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In today’s VINYL VIBRATIONS podcast, I tour some early vinyl records that showcase PIANIST AND ORGANIST GREAT FATS WALLER. There are some 360 original compositions credited to Fats Waller, so where does one start in an attempt to represent his most imortant works? These recording you will hear in this podcast are found on a vinyl LP Record compilation that were collected by my father. During my childhood, these LPs were a frequent favorite on the house Hi-Fidelity record player.
FATS WALLER PART 1
- Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Music by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks), ‘Ain’t Misbehavin, Fat’s’ Waller and His Rhythm’ 1956, RCA Victor Records. rec 8/2/1929, original version of the song released 1929. Piano solo.
- Baby Oh Where Can You Be (Music by Ted Koehler and Frank Magine), The Rarest Fats Waller Volume 2 RFW-2, Organ solo. Recorded 8/24/1929.
- Tanglewood, (composed by Fats Waller and Sidney Easton) The Rarest Fats Waller Volume 2 RFW-2, organ solo, recorded 8/24/1929.Handful of Keys, Handful of Keys, Fats Waller and His Rhythm, RCA Victor LPM-1502, 1957. Recorded March 1, 1929.ZSz Piano solo.
- Tea for Two (Music by Vincent Youmans) ’Fat’s’ Waller and His Rhythm/Ain’t Misbehavin’, recorded June, 1937 from the 1924 musical “No, No Nanette” 1956, RCA Victor Records
- Then You’ll Remember Me (Music by Michael William Balfe), Fats Waller Plays, Sings and Talks , 1956, Jazz Treasury JT-1001. From Balfe’s opera, The Bohemian Girl c1861-1865) recorded Nov 30, 1939. Piano solo. Electrical Transcription (ET).
- Sextet Fats Waller Plays, Sings and Talks, 1956, Jazz Treasury JT-1001. from Lucia Di Lammermoor. Recorded Nov 20, 1939. Piano solo. Electrical Transcription (ET).
- MY HEART AT THY SWEET VOICE Fats Waller Plays, Sings and Talks, 1956, Jazz Treasury JT-1001. Recorded Nov 20, 1939. Piano solo. Electrical Transcription (ET).
Today in Part 1, I will canvass solo performances of Fats Waller of his recordings between 1929 and 1939, when he was between the ages of 25 and 35. Today’s show is called Fats Waller Piano and Organ Solos. . . .
THOMAS WRIGHT WALLER was born May 21, 1904 in NYC, the youngest of 11 children. He started pl aying piano at age six. His father was the Reverend Edward Martin Waller . By the time Thomas was 10, he had learned how to play the organ at his father’s church. At age 14, he was playing the organ at Harlem Lincoln’s Theater. Fats Waller is best known for his stride piano style.
At age 15 Fats was a professional pianist and worked the local cabarets and theatres. Some of his original compositions are well known standards today, like Honeysuckle Rose, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Handful of Keys, Squeeze Me, Blue Turnin Grey Over You. Recordings of Fats Waller were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, first in 1984, the song Honeysuckle Rose, and again in 1998 the song Ain’t Misbehavin’.
Thomas Waller earned the nickname “Fats” at an early age, because as a Harlem ten year old boy, he was very heavy, over 250 pounds, and for the remainder of his life, his weight would stay between 280 and 300. Fats Waller was hard-working and trained in music theory and in the piano classics. He was prolific and there are some 360 songs credited to him during his short lifetime of 39 years.
In terms of music performance, he preferred small groups to big bands, and preferred to lead groups of 6-8 men. `
We will hear piano and organ solo performances by Fats Waller from 1929, during the time of the Great Depression, and 1939, the start of WW II in Europe, the invasion by Nazi Germany into Poland.
PLUG – VINYL VIBRATIONS – –
M1 Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Music by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks), ‘Ain’t Misbehavin, Fat’s’ Waller and His Rhythm’ 1956, RCA Victor Records. rec 8/2/1929, original version of the song released 1929. Piano solo.
In our first segment, we listen to Ain’t Misbehavin’. Music is composed by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks. This is one of the earliest solo recordings of Fats Waller. This 1929 recording was re-mastered from 78 to LP vinyl record by RCA Victor Records many years later, in 1956. Perhaps this song is the single most popular of Fats Waller’s original composions today. This is a piano solo version, normally one would hear the lyrics – – very whimsical…
I don’t stay out late
Got no place to go
I’m home about 8
Just me and my radio
Ain’t misbehavin’
I’m savin’ my love for you]
The solo version we will hear next is performed by Fats and recorded in August, 1929. Fats is just 25 years old. What an easy stride piano style this is. With the stride style, the left hand rhythm, he creates a rhythm section.
M2 Baby Oh Where Can You Be (Music by Ted Koehler and Frank Magine), The Rarest Fats Waller Volume 2 RFW-2, Organ solo. Recorded 8/24/1929. That was Fats Waller and his organ solo rendition of Baby Oh Where Can You Be… Music by Ted Koehler and Frank Magine), from the vinyl LP “The Rarest Fats Waller Volume 2” . The liner notes for this album are in the form of a single typewritten sheet of paper …The only information provided …reads like this: “THOMAS WALLER (pipe organ), 24Aug 1929.”
M3 Tanglewood I have another outstanding pipe organ solo. This song is titled Tanglewood, and was composed by Fats Waller and Sidney Easton. This remastered version was found on the LP “The Rarest Fats Waller Volume 2, and also was recorded on 8/24/1929.
Fats Waller is considered to be the first JAZZ ORGANIST. He made his first recordings inside a church owned by the Southern Music Company, in Camden, NJ. The organ solos were published on VICTOR records, as 78 RPM discs.
The publication of this music, using a church pneumatic organ, could be one of Fats Wallers most outstanding achievements.
M4 Tea for Two
(Music by Vincent Youmans) from the LP album ’Fat’s’ Waller and His Rhythm/Ain’t Misbehavin’, ….
The song Tea for Two is from the 1924 musical “No, No Nanette”
This piano solo was recorded in June, 1937 and remastered to LP in 1956 by RCA Victor Records
There is some amazing technical finger work on Tea for Two, and Fats Waller is solid with his rhythm and the stride style piano that he is well known for.
M5 Then You’ll Remember Me (Music by Michael William Balfe), Fats Waller Plays, Sings and Talks , 1956, Jazz Treasury JT-1001. From Balfe’s opera, The Bohemian Girl c1861-1865) recorded Nov 30, 1939. Piano solo. Electrical Transcription (ET).
In 1939, Fats Waller performed a solo piano version of Then You’ll Remember Me
The music was composed by Michael William Balfe, and is from Balfe’s opera, The Bohemian Girl .
Balfe composed the opera in 1843, and it became one of his most praised works. The Bohemian Girl spread all across Europe and even made it to some cities in the US.
The music and lyrics of “Then You’ll Remember Me” touch on ideas of love, loss, and heartache. There is no chorus in this piece, reflecting the time period this was produced, the early 1800s.
This LP track had been remastered in 1956 by Jazz Treasury JT-1001, from Fats Waller Plays, Sings and Talks. The program was recorded Nov 30, 1939, is believed to be remastered from an electric transcription. During “Golden Age” of radio, most programs were aired live. But performances were recorded while they were being broadcast. Why, you ask?? The recording was made so that a sponsor or a producer could listen to them later, or use the recording for a rebroadcast. These so-called Electrical Transcriptions” were recorded into 16″ records, called “ET’s”. This continued into the 1950s when the audio tape was used for recording. Many of these ET’s were discarded or abandoned in large quantities. Today they are considered valuable collector items. You need a turntable large enough to handle the large 16” disc.
THEN YOU’LL REMEMBER ME, a Fats Waller piano solo.
M6 Sextet and is adapted from Lucia Di Lammermoor , a tragic opera written by Gaetano Donizetti in 1835, the song title meaning the song includes six singers. The piano solo version by Fats Waller is found on the 1956 JAZZ TREASURY LP, Fats Waller Plays, Sings and Talks, Sextet, as with the previous recording, was recorded into an Electrical Transcription disc Nov 20, 1939 and then remastered in 1956 to vinyl LP record by JAZZ TREASURY.
LUCIA SEXTET has found its way into many modern productions, such as
- SCARFACE,
- THE DEPARTED,
- THE THREE STOOGES AND MICRO PHONIES AND SQUARE HEADS OF THE ROUNDTABLE,
- THE MONEY PIT,
- THE FLINTSTONES,
- LAW AND ORDER and
- BEETLEJUICE.
M7 MY HEART AT THY SWEET VOICE
And now our final solo performance in this part 1 of Fats Waller solo piano and organ performances, the song MY HEART AT THY SWEET VOICE . This is a lesser known piano solo recorded in November 1939 as an Electrical Transcription (ET) and found on the LP titled: Fats Waller Plays, Sings and Talks, remastered to LP record format in 1956 by Jazz Treasury.
My Heart at thy sweet voice is from an ARIA from the GRAND opera SAMSON ET DALILA, by Camille Saint-Saens, FIRST PERFORMED IN 1877. IT IS BASED ON THE BIBLICAL TALE OF SAMSON AND DELILAH FROM THE BOOK OF JUDGES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. Maybe you can find the humor, this aria is sung by Dalilah, a mezzo-soprano, she is trying to make up to Sampson, the tenor, just before he goes to sleep… and she cuts off his hair. Today, the song is a popular wedding song.
And now, MY HEART AT THY SWEET VOICE performed by Fats Waller in 1939.
About V-Discs
Some listeners might assume that V-Disc Recordings is a collection of the most famous recordings that Fats Waller made for RCA Victor during World War II. Most of the material was, in fact, recorded during the Second World War, but not for RCA Victor. The Best of the War Years is actually a collection of V-disc recordings. In the ’40s, V-discs were 78s that were pressed for the United States military. They were not sold commercially — V-discs were strictly for the enjoyment of American servicemen overseas — and many well-known jazz artists expressed their patriotism by donating recordings to the V-disc program. Sadly, Waller did not live long enough to see the end of World War II — the good-natured pianist/singer/organist was only 39 when he died of pneumonia on December 15, 1943. Some of this CD’s 16 tracks predate World War II and the V-disc program, including a 1936 performance of “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,” and a 1939 version of “Your Feet’s Too Big.” (In some cases, V-discs did not contain recordings that were made specifically for the V-disc program — they contained unreleased alternate takes or radio broadcasts that the artist donated). Most of the material, however, was recorded at a studio session in September 1943 — only three months before Waller‘s death — and that includes inspired performances of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and Duke Ellington‘s “Solitude.” Waller set up that September 1943 session for the sole purpose of providing V-disc recordings; those recordings turned out to be his final studio performances, and they are the work of a true musical giant who was very much on top of his game during the final months of his life.