Description
- Fats Waller, the Derby-hatted mountain of jollity seated at the keyboard and spreading good cheer in all directions
- Born in 1904, by the age of twenty Fats was what we would nowadays call a session musician, working in radio and recording studios and theatres.
- The metamorphosis into popular entertainer is said to have occurred at a party given by George Gershwin, a great lover of Harlem's piano, a style characterised by an insistent 'oom-pah' left hand pattern.
- Just listen to the 'gloriously off-the-cuff' first piece, Everybody Loves My Baby, which starts off bursting with high spirits and gets hotter and hotter as first the guitar and then trumpet and clarinet join in.
- The Yacht Club was a 52nd Street nightclub with no known maritime connections. Fats and the Rhythm were great favourites there, and Yacht Club Swing was the tune they played to open and close each set.
Fats Waller: Ain't Misbehavin' Instrumental 30s & 40s Jazz Piano. Restored From The Original Recordings by Past Perfect
