Thomas "Fats'' Waller
(May 21, 1904 - Dec. 15, 1943) Thomas Wright Waller, the celebrated subject of the Broadway revue AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', was a Jazz pianist, organist, singer, and songwriter, born in New York City. He is considered to be one of the century's greatest entertainers. A prodigious composer, he wrote (with his chief partner, lyricist Andy Razaf) many great standards including "Honeysuckle Rose", "Black and Blue", "The Jitterbug Waltz", and dozens of others. Waller was a leading exponent of the "stride" piano style, and began as an organist at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where his father Edward Martin was pastor. Along with stride piano he studied classical piano with Leopold Godowsky and composition with Carl Bohm at the Juilliard School, but his greatest contribution to music lay in his brilliant stride piano compositions. Introduced to this particular piano idiom by Harlem stride master James P. Johnson, Waller perfected this successor to ragtime, in which "the left hand carries the beat and the right delivers the melody."
James P. Johnson Thomas "Fats" Waller played New York cabarets and theatres in the 1920s, and achieved wide popularity during the 1930s as an irrepressible singer, songwriter, and stage and screen personality. In 1928 Waller and Andy Razaf wrote much of the music for the all-black Broadway musical Keep Shufflin'. Later Waller/Razaf collaborations included the stage show Connie's Hot Chocolates, which introduced Ain't Misbehavin'. In the 1930s he headlined his own radio show called Fats Waller's Rhythm Club. Waller is rumoured to have written many more standards than he is credited with, among them "On the Sunny Side of the Street". Apparently he would compose songs and then sell the rights for quick cash. He took his keyboard compositions more seriously, however, recording an important series of stride piano pieces - "Handful of Keys," "Smashing Thirds," "Numb Fumblin'," "Valentine Stomp," "Viper's Drag," "Alligator Crawl," and "Clothes Line Ballet" - between 1929 and 1934. In 1943 he died of pneumonia on his way to Kansas City from Los Angeles, while entertaining soldiers at training camps - his health ruined by his heavy work schedule and passion for food and drink. At the time of his death, he had a hit show running on Broadway and could be seen all over the country in the film Stormy Weather.
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Fats Waller - "A New Kinda Man"
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