Fats Waller Solo Performances VV030
VV-030 PROGRAM LIST M1 Squeeze Me (Fats Waller) Rec. 2/14/1926, FATS WALLER EARLY UNDISCOVERED SOLOS, Riverside Records RLP 12-103, 1955 (2:55) M2 Handful of Keys (Fats Waller) Rec. 3/1/1929, HANDFUL OF KEYS, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor, LPM-1502, 1957 (2:45) M3 Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Fats Waller, Harry Brooks) Rec. 8/2/1929, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:00) M4 Tanglefoot (Fats Waller) Rec. 8/24/1929, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1, RFW-1, 1955. (3:10) M5 Honeysuckle Rose (Fats Waller) Rec 5/13/1941, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:21) M6 Bouncin’ on a V-Disc (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 (4:46) Background songs for this episode: M7 Please Take Me Out of Jail (Fats Waller) Rec. 12/1/1927, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1, RFW-1, 1955. M8 Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 ABOUT THE ARTIST Today’s show features the LATE GREAT Thomas Wright Waller, a jazz pianist and organist, composer and singer, born in New York City in 1904 The 7th of 11 children, his mother was a musician, and his father was a trucker and pastor in NYC. Fats started playing piano when he was 6. He played the organ at his father’s church at age 10. PAUSE He was home-schooled early-on by his mother and worked in a grocery store. He quit high school after just one semester at age 15 to work as an organist at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem. PAUSE At the Lincoln Theater, he earned $32 a week. That was 1929. He became known as “Fats Waller” because he was big — both in body and in mind. PAUSE Fats Waller laid some of the building blocks for what is NOW ‘modern jazz piano’. He popularized the use of The stride piano style, which is widely used by jazz pianists today. He toured internationally and two of his biggest hits were Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Honeysuckle Rose. PAUSE You are listening to Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child by Fats Waller) Recorded back in 1943.PAUSE Waller copyrighted over 400 songs. He probably composed many more, but, when he was in financial difficulty, he would sell songs to other writers and performers, who would not acknowledge the real composer, claiming the songs as their own. Today’s podcast features Fats Waller and a few of his SOLO piano and organ compositions that were recorded between the years 1926 and 1943, or from the age of 22 to 39. Some of these songs are not available today, except where they are rediscovered – – – on my old and treasured Fats Waller record collection! SHOW PLUG – SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! ! BIT BUCKET Waller is also credited with his composition and performance work in Broadway Musicals. Waller is perhaps the FIRST BLACK composer to write the score and perform for a mostly all-white show on Broadway. That was the 1943 Broadway musical EARLY TO BED, produced by Richard Kollmar – the Broadway Flyer for EARLY TO BED reads “Music by Thomas (“Fats”) Waller”. . M1 M1 Squeeze Me (Thomas Waller) Rec. 2/14/1926, FATS WALLER EARLY UNDISCOVERED SOLOS, Riverside Records RLP 12-103, 1955 (2:55) Our first recording is titled “SQUEEZE ME” It’s a piano solo, and the composer and performer is Thomas Waller.He is not billed as “Fats” Waller yet, as he is not that unusually large at the young age of 22. This song SQUEEZE ME was recorded for production of piano rolls in 1926, making this among Waller’s EARLIEST recordings. Waller recorded his piano solos for the production of Piano Rolls between 1926 and 1927.These rolls operate on player pianos. Insert the roll, and the piano plays the song. PAUSE The player piano is a specialty item, affordable by the wealthy, and not a great way to release new music to the masses. Decades later, in 1955, Riverside Records discovered these and many other piano rolls, and realized they contained a treasure trove of long-lost songs, including songs from Jazz great Thomas “Fats” Waller. Riverside tracked down the manufacturer of the rolls, “QRS” founded in 1900, located in NYC. PAUSE Riverside Records secured many piano rolls, and released several LP records in the 1950s. This song SQUEEZE ME is one of a dozen that Fats Waller recorded in 1926. The music is really alive. Waller shows remarkable skill as a jazz pianist. You can hear the stride piano on the left hand. Play SQUEEZE ME CLIP That was from SQUEEZE ME. Here’s another short example of stride piano… Play HANDFUL OF KEYS CLIP That was from A HANDFUL OF KEYS by Fats Waller. The Stride Piano is found throughout Fats Wallers catalog of songs. It is called stride because the left hand, which is the rhythm hand, is actually running or striding back and forth, left and right. The left hand is playing two parts really, with stride. It is playing the bass note, and then quickly playing the chord. The bass note and the chord could be just one octave apart ….or 3 octaves apart. Nonetheless, the left arm moves back and forth base bass to chord, bass to chord, in perfect time. On a song like SQUEEZE ME that’s in 2/4 time, at 160 beats a minute would sound like this: PLAY METRONOME at 160 bpm in 2/4 time Bass Chord Bass Chord Bass Chord Bass Chord And now, with no further adieu…lets listen to a piano roll song, SQUEEZE ME, recorded in 1926 by Thomas Waller. PLAY M1 SHOW PLUG – SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! ! That was…M1 Squeeze Me MUSICAL CREDIT: Performance and composed – Thomas Waller – played on SOLO PIANO Recorded in 1926, for production of Piano Rolls by the QRS Company and later found on Riverside Records, 1955. BITBUCKET RCA Victor featured the dog listening to a victrola, with the subtitle “His Master’s Voice”, M2 M2 Handful of Keys (Fats Waller) Rec. 3/1/1929, HANDFUL OF KEYS, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor, LPM-1502, 1957 (2:45) Our second track is a 1929 recording of HANDFUL OF KEYS, released by RCA Victor in 1957. This is the second RCA Victor LP, (LPM-1502), It is a compilation of works recorded between 1929 and 1942. This is a PIANO SOLO, a ragtime piece, composed by Fats Waller. It features the stride style ……but in an upbeat tempo of 130 beats per minute, plus or minus, with Fats in total control PAUSE According to the liner notes on this LP, “After classical studies and playing in church and at prayer meetings when he was a boy, Fats became increasingly fascinated by the whirling world of RAGTIME, Jazz and Theater Music.” The liner notes indicate that his father, a deacon and later a pastor in NYC, regarded his son’s diversion from church music to Ragtime and Swing as being … “ ”. And STRIDE PIANO PIONEER James P. Johnson, had Waller as his student. He had direct influence on Waller, and put it this way: “Some little people has music in them, but Fats, he was all music and you know how big he was.” This album comes from my father’s collection of Fats Waller records. Looking at the disc, it must be one of the MOST PLAYED albums in that collection. So pardon the popping sounds. Here is HANDFUL OF KEYS. PLAY M2 SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! That was…M2 Handful of Keys MUSICAL CREDIT: Performance and Composer – – Fats Waller – Piano Solo Recorded in March, 1929, and reproduced onto LP record in 1957 by RCA Victor. M3 M3 Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Fats Waller, Harry Brooks) Rec. 8/2/1929, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:00) Next, I feature perhaps the most popular of Fats Waller tunes, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ This was 1929, the year that Fats signed a recording contract with RCA Records. This was the first RCA volume of Fats Waller. The beginning of the Great Depression. Fats was just 25. Fats strength was playing and composing with an effortless style. His works are polished and precise – practically at a CLASSICAL QUALITY level. This was the result of long training in music theory …starting at the age of 5, and …..endless practice. By his teenage years, he was accomplished at… piano, organ, violin, and the bass fiddle. Some say Fats was a musical prodigy. He wrote between 360-400 songs in his short lifetime, The story goes that Fats procrastinated on doing composition work. For a typical recording session, he was supposed to show up with a completed piece well-rehearsed by the musicians. Instead, he would show up band members unrehearsed, and with NO composition. The musicians were flustered, and the studio personnel were frustrated, but Fats settled his huge 300-pound bulk at the piano and worked out a new piece that was acclaimed by everyone in that studio. PAUSE One of Fats Wallers MOST FAMOUS and MOST PLAYED pieces is Ain’t Misbehavin’”. More of the classic STRIDE STYLE is featured here. This is an unusual instrumental version and was recorded in August, 1929 It appears on an RCA VICTOR compilation LP from 1956 titled “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, “Fats” Waller and his Rhythm”. And now….here is the SOLO PIANO version of AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ PLAY M3 SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! That was…M3 Ain’t Misbehavin’ MUSICAL CREDIT: Performed and composed Fats Waller – Piano Solo Recorded in 1929, and found on RCA as an LP reproduced in 1956 M4 M4 Tanglefoot (Fats Waller) Rec. 8/24/1929, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1, RFW-1, 1955. (3:10) Our next piece is a Pipe Organ solo that was composed and played by Fats Waller, and it’s a very old recording dating back to August of The song is titled TANGLEFOOT, and that is rare —- because the song has evidently not been re-released in any form, and I am not finding it in today’s market. Between 1926 and 1939 Thomas Waller recorded dozens of songs on the pipe organ. Did you know that Fats Waller was the FIRST person to interpret and record jazz on the pipe organ. PAUSE The pipe organ is, in fact, the connection between Waller and what would become RCA Records The Trinity Baptist Church, located in Camden NJ –had been in a state of decline and was purchased by the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1918. Victor was located just a few blocks away, in Camden. And was a recording company and maker of the record phonograph. Under the Victor Talking Machine Company ownership, the Trinity Church was used as a recording studio. Hundreds of artists and orchestras, recorded thousands of songs there in the 1920s and 1930s…. including Fats Waller on Pipe Organ. And the connection between Fats and RCA Records occurred in 1929, when RCA, or Radio Corporation of America, purchased Victor, which eventually became a subsidiary called RCA Victor.. PAUSE This pipe organ solo TANGLEFOOT was recorded at that Trinity Church in Camden, in 1929. 1929 is also the year of the Great Depression which continued for 10 years until 1939, which was then the start of another great war, World War II. The Great Depression had global impact including the UK, France and Germany. It is remarkable that this musician, recorded all of his works in just 19 years between 1922 and 1943, and all of those were years of world wars and the great 10-year depression. PAUSE What you are hearing is JAZZ being played on a church organ. That was unheard of. Fats is plowing new ground. PAUSE TANGLEFOOT is played as a solo PIPE organ piece, and as such, features three musical parts : First the feet operate the foot pedals that play the bass notes, PAUSE The left hand plays the Rhythm line, and PAUSE The right hand plays the Song’s Melody line. PAUSE And now…..TANGLEFOOT. PLAY M4 SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! That was…M4 TANGLEFOOT MUSICAL CREDIT: Performance and composition – Thomas Waller on a pipe organ solo in the old Trinity Church. Recorded 1929, found on THE RAREST FATS WALLER, 1955, in a 4-LP set. Recording company unknown. Bit Bucket tidbits His whimsical musical style was loved by everyone that saw him, he was most of all, a showman. His music was no doubt a big escape during a dark time for the world superpowers I have a previously unreleased recording of this song, captured on vinyl LP in 1955. It’s not found online! The LP I have is Volume 1 of THE RAREST FATS WALLER. It is part of a 4-Volume set, including LP #3 that is produced in a translucent green color. The album does look like a bootleg, and features 2 pages of typewritten notes about the performances found on the 4-LPs. The LP quality is not that good, for example the Volume I is produced off-center, resulting in pitch variation. There is no manufacturer or producer name on these LPs. Bootleg 1955. Fats also recorded in Liverpool on a year 1855 organ in Saint George’s Hall. And in London, Fats recorded on an experimental pipe organ in Studio One at Abby Road studio. M5 M5 Honeysuckle Rose (Fats Waller) Rec 5/13/1941, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:21) One of Fats’ famous lines is “You got to have melody…Jimmy Johnson taught me that”. Jimmy was James Price Johnson, another piano great – – – 10 years older than Fats, and a major influence Johnson is considered to be THE pioneer of the Stride Piano style Fats was his student and as a result, Fats very much popularized the style. Stride has influenced many jazz greats like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Thelonious Monk. This piece is Honeysuckle Rose another gem composed by Fats Waller. PAUSE This song opened in the Off-Broadway revue “LOAD OF COAL” as a soft shoe dance number in 1929. It features the stride piano style Waller did so well. Fast or Slow / Soft or Loud. This solo version of Honeysuckle Rose was recorded in May 1941 – when Fats would be 37… Here is Honeysuckle Rose. PLAY M5 SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! That was…M5 HONEYSUCKLE ROSE I love the way Fats takes the tempo up and down in ending of this song. MUSICAL CREDIT: Performed and composed – Fats Waller — on solo piano The 1931 recording of Honeysuckle Rose was admitted into the Grammy HoF in 1999. BIT BUCKET Fats disliked the noise and sound of larger brassy bands, preferring to lead a group of 6-8 men. M6 M6 Bouncin’ on a V-Disc (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 (4:46) Our next piece is titled BOUNCIN’ ON A V-DISC During World War 2, the V-Disc was a large program by the Armed Forces of the US to bring entertainment to soldiers, sailors and airmen serving during World War II. The “V” in V-DISC stood for VICTORY. The Armed forces produced some 800 releases and distributed over 8 million V-Disc records to service personnel worldwide between 1943 and ending in 1949. At the time of the V-DISC program, the standard for phono records was the 10”, 78 RPM record. The V-Disc was special because it was 12” , 2” larger…and made with more flexible vinylite material PAUSE The standard 10” 78 was OK for songs up to 3:25 – the length of many pop songs. Because the V-Disc was 12” it could play a 6-1/2 minute song – there was much more room to explore with musical artists On one of the FIRST V-Discs, Fats Waller recorded his first song to entertain the troops – “Bouncin’ on a V-Disc”. It is a Pipe Organ solo recorded and the start of the V-Disc program, September 1943. The song length is 4:46…too long for a regular 78, but fits nicely on the V-Disc. PAUSE There had been a delay in the V-DISC program start. It had a false start because the Armed Forces overstepped recording label agreements by this program. Artists applied pressure to protect their label agreements in terms of distribution and royalties. In the agreement between the armed forces and music artists, all musicians fees and royalties would be waived, and the v-discs could only be sold to service personnel. Fats Waller produced several songs and interviews for the V-Disc program. This is one of the last recordings of Fats Waller, as he died three months later of Pneumonia, December of 1943. Here is Fats Waller performing Bouncin’ on a V-Disc on Pipe Organ. PLAY M6 SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! That was…M6 Bouncin’ on a V-Disc Thomas Wright Waller passed away traveling home from work in Los Angeles. He died of pneumonia on December 15, 1943 in Kansas City at the very young age of 39. An authentic World War II V-Disc is hard to find, those millions of records are with the service members. This is an LP compilation by the JAZZ TREASURY label. MUSICAL CREDIT: Performance and composition – – Fats Waller on a Pipe Organ Solo Recorded September 1943. SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! Play background song for “ABOUT TODAY’S PROGRAM” M7 Please Take Me Out Of Jail (Fats Waller) Rec. 12/1/1927, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1, RFW-1, 1955. Conclusion: That’s all for today’s show ” Fats Waller Solo Performances “, on VINYL VIBRATIONS. PAUSE Be sure to listen to my other podcast episodes featuring Fats Waller, where I feature more solo piano and organ works. PAUSE I’m your host, Brian Frederick, Stay subscribed for more episodes to come… on this Vinyl Vibrations Podcast.
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