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 7^th 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 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 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 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. ...