Fats Waller
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and singer.[1] His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz piano. A widely popular star in the jazz and swing eras, he toured internationally, achieving critical and commercial success in the United States and Europe. His best-known compositions, "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Honeysuckle Rose", were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999.[2]
"Handful of Keys" redirects here. For other uses, see Handful of Keys (disambiguation).
Fats Waller
May 21, 1904
December 15, 1943 (aged 39)
- Jazz pianist
- organist
- composer
- singer
1918–1943
-
Edith Hatch(m. 1920; div. 1923)
-
Anita Rutherford(m. 1926)
3
Darren Waller (great-grandson)
Waller copyrighted over 400 songs, many of them co-written with his closest collaborator, Andy Razaf. Razaf described his partner as "the soul of melody... a man who made the piano sing... both big in body and in mind... known for his generosity... a bubbling bundle of joy". It is likely that he composed many more popular songs than he has been credited with: when in financial difficulties he had a habit of selling songs to other writers and performers who claimed them as their own.[3] He died from pneumonia, aged 39.
Early life[edit]
Waller was the seventh child of 11 (five of whom survived childhood) born to Adeline Locket Waller, a musician, and Reverend Edward Martin Waller, a trucker and pastor in New York City.[4][5] He started playing the piano when he was six and began playing the organ at his father's church four years later. His mother instructed him in his youth, and he attended other music lessons, paying for them by working in a grocery store.[4] Waller attended DeWitt Clinton High School for one semester, but left school at 15 to work as an organist at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem, where he earned $32 a week.[6][7] Within 12 months he had composed his first rag. He was the prize pupil and later the friend and colleague of the stride pianist James P. Johnson.[8] Waller also studied composition at the Juilliard School with Carl Bohm and Leopold Godowsky.[9] His mother died on November 10, 1920, from a stroke due to diabetes.[10]
Waller's first recordings, "Muscle Shoals Blues" and "Birmingham Blues", were made in October 1922 for Okeh Records.[11] That year, he also made his first player piano roll, "Got to Cool My Doggies Now".[11] Waller's first published composition, "Squeeze Me", was published in 1924.[4]
Personal life[edit]
In 1920, Waller married Edith Hatch, with whom he had a son, Thomas Waller Jr., in 1921. In 1923, Hatch divorced Waller.[27] Waller married Anita Rutherford in 1926.[28] Together, they had a son, Maurice Thomas Waller, born on September 10, 1927.[29] In 1928, Waller and Rutherford had their second son, Ronald Waller.[27]
In 1938, Waller was one of the first African Americans to purchase a home in the Addisleigh Park section of St. Albans, Queens, a New York City community with racially restrictive covenants. After his purchase, and litigation in the New York State courts, many prosperous African Americans followed, including many jazz artists, such as Count Basie, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, and Milt Hinton.[30]
Death and descendants[edit]
Waller contracted pneumonia and died on December 15, 1943, while traveling aboard the famous cross-country Los Angeles–Chicago train the Super Chief near Kansas City, Missouri. Waller was returning to New York City from Los Angeles, after the smash success of Stormy Weather, and a successful engagement at the Zanzibar Room in Santa Monica, California, during which he had fallen ill.[31]: 6 More than 4,200 people were estimated to have attended his funeral at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem,[31]: 7 which prompted Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who delivered the eulogy, to say that Waller "always played to a packed house."[32] Afterwards, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered over Harlem from an airplane piloted by an unidentified African-American World War I aviator.[33]
American football player Darren Waller is his great-grandson.[34]
Tribute artists[edit]
Waller had many admirers, during and after his heyday. In 1939, while nightclubbing in Harlem, Waller discovered a white stride pianist playing Waller tunes – the young Harry Gibson. Waller tipped him handsomely, and then hired him to be his relief pianist during his own performances.
Waller also had contemporaries in recording studios. Waller recorded for Victor, so Decca Records hired singer-pianist Bob Howard for recordings aimed at Waller's audience, and Columbia Records followed suit with Putney Dandridge.
Probably the most talented pianist to keep the music of Waller alive in the years after his death was Ralph Sutton, who focused his career on playing stride piano. Sutton was a great admirer of Waller, saying "I've never heard a piano man swing any better than Fats – or swing a band better than he could. I never get tired of him. Fats has been with me from the first, and he'll be with me as long as I live."[35]
Actor and bandleader Conrad Janis also did a lot to keep the stride piano music of Waller and James P. Johnson alive. In 1949, as an 18-year-old, Janis put together a band of aging jazz greats, consisting of James P. Johnson (piano), Henry Goodwin (trumpet), Edmond Hall (clarinet), Pops Foster (bass), and Baby Dodds (drums), with Janis on trombone.[36]
A Broadway musical showcasing Waller tunes entitled Ain't Misbehavin' was produced in 1978 and featured Nell Carter, Andre de Shields, Armelia McQueen, Ken Page, and Charlaine Woodard. (The show and Nell Carter won Tony Awards.) The show opened at the Longacre Theatre and ran for more than 1600 performances. It was revived on Broadway in 1988 at the Ambassador Theatre with the original Broadway Cast. Performed by five African-American actors, the show included such songs as "Honeysuckle Rose", "This Joint Is Jumpin'", and "Ain't Misbehavin'".
In 1981, Thin Lizzy released the album Renegade, which contained the song "Fats", co-written by Phil Lynott and Snowy White as a tribute to Waller.[37]