Fats Waller: The Joint is Jumping

Young Fats Waller: Rediscovered Early Solos (a compilation)

Remembering Fats Waller, born Thomas Wright Waller, on the anniversary of his death 68 years ago.

Though Waller played thousands of engagements in his too-short career, presumably none was more memorable than one in Illinois in the late 1920s. Waller was the guest of honor at the birthday party for the gangster who had almost everything, according to the independent.co.uk, invited by Al Capone’s men at the point of a gun.

According to the independent’s account, Waller “found himself bullied into a black limousine, heard the driver ordered to East Cicero. Sweat pouring down his body, Fats foresaw a premature end to his career, but on arrival at a fancy saloon, he was merely pushed toward a piano and told to play. He played. Loudest in applause was a beefy man with an unmistakable scar: Al Capone was having a birthday, and he, Fats, was a present . . .”

The party lasted three days, according to the website, which is a lot of encores. And tips. It was a tough crowd, perhaps, but a good time was had by all; we can be sure Waller wasn’t misbehavin’ with that audience.

From the Independent: “By the time the black limousine headed back . . . Fats had acquired several thousand dollars in cash and a decided taste for vintage champagne.”

Fitting since, Waller’s tastes and appetites for life, like baseball’s Babe Ruth of the same era, were reportedly as large as he was. He died in 1943 just months before he was to turn 40; history says his lifestyle contributed to his early passing, which in turn, enhanced his “larger-than-life” reputation.

“Lighting up, lest all our hearts should break,
 His fiftieth cigarette of the day . . .”

 wrote Michael Longley in his poem Elegy For Fats Waller.

“He plays for hours on end and though there be
Oases one part water, two parts gin,
He tumbles past to reign, wise and thirsty . . .”

Like Ruth, Waller yearned to be taken more seriously; the Yankees never made Ruth manager, and it’s largely — no pun intended — after Waller’s death that appreciation for his musical talents outweighed (ibid) his comedic ones. Richard S. Ginell on allmusic.com: “Waller did have so-called serious musical pretensions, longing to follow in George Gershwin’s footsteps and compose concert music (but) 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 . . . his impact has been truly profound.”

From Orrin Keepnews’ liner notes on the compilation album Young Fats Waller: Rediscovered Early Solos: ”Surely it must be no longer ago than yesterday that he crowded his bulk onto a piano bench and began to cut the inflated lyrics of some insipid pop song down to size with the robust irony of his voice, or to extract every possible ounce of strength and of jazz out of whatever music was at hand.”

sources: wikipedia.org, bittersuiteband.com, independent.co.uk, allmusic.com

Nat King Cole: Route 66

Nat King at the piano

Remembering Nat King Cole, born Nathaniel Adams Coles, on the day after his death in 1965.

His voice may have been, uh, unforgettable; so should his ability on the piano, though it’s often overlooked by the litany of songs he sang.

He learned to play the piano from his mother and was influenced by Earl Hines. His voice, he believed, came in part from smoking cigarettes; it was lung cancer that killed him at age 45.

Legend has it that Cole only started singing to satisfy an inebriated customer, who wasn’t content with hearing just Cole’s piano playing. Thus was launched the voice that made a multitude of hits. Cole eventually was weaned off the piano, and his group morphed from jazz to more traditional ballads and pop.

Jazz critic Ralph Gleason, from the liner notes of After Midnight: “Long before he was known as a singer, Nat was one of the best of all jazz pianists . . .”

Overstatement? Perhaps. As a singer, Cole became so popular he was the first African-American to host his own TV show in 1956. Little more than a year later, Cole ended the show because of an inability to attract national advertising. He said Madison Avenue was “afraid of the dark.”

Racism was a constant that Cole faced, from his short-lived TV show, to an attack on stage in Alabama (he never performed again in the South), to moving into an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Cole handled it with the aplomb of a performer. He was born into it in the Deep South; his family had no birth certificate for him.

Wrote Jay Cocks of Time: ”He wasn’t corrupted by the mainstream. He used jazz to enrich and renew it, and left behind a lasting legacy. Very like a king.”

Next: Thelonious Monk

George Shearing: Move

 

If you read On The Road, you know who Dean Moriarty is. If you read it multiple times, or have a liking for music, you know who George Shearing is.

If you didn’t or didn’t, Shearing is the blind pianist who was the subject of one of the great passages of a book filled with great passages. Or, Shearing is God,  as Moriarty called him, just as a later generation referred to Eric Clapton as God.

Shearing died Monday at 91. He was preceded in death by Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, the real-life men whom the book’s characters were named after, by 42 and 43  years, respectively.

Here’s the passage Kerouac penned as 1948 turned into 1949 (pages 127-129 in my old copy of On The Road). Be forewarned — Kerouac wasn’t a great believer in paragraphs:

George Shearing, the great jazz pianist, Dean said, was exactly like Rollo Greb. Dean and I went to see Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend. The place was deserted, we were the first customers, ten o’clock. Shearing came out, blind, led by the hand to his keyboard. He was a distinguished-looking Englishman with a stiff white collar, slightly beefy, blond, with a delicate English-summer’s-night air about him that came out in the first rippling sweet number he played as the bass-player leaned to him reverently and thrummed the beat. The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes. And Shearing began to rock; a smile broke over his ecstatic face; he began to rock in the piano seat, back and forth, slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat, his neck began to rock crookedly, he brought his face down to the keys, he pushed his hair back, his combed hair dissolved, he began to sweat. The music picked up. The bass-player hunched over and socked it in, faster and faster, it seemed faster and faster, that’s all. Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you’d think the man wouldn’t have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea. Folks yelled for him to “Go!” Dean was sweating; the sweat poured down his collar. “There he is! That’s him! Old God! Old God Shearing! Yes! Yes! Yes!” And Shearing was conscious of the madman behind him, he could hear every one of Dean’s gasps and imprecations, he could sense it though he couldn’t see. “That’s right!” Dean said. “Yes!” Shearing smiled; he rocked. Shearing rose from the piano, dripping with sweat; these were his great 1949 days before he became cool and commercial. When he was gone Dean pointed to the empty piano seat. “God’s empty chair,” he said. On the piano a horn sat; its golden shadow made a strange reflection along the desert caravan painted on the wall behind the drums. God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. The madness would lead nowhere. I didn’t know what was happening to me, and I suddenly realized it was only the tea that we were smoking; Dean had bought some in New York. It made me think that everything was about to arrive — the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever.

There’s another short passage on Shearing more than 100 pages later, when they see him in concert again. “Sal, God has arrived,” Moriarty says when he sees Shearing.

Below is a link to a Shearing number, although it may be after he “became cool and commercial.”

RIP.

Next: Nat King Cole