. Waller took up the piano at age six, playing in a school orchestra led by Edgar Sampson (of Chick Webb fame). After his mother died when he was 14, Waller moved into the home of pianist Russell Brooks, where he met and studied with James P. Johnson. Later, Waller also received classical lessons from Carl Bohm and the famous pianist Leopold Godowsky. After making his first record at age 18 for Okeh in 1922, "Birmingham Blues"/"'Muscle Shoals Blues,"" he backed various blues singers and worked as house pianist and organist at rent parties and in movie theaters and clubs. He began to attract attention as a composer during the early- and mid-'20s, forming a most fruitful alliance with lyricist Andy Razaf that resulted in three Broadway shows in the late '20s, Keep Shufflin', Load of Coal, and Hot Chocolates.

Waller started making records for Victor in 1926; his most significant early records for that label were a series of brilliant 1929 solo piano sides of his own compositions like "Handful of Keys" and "Smashing Thirds." After finally signing an exclusive Victor contract in 1934, he began the long-running, prolific series of records with His Rhythm, which won him great fame and produced several hits, including "Your Feet's Too Big," "The Joint Is Jumpin'" and "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter." He began to appear in films like Hooray for Love and King of Burlesque in 1935 while continuing regular appearances on radio that dated back to 1923. He toured Europe in 1938, made organ recordings in London for HMV, and appeared on one of the first television broadcasts. He returned to London the following spring to record his most extensive composition, "London Suite" for piano and percussion, and embark on an extensive continental tour (which, alas, was canceled by fears of impending war with Germany). Well aware of the popularity of big bands in the '30s, Waller tried to form his own, but they were short-lived.

Into the 1940s, Waller's touring schedule of the U.S. escalated, he contributed music to another musical, Early to Bed, the film appearances kept coming (including a memorable stretch of Stormy Weather where he led an all-star band that included Benny Carter, Slam Stewart and Zutty Singleton), the recordings continued to flow, and he continued to eat and drink in extremely heavy quantities. Years of draining alimony squabbles, plus overindulgence and, no doubt, frustration over not being taken more seriously as an artist, began to wear the pianist down. Finally, after becoming ill during a gig at the Zanzibar Room in Hollywood in December, 1943, Waller boarded the Santa Fe Chief train for the long trip back to New York. He never made it, dying of pneumonia aboard the train during a stop at Union Station in Kansas City.

While every clown longs to play Hamlet as per the cliche -- and Waller did have so-called serious musical pretensions, longing to follow in George Gershwin's footsteps and compose concert music -- it probably was not in the cards anyway due to the racial barriers of the first half of the 20th century. Besides, given the fact that Waller influenced a long line of pianists of and after his time, including Count Basie (who studied with Fats), Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck and countless others, his impact has been truly profound. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide

Musical contributions

An excellent and much copied jazz pianist, Waller is considered one of the very best to have played in the stride style. With a touch that varied from subtle and extremely light to very powerful, he was a master of dynamics and tension and release. However, it was his singing, songwriting, and lovable, roguish stage personality that sold his hundreds of recordings for RCA Victor, in a day when much of society did not recognize jazz as "serious" music. He played with many performers, from Gene Austin to Erskine Tate to Adelaide Hall, but his greatest success came with his own five- or six-piece combo, "Fats Waller and his Rhythm". Fats Waller was such an impressive and talented pianist that he came to the attention of the rich and famous—sometimes whether he wanted to or not. Waller was in Chicago in 1926 and, upon leaving the building where he was performing, he was kidnapped by four men, who bundled him into a car and drove off. The car later pulled up outside the Hawthorne Inn, owned by infamous gangster Al Capone. Fats was ordered inside the building, to find a party in full swing. With a gun against his back, Waller was pushed towards a piano, whereupon the gangsters demanded he start playing. A terrified Waller suddenly realized he was the "surprise guest" at Al Capone's birthday party. Soon comforted by the fact that he wouldn't die, Waller played, according to rumor, for three days. When he left the Hawthorne Inn, he was very drunk, extremely tired, and had earned thousands of dollars in cash given to him by Capone himself and by party-goers as tips.Waller, Maurice and Anthony Calabrese. "Fats Waller". Schirmer Books. 1977. ASIN B000JV3G1U.]

Among his songs are "Squeeze Me" (1919), "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now", "Ain't Misbehavin'" (1929), "Blue Turning Grey Over You", "I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling" (1929), "Honeysuckle Rose" (1929), and "Jitterbug Waltz" (1942). He collaborated successfully with the Tin Pan Alley lyricist Andy Razaf for a number of years. Waller also composed stride piano display pieces such as "Handful of Keys", "Valentine Stomp" and "Viper's Drag." His songs have become standards of the jazz repertoire.

Waller made a successful tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland in the late 1930s, and appeared in one of the earliest BBC Television broadcasts. While in Britain, Waller also recorded a number of songs for EMI on their Compton Theatre organ located in their Studios in St John's Wood, London. He appeared in several feature films and short subject films, most notably "Stormy Weather" in 1943, which was released only months before his death.

For his hit Broadway show, "Hot Chocolates", with Razaf he wrote "(What Did I Do To Be So) "Black and Blue")?" (1929) which became a hit for Ethel Waters and Louis Armstrong. This song, a searing treatment of racism, black and white, calls into question the early accusations of "shallow entertainment" ignorantly leveled at both Armstrong and Waller.

Waller could read and write music well (from his classical keyboard studies) and would even, on occasion, perform organ works of Bach for small groups. He left his stamp on many pre-bop jazz pianists. Count Basie and Erroll Garner, for example, would have sounded very different absent the Waller sound.fact|date=July 2008 Today, Dick Hyman, Mike Lipskin, Louis Mazatier and other jazz pianists perform in the Waller idiom. Although the stride style, like all jazz, must be learned primarily by ear, many scholars have transcribed his brilliant improvisations from old recordings and radio broadcasts, in sheet music form. The pianist and keyboard professor Paul Posnak has produced transcriptions of 16 of Waller's greatest solos, published by Hal Leonard, which Posnak uses in concerts worldwide.

In addition to his virtuosic playing, Waller was known for his many quips during his performances, including:"One never knows, do one?""No lady, We can't haul your ashes for 25 cents, that's bad business.""Mercy!""Well all right then!""I wonder what the poor people are doing... I'd love to be doing it with them!""Run into and stab me, but don't bruise me!" and"Wot's da matta wit DAT?!"

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Fats Waller were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

Revival and posthumous awards

A Broadway musical revue showcasing Waller tunes entitled Ain't Misbehavin' was produced in 1978. (The show and a star of the show, Nell Carter, won Tony Awards for the show.) The show opened at the Longacre Theatre and ran for over 1600 performances. It was revived on Broadway in 1988. Performed by five African American actors, it included such songs as "Honeysuckle Rose", "This Joint Is Jumpin'", and "Ain't Misbehavin'".

Waller's music is featured in the 2008 movie "Be Kind Rewind".

Inductions

Popular culture

*Referenced in the 1979 movie "The Muppet Movie".
*Referenced in Robert Pinsky's poem "History of My Heart."
*An Episode of "Whose Line Is It Anyway" had Wayne Brady perform as Fats Waller doing the ad-libbed safari-themed song "Lion Nibblin' On My Toes".
*His organ music is prominently featured in the David Lynch cult hit, "Eraserhead".
*A part of "Alligator Crawl" is featured during the "Intermission" sequences of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".
*The 2008 film "Be Kind Rewind" features a young man played by Mos Def who believes Fats Waller was born in the Passaic, New Jersey building that now houses the video shop where he works. Despite eventually discovering the story to be false, he brings his neighbours together to make a wildly inaccurate "documentary" film celebrating the spirit of Fats and of their community.

References

ee also

* Andy Razaf, lyricist
* Stride piano defined with notable artists listed

External links

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* [http://www.pianola.com/fatsw.htm Fats Waller piano rollography]
* [http://www.redhotjazz.com/Fats.html Red Hot Jazz] A selection of Fats Waller's Recordings
* [http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/ijs/fw/fatsmain.htm Fats Waller Forever] A digital exhibit of Fats Waller's musical career
* [http://fatswaller.org/ Fats Waller] A hodge-podge of Waller memorabilia
* [http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jcarl.simonetti/home Fats Waller] A tribute to the King of Stride Piano
* [http://bmarcore.club.fr/waller/home.html Fats Waller] Stride Piano & Sheet Music
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:hifyxqy5ldde~T1 All Music Guide]