Fats-Waller-for-Piano-Book.pdf

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WALLER
AFRICAN RIPPLES
AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'
ALLIGATOR CRAWL
ALL THAT MEAT AND NO POTATOES
CLOTHES' LINE BALLET
HONEYSUCKLE ROSE
I,AIN'T GOT NOBODY
I
BELIEVE IN MIRACLES
I'M GONNA SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WRITE MYSELF A LETTER
I'M MORE THAN SATISFIED
I'VE GOT A FEELING I'M FALLING
THE JITTERBUGWALTZ
A LITTLE BIT INDEPENDENT
MY FATE I IN YOUR HANDS
S
MY VERY GOOD FRIEND -THE MILKMAN
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY
SUGAR
VIPER'S DRAG
WHEN SOMEBODY THINKS YOU'RE WONDERFUL
WILD CAT BLUES
YOUR FEET'S TOO BIG
First Published
1978
This Edition 1989
Origins of
Jazz
Series
@
International Music Publications
Exclusive Distributorj
International Music Publications
Southend Road, Woodford Green,
Essex IG8 8HN, England.
The
FatsWaller story..
.
THOMAS WRIGHT WALLER was born in May 1904
-
a big happy baby who grew into a fat happy boy and so was always
called "Fats" by his school-friends. His parents disliked this nickname but were eventually forced to accept that this was what
everybody was going to call him for the rest of his life. It certainly suited him more than the sedate. 'Thomas' which they preferred.
Fats' father, EDWARD MARTIN WALLER, was born in Virginia. When he was young he had a severe stammer but, with
great strength of mind, he gradually cured himself of this. Fats' mother, ADELINE LOCKETT, was a very lively young woman.
and very religious, as was his father.
EDWARD WALLER did not want his children to be brought up in the South where there were no opportunities for them, and
so he went to New York where he soon got a good job in a stables. He went back to fetch Adeline, they were married and both returned
to New York where they first lived in Greenwich Village. Adeline was seventeen and Edward a couple of years older.
Their first child was born in 1890 but died in infancy
-
indeed, of the twelve children which were born to them, seven died in
infancy. The survivors were Edward Lawrence and William Robert, born in 1891 and 1892. May Naomi was the first girl to survive,
Thomas Wright (Fats) arrived in 1904 and the final child to be born was Edith Salome, born in 1910.
Fats and Naomi became inseparable; there was quite a gap between them and their two elder brothers and Edith was sent to
Virginia to live with an aunt and seldom came home. The two children did not often play in the Haarlem streets as their parents did
not approve of the lives their neighbours lived and feared that the other children would have a bad influence on them. Each day in
the Waller household began with readings from the Bible and all the children knew many passages from it by heart. Both Edward
and Adeline took a great interest in the local Church life, Adeline was leading soloist in the Church Choir and played both organ and
piano.
Fats was also interested in the piano and at the age of six pretended to play one on two chairs placed together. This interest
persisted and eventually the whole family, together with several relatives, got together to buy one. However, as they had spent all their
money buying the piano there was, at first, none left for piano lessons and Fats would sit for hours gazing at the keyboard, longing to
play
In church he would try to accompany the hymns on a small portable harmonium and eventually his parents arranged for himand
his sister Naomi to have pianolessons, believing at that time that Naomi was the more musically gifted of the two. But the business of
playing scales and exercises and learning the value of notes interested neither of them and Fats soon discovered the delights and
difficulties of playing by ear
-
which was how he continued to play for a long time after the piano lessons had ended from lack of
interest.
However, as he grew older he realised that he would have to learn to sight-read in order to play in the school orchestra. He had a
few violin and string bass lessons but soon returned to the piano and began playing the music for morning assembly, as well as joining
the school orchestra. His father hoped he would be a classical musician and took him to hear Paderewski play. Fats was enthralled by
the performance and all his life had a great interest in, and knowledge of, classical music, particularly that of Bach, but his real
preference was for popular music, to his parents' distress.
He had a happy and protected childhood and when he was old enough did a few odd jobs in the neighbourhood but his only real
interest was music. He spent all his free time at the local cinema, not watching the film but watching and listening to the pianist who
accompanied the silent films of those days. Eventually he got to know the pianist, proved to her how well he could play and was
allowed to take over while she took a break. When she fell ill he took her place for a couple of weeks and the audience greatly
appreciated his playing. This led to his first real musical job
-
as organist at the cinema which was called the Lincoln Theatre. He
played in the intervals but would also take over on the piano as often as he could.
Through his playing at the cinema he met several other musicians and was invited to join a small band. He also spent as many
evenings as possible hanging about outside nightclubs, listening to the jazz musicians who played in them, learning as much as he
could.
This happy period of his life lasted until 1920 when his mother died of diabetes and his cosy comfortable world was shattered.
By this time his elder brothers were married with homes of their own and Fats felt uncomfortable living in the cold quiet house which
had been so warm and full of love and life. He began living with the family of a friend, Wilson Brooks, in whose house he was
delighted to find a player-piano, from which he tried to learn to play in the style of his idol, the famous James
P.
Johnson, whom he
longed to meet. This was eventually arranged and Johnson was sufficiently impressed with young Fats' playing to take him out that
evening to the club he worked at
-
Leroys. There Fats really heard the blues for the first time and was enchanted, and next day he
played blues on the organ at the Lincoln, much to the surprise of the patrons. James P. Johnson then introduced Fats to another of his
great heroes, Willie'The Lion' Smith who wasalso playingat Leroys. Johnsonarrangedfor Fats toplay andalthough Willie pretended
not to be interested he eventually went over to Fats and told him he played 'pretty good', which was praise indeed for a sixteen year
old from such a famous pianist.
Soon after this Fats, still feeling lonely after his mother's death remembered a pretty young girl he had met when he was playing
with his lirst little band. Her name was Edith Hatchett and at the time b e had taken her home to meet his mother and as she was a
quiet gentle church-going girl, Adeline had approved of her and invited her often to the house. They had rather lost touch after
Adeline died but now Fats looked her up again and a few weeks later they were married and went to live with Edith's family.
Fats soon began playing at 'parlour socials'. These were parties held in private houses, for which a small admission fee was
charged to cover the music and dancing. Food and drink were sold at modest prices. Many great pianists began their playing life at
I
these socials.
Then Willie 'The Lion' Smith walked oht of the Leroy and Fats took his place. He also began making piano rolls which at that
time was a very lucrative business. His first piano roll was called "GOT T O COOL
MY
DOGGIES NOW", and over the next few
years he made many more and made a great deal of money out of them, which slipped straight through his fingers as it was to do all
through his life.
Soon he was playing at parlour socials most nights and doubling at the Lincoln and the Leroy. His prodigious piano playing was
only matched by his capacity for drink and already Edith was becominnuneasv and although young Thomas Waller Junior was born
-
- -
-
-
in ;hat summer,
1921,ihings
did not improve.
In
1922
Fats made his f i s t record. It was called MUSSEL SHOALS BLUES and did fairly well and he followed it up by making
several records accompanying a young singer called Sara Martin.
He had been writing and composing for some time now. He wrote very quickly, practically playing the pieces straight on to the
piano, but up to now none had been published. He now started publishing numbers he had written, the first being WILDCAT
BLUES. He was greatly helped in this new activity by Clarence Williams, a publisher and pianist, and over the five years they worked
together Clarence accepted over seventy songs from Fats, although many of these were never published.
As Fats became more and more involved with the music world he was completely happy; as long as he had plenty to eat and drink
he was content. But Edith was unhappy about his continual absences from home at the clubs and and all-night parties he enjoyed so
much. Eventually their marriage broke up with Edith keeping young Thomas and moving out. Fatsagreed to pay a settlement for tht!
keep of Edith and young Tom but for the rest of his life he was harrassed by this, eventually going to prison for non-payment of it.
But his life in music progressed smoothly. He formed a very fruitful song-writing partnership with Andy Razaf who wrote lyrics
to Fats' music and used to sing the songs to demonstrate them to publishers while Fats played, until one day when Andy urged Fats
to sing instead. The result was so encouraging that from then on Fats sang as well as playing piano. His partnership with Andy was
carefree. They thought nothing of selling a song to one publisher and then taking a cab down the street and selling a variation of it to
another publisher. They would sell the complete rights in a song for a very small amount when they needed money quickly.
Occasionally they even made up the song on the piano as they sat in the publishers office.

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