HEATRE ORGANIST

by Dennis James

"Fats" was born on May 21, 1904 allowed him to play her piano and until several years later did he learn to and christened Thomas Wright Waller. aroused his curiosity." read music. By then this liking for He grew up in a home where a great By the time he was five he could ragtime had become apparent to his deal of hymn singing and Bible reading play the harmonium, and a year later, father, who condemned that style of went on but in which there was no when his brother Robert bought a playing as "music from the Devil's piano, that was too expensive a luxury piano - a Waters upright - into the workshop"; his mother, however, was for the Wailers to afford. Ed Kirkeby, house, Thomas and his sisters Naomi much more tolerant and continued to who acted as Fats Waller's manager and Edith were given music lessons. help and encourage him throughout during the late I 930's and early But Thomas, who had already listened those early years. l 940's, has related that when Thomas to ragtime pianists accompanying the In addition to acting as organist in was very young he was found "running silent films and heard this formal but his father's church, Thomas played the his fingers over the seats of two chairs lilting music drifting out of Harlem piano and organ at school concerts (he which he had pushed together in the cellar clubs, found this conventional was attending Public School 89 in semblance of a keyboard - and it approach too tiresome . those days) and was a member of the turned out that a woman upstairs had He began to play by ear, and not students' orchestra. For a time he even

FEBRUARY, 1975 THEATRE ORGAN 15 studied the violin and bass viol as well. Edgar Sampson, the well-known jazz Jazz lovers the world over know and love "Fats" Waller as one of the arranger, was at school with Waller and greatest jazz pianists of all time. Little do they know that Fats was also a has recalled how he would often inject theatre organist. In fact, his public career began with his first appearances a rhythmic note into his performances, at the Wurlitzer theatre organ in his neighborhood movie house. Although inserting an off-beat here and there in his later piano stylings gained all of the public attention and created his the music. enormous popularity, it was through the pipe organ that "Fats" found his When he was eleven his father, who greatest source of personal musical expression and satisfaction. still hoped the boy would enter the church as a minister, but who had meanwhile become proud of his son's "There wasn't any rhythm for me in $10,000. Even while he was still at musical accomplishments, took him to algebra," he declared some years after­ school, Thomas made a habit of sitting hear Paderewski perform at Carnegie wards. in the front row of this theatre, just Hall; an experience that only height­ Thomas Waller left DeWitt Clinton behind the pianist, Maizie Mullins, ened Thomas' determination to be­ High School in the Spring of 1 918. who allowed him to slide under the come a professional musician. For a time he was employed in a jewel brass rail and to perch beside her on During the next few years, he stud­ box factory, but he found work there the piano stool. Then, if she felt like ied music under Carl Bohm (as he was too "dirty". Then he ran errands for taking a rest, the boy would play to do later on with Leopold Godow­ Immerman's Delicatessen. instead. Soon the organist was allow­ sky) while continuing to attend Quite close to the Waller home, ing him similar privileges. He became DeWitt Clinton High School. His musi­ stood the Lincoln Theatre, a cinema so adept on the Wurlitzer, in fact, that cal studies eventually began to clash where films were shown to the accom­ when the organist fell ill Thomas with his school work, and when that paniment of music from a piano and deputized for him - at the wage of happened Thomas - naturally enough pipe organ, the latter a Wurlitzer $ 23 a week. By a useful coincidence - decided that music must come first. Grand that had cost the management the job suddenly became vacant, so Thomas found himself installed as the Lincoln's regular organist, a position he held until the theatre changed hands several years later. It was at the Lincoln Theatre that Count Basie (known in those days, quite simply, as Bill Basie) first heard him. "From then on," says Basie, "I was a regular customer, hanging on to his every note, sitting behind him all the time, fascinated by the ease with which his hands pounded the keys and his feet manipulated the pedals. He got used to seeing me, as though I were a part of the show. One day he asked me A convivial group in Paris (1932) . Left to right: Louis Coles, Ivan Browning, Grant Fisher, un­ whether I played the organ. 'No,' I identified member of the Kentucky Singers, Fats Waller, Spencer Williams, Bricktop. said, 'but I'd give my right arm to (Max Jones Photo) learn.' The next day he invited me to sit in the pit and start working the James P. had to teach him." and asked him to slip out and get a pedals. I sat on the floor watching his By the middle of the l 920's Waller pint of gin. feet, and using my hands to imitate had achieved his first published com­ "The organ is the favorite instru­ them. Then I sat beside him and he position, "Wild Cat Blues," a tune that ment of Fats Waller's heart," wrote taught me. was recorded by Clarence William's Ashton Stevens, the music critic of the One afternoon he pretended to Blue Five, and had made his first Chicago American, "the piano only have some urgent business downstairs broadcast - from the stage of the Fox of his stomach." It was a true enough and asked me to wait for him. I started Terminal Theatre in Newark, New comment and one that Fats himself playing while he stood downstairs lis­ Jersey, sometime in 1923. Meanwhile endorsed. "Well, I really love the tening. After that I would come to he continued to double as a cinema organ," he once said. "I can get so early shows and he let me play accom­ organist and a cabaret pianist. The much more color from it than the paniment to the picture. Later I used Lincoln Theatre was sold, but Waller piano that it really sends me ... And to follow him around wherever he moved across to the Lafayette, where next to a grand organ there's nothing played, listening and learning all the he not only received a higher wage but finer than a symphony orchestra." time." found himself playing a much larger What fascinated Fats Waller about Soon after this friendship had organ. the organ was its capacity to produce sprung up, Waller left the Lincoln The casual way in which he seems rich, colorful textures, as well as its Theatre for a few weeks to tour with a to have taken his duties as accompa­ sonority and depth of tone. These vaudeville show, playing the accompa­ nist to the silent films can best be were qualities that, as far as the niments for an act called "Liza and her demonstrated by repeating an anec­ instrument would allow it, he also Shufflin' Six". It was when he left this dote which Don Redman tells. At the introduced into his piano playing. By act that he recommended Bill Basie to time this incident occurred Redman far the most important characteristic take his place. "It was," recalls Basie, was playing alto-saxophone with of the 'stride piano' style which he and "my first trip on the road." Fletcher Henderson's orchestra as well James P. Johnson created during the Back in New York once more, as writing many of its arrangements, 1920's was the way it thickened the Thomas Waller began building up a and he had become very friendly with harmonies and extended the emotional small reputation, getting himself Thomas Waller, often dropping in to scope of ragtime, giving that highly known as a pianist as well as an visit him during working hours at the formal, rather brittle idiom something organist. Much of the credit for this Lafayette. of the expressiveness to be found in must go to James P. Johnson. Accord­ On one occasion Redman sat beside the blues. ing to May Wright Johnson, the pian­ Waller, chatting away animatedly, It should never be forgotten, how­ ist's wife, "Right after James P. heard while a newsreel was being screened ever, that Fats Waller started out as an Fats Waller playing the pipe organ, he above them. Thomas, he recalls, was organist. What was more natural, came home and told me, 'I know I can playing "Squeeze Me," his own tune therefore, that as soon as he began teach that boy.' Well, from then on it and one that he performed whenever recording regularly under his own was one big headache for me. Fats was he got the chance. Suddenly Redman name he should choose to perform on seventeen, and we lived on 140th happened to glance up and saw, to his the pipe organ? In the Autumn of 1926 Street, and Fats would bang on our horror, that a funeral procession was he made two such recordings - "St. piano till all hours of the night - making its way across the screen. Louis Blues" and "Lenox Avenue sometimes two, three, four o'clock in "Hey, Tom," he whispered, "they're Blues," During the following year he the morning. I would say to him, 'Now showing a funeral. You shouldn't be actually recorded no fewer than twen­ go on home - or haven't you got a playing that." "Why not?" exclaimed ty-five organ solos, although only home?' But he'd come back every day Waller, giving a diabolical grin and about half of them were ever isst1ed. and my husband would teach. Of continuing to pound away at the J. Paul Chavanne contributes this course, you know the organ doesn't keyboard. Then, beckoning to an anecdote concerning the Waller ses­ give you a left hand and that's what usher, Waller handed him fifty cents sions for RCA Victor: "Fats had a

FEBRUARY, 1975 THEATRE ORGAN 17 famous story tells how Fats and the hard for a moment, then replied: "I celebrated French organist, Marcel read it on the sleeve of a Fats Waller Dupre, clambered up to the organ loft record." of Notre-Dame cathedral. There, as Fats returned from France in the Fats put it, "First he played on the Autumn of 1932. One of the first God box, then I played on the God things he did after landing in New box." The French pianist, Eddie Ber­ York was to engage a manager, Phil nard, who knew how partial Waller Ponce, who promptly arranged for him was to tongue-in-cheek humor, once to do a series of programs - Fats asked noted French critic Panassie if Waller's Rhythm Club - over radio the story was true. "Yes, Fats told me station WLW at Cincinnati. It was all about it the same evening. Marcel while working on this show, inciden­ Dupre' invited him there," was the tally, that the pianist first became reply. "Unfortunately at the time it known as "the harmful little armful." happened, Fats didn't inform me." A student at the Cincinnati Conserva­ After making a few investigations, tory of Music, Kay C. Thompson, who however, Bernard eventually discov­ used to play the piano over WLW, ered that none of Waller's acquaint­ remembers most vividly her first meet­ ances in Paris had witnessed this inci­ ing with Fats: "As I was concluding dent at Notre-Dame. the final number of one of my regular He set out, therefore, to interview stints, " she has written, "I chanced to M. Dupre, then the organist at the look up, and there he was, making Church of Saint Sulpice, and was faces at me through the studio win­ admitted to the presence of Madame dow ... Instinctively I made faces in recording date in the Camden, New Dupre. "As soon as I mentioned the return. Such, then, were the begin­ Jersey studio which was a converted words 'Jazz Hot' (the jazz magazine nings of our friendship." church. As it was a sultry day, the for which Bernard was doing the in­ Fats Waller's Rhythm Club became church windows were open as Fats was quiry) I had the feeling that I had so popular that it later toured as a working out on the studio organ, an offered a drink of whiskey to a Mos­ vaudeville act on the RKO theatre Estey church instrument, before the lem." "Sir", said Mme Dupre, "my circuit; yet Waller himself, so Miss session started. A couple of young men husband abhors jazz." After explaining Thompson avers, got far more satisfac­ went walking by as the happy music why he had come, Bernard was told tion out of playing WLW'sWurlitzer floated out to the. street. They stood that between the years 1927 and 1937 organ on a late-night program, "Moon there for a while and just couldn't M. Dupre had never set foot in Notre­ River". This program consisted entire­ believe their ears. Finally, one ex­ Dame (he was not, it appears, on ly of classics, light classics and ballads, claimed to the other: 'Man, how can I speaking terms with Louis Vierne, the so Waller always performed on it join that church?" organist there during that period) and anonymously, although his identity was One session for the Victor company Fats Waller had certainly never visi­ occasionally betrayed by the embel­ found him playing versions of Rim­ ted Saint Sulpice. lishments he added to some of the sky-Korsakof's "Flight of the Bumble Louis Vierne had died in 1937, but compositions. Bee," Bach's Fugues in B Minor and D Bernard managed to contact a friend The manager of WLW,Paul Crosley Minor, Liszt's "Liebestraum," Mosz­ of his, only to find that she too knew Jr. had problems with Fats as related kowski's "Spanish Dance No. 1" and nothing about a meeting between ei­ in Cincinnati Magazine of March, Rudolph Friml's "Spanish Days". ther Duprl or Vierne and Fats Waller. 1968: "Crosley's temper once cost None of these recordings have been At last Bernard called upon Pierre him the greatest of all WLWstars, Fats released, but it is believed that Waller Cochereau, the present organist at Waller. Waller, who had a predilection first played each item in a legitimate Notre-Dame. Cochereau was charming. for black derbies, cigars, and gin, also fashion, then improvised upon it. In "Oh yes," he said, "Fats Waller did happened to be one of the greatest addition to accompanying two sing­ play on the Notre-Dame organ." But jazz pianists of all times. He particu­ ers-Juanita Stinette Chappelle and Bert then it was discovered that the musi­ larly coveted an organ in the main Howell - upon the organ, he also cian, Cochereau was thinking of, had studio of the radio station which played the instrument on some band actually been a white American, and Crosley had dedicated to his late recordings with Thomas Morris' Hot that that incident took place in 1937. mother. One night Crosley walked into Babies, blending very piquantly with Finally Bernard went back to Coch­ the station and found Waller, in derby the front-line trumpet and trombone. ereau and begged him to search his and cigar, playing one of his own During 1926 and 1927 Fats also memory for the name of the person compositions, "Ain't Misbehavin' ," on played both piano and organ on two who had told him about Waller playing the organ.Enraged, Crosley accused sessions by Fletcher Henderson's or­ the cathedral organ. "It was my assis­ Waller of desecrating his mother's chestra. In 1928 he played in a session tant, Moreau," said Cochereau eventu­ memory and fired him on the spot. featuring James P. Johnson (Waller ally. Eddie Bernard spoke to Moreau, Waller went on to greater things, but playing the organ, Johnson the piano) who quickly answered: "Of course the organ never played right until one in a group called The Louisiana Sugar Fats Waller played on the Notre-Dame day a cleaning lady moved it out to Babies. organ in 1932!" But when Moreau was dust and was deluged by empty gin In 1932 Waller visited Paris and a asked how he knew this, he thought bottles which rolled across the floor."

18 THEATRE ORGAN FEBRUARY, 1975 In the Summer of 1938 Fats trav­ Chisholm later made a name for him­ kid six teen years old. I had myself a elled to England for a triumphant self as a comic and as a comedy ball that afternoon, and the records series of performances, including a two musician but he tells that he still really came easy." week appearance at the London Palla­ thinks of himself as a jazz player. He Where playing jazz on the theatre dium. Noted jazz entrepreneur Leon­ remembers the session well: 'Fats did organ is concerned, Fats remains com­ ard Feather approached H.M.V. (The several sides using the piano and then pletely unique; no one has come any­ English branch of RCA Victor) with a he spotted the organ away in the where near equalling his authentic jazz suggestion that Fats Waller should corner of the studio and, you know, stylings from that era. Perhaps he was record with a pick-up group of British his eyes lit up . He decided then and helped by the fact that he possessed musicians. Tony Bernard Smith sends there to do some of the numbers using such enormous 'pedal extremeties.' an account of these activities: "On the organ. This came completely out "To watch those twenty pound feet August 21, 1938, Fats was commis­ of the blue. Even when he was playing moving delicately and sensitively over sioned to record with his 'Continental organ, he was exuding the essence of a the bass of the immense organ in the Rhythm.' This was a group of session jazz player. He took some absurd Paramount studios," writes Mezz musicians. Some of them really went chances musically - and they all came Mezzrow, "was one of the most amaz­ out of their way to be present. The up(' ing sights imaginable.'' As James P. West Indian trumpeter, Dave Wilkins, "Waller came back to this organ a Johnson said shortly after Waller's travelled down from Glasgow and im­ week later to do solos and accompany death: "Some little people has music mediately after the session hurried off Adelaide Hall and again returned the in them, but Fats, he was all music - to Liverpool, where he was due to following year to do two more num­ and you know how big he was." work with Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson's bers on the same organ. The organ was Happily, almost all of Fats' pipe orchestra, while the trombonist, a 3/8 Compton plus Melotone. It was organ recordings are now available on George Chisholm, became probably the first installed in the Beaufort, Wash­ LP albums . These are all import items first musician ever to interrupt a hon­ wood Heath, Birmingham, in 1929, as and should be available from any of eymoon for a recording date; he flew a 2/8. However, not enough room was the larger record stores around the over from Jersey on the Sunday, then allowed for it when the theatre was country as special order items. Sam­ flew back again the following morning. built and it was removed to the studio ples of his early solo work from the with the addition of the third manual 1927 Camden Trinity Church studio and Melotone unit in 1937. It was recordings for Victor are to be found removed from the studio just a few on the French RCA Victor Black and years ago. With this number of ranks White Series, Volume 63, No. 7410~2 and general specifications, the organ titled "Fats Waller" - Young Fats at was almost identical with the standard the Organ ( 1926 - 1927 - Volume 1 ). small instruments Compton was in­ His ensemble work at the same studio stalling in British theatres during the is available in the same French RCA l 930's. These were designed for short Victor Black and White Series, Volume interludes rather than accompanying 69, No. 741062 titled "Fats Waller" silent films. with Morris's Hot Babies (1927 - "If you listen to Waller's first tracks Volume 2). All of Fats' recordings on you must be struck by his command the Compton in the H.M.V. studios of of the instrument. Comptons are not London, England are available on a like Wurlitzers or other U.S. makes. French album issued by the English They are more unified, for one thing, recording company E.M.I. The record­ and the Melotone would have been a ing front cover bears both the E.M.l. new breed of cat to Fats. Other little and PathJ labels - number jokers like double-touch cancel on the 2-C 154 -04938/9, a two record set ti­ stop-tabs (too hefty a swipe to bring in tled "Fats" in London (19 38, 19 39 ). a little extra oomph and you cancel Sole distributor in the U.S.A. Peters out what you already have on that International, 600 Eighth Avenue, manual) and unfamiliar stop-descrip­ New York, N.Y. 10018 . tions would have inhibited most peo­ ple, but here was Waller bashing away All of the foregoing biographical with all the familiar bounce and verve material was quoted directly from the on very first acquaintance. It's a re­ outstanding biography "Fats Waller" markable performance." by Charles Fox, published in England Fat's own enthusiasm is reflected in by Cassel & Co., Ltd. as No. 7 in a his recollections of the sessions quoted series azlled "Kings of Jazz." It is in Nat Hentoffs Hear Me Talkin' To distributed in the United States by Ya: "I'll never forget sitting down at A.S. Barnes & Co., Inc. Other sources the console of that magnificent organ are credited as they appear. □ in the H.M.V. studio on the outskirts of London. It reminded me of the Wurlitzer Grand I played at the Lin­ The "Fats" Waller Discography will coln Theatre in Harlem when I was a be published in the April Issue.

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