From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue May 21, 2002  1:15 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Fats Waller
 
FATS WALLER

Born Thomas Wright Waller, 21 May 1904, New York City, New York
Died 15 December 1943, Kansas City, Missouri

Vocalist / pianist / organist
Born in New York City, Fats Waller was the son of a churchman. He learned
how to play the organ in church with his mother, Adeline Waller, who gave
him a background in classical music. Fats' first musical experience was
playing harmonium for his father's Abyssinian Baptist Church at 10 years of
age. The music which Fats later picked up around Harlem was viewed by his
father as "music from the Devil's workshop."
In 1918 he won a talent contest playing James P. Johnson's "Carolina Shout"
which he learned from watching a pianola play the song. Later, when Johnson
met Fats for the first time and heard him play the pipe organ, he told his
wife, "I know I can teach that boy." So Johnson took Waller under his wing
and within months had improved his play and introduced him to his first
Harlem rent party. Waller was such a diligent and lonesome pupil that he
would practice on the Johnson's piano until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning
--when Mrs. Johnson would finally order  him to go home.
In 1922, Johnson had been asked to take over the piano at Leroy's, a club at
Fifth Avenue and 135th Street where Willie the Lion Smith had been playing.
But Johnson was going out of town with a show and he recommended his 18
year old protege for the job. This was Waller's night club debut. But he was
ready because by this time, Fats had developed into an all-round keyboard
dynamo who was playing theater organ for silent movies and stage shows (at
Harlem's Lincoln Theater), accompanying singers, backing up dancers in
chorus lines, vaudeville revues and nightclubs, and playing blistering stride
piano at rent parties.
Johnson also took Waller to QRS ("Quality Reigns Supreme") to make piano
rolls. During the next five years, Waller turned out 19 rolls for QRS at one
hundred dollars each. Along with the rolls made by Johnson, these
performances have come to define the sound of what was first called "stride
ragtime" but was soon identified simply as "stride piano." His keyboard
style was as individual as a fingerprint, and his creativity was rampant at
times. Waller's unique sound and approach to music helped to send his record
sales soaring; however, impressive sales were due largely to his ability to
be a clown, to be able to convert even the most inconsequential popular
ballad into a thing of joy. The spirited personality of the man was so
powerful that he was able to easily transmit it even through the narrow
boundaries of a record groove.
Waller desired to give the audience what they wanted, a gradual shift from
the staccato of New Orleans-style jazz towards the swing sound. This is
apparent in the one vestige of Waller's association with Johnson. "If I Could
Be With You" was composed by Johnson, and is played as a duet -- a
challenging duet by Waller and Johnson. In the opening verse, the two
pianists are slicing through each other's phrases. But as they develop the
choruses, one plays straight man, working the melody, while the other is a
jaunty, decorative companion until the final chorus, when they syncopate
into an easy swinging forecast of the jazz of the 30's and 40's.
In 1927, Waller co-wrote a couple of tunes with Johnson for his show "Keep
Shufflin.'" Two years later, Waller wrote the score for the Broadway hit
"Hot Chocolates" with lyrics supplied by his friend Andy Razaf. Together,
Razaf and Waller formed one of the finest songwriting teams of the era.
Numbers such as Ain't Misbehavin', Honeysuckle Rose, and (What Did I Do
to be So) Black and Blue came out of this partnership which prospered until
Waller's death.
Though his skills on the piano introduced him to fame, it wasn't until after
Fats started to sing that he became famous. From 1930 to 1943, Fats made
over five hundred recordings and he was recognized from the streets of
Harlem to Danish nightclubs as he toured extensively and appeared on
numerous radio broadcasts as well as in some Hollywood feature films. Fats
unexpectedly died on board a train near Kansas City, Missouri of pneumonia
on Dec 15, 1943. Usually remembered as a genial clown, he is of lasting
importance as one of the greatest of all jazz pianists and as a gifted
songwriter, whose work in both fields was rhythmically contagious.

Biography: Maurice Waller and Anthony Calabrese, Fats Waller. New York :
Schirmer, 1977. Reissued in paperback in 2000.
Recommended listening: A real bargain is "The Ultimate Collection" (2 CD's,
50 tracks) on Castle Pulse for only GBP 4,99.
Website: http://www.redhotjazz.com/fats.html