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.