![]() Fats had the double curse of being able to sing anything, and always being asked to prove it. ” Said Kevin Whitehead in Down Beat, “He always found something of value in the rubbish. With wagging head and joking asides, he slyly poked fun at the feeble songs he was frequently asked to perform “He would disembowel Tin Pan Alley ’s more inane creations vocally and on the keyboard, ” observed National Review contributor Ralph De Toledano, “but even in his lightest moments, he was always the virtuoso, always the master of ragtime cum jazz. ”īecoming an international star performing popular songs and satiric tunes like “Ain ’t Misbehavin ’, ” “Honeysuckle Rose, ” and “Your Feet ’s Too Big, ” the 300-pound Waller cultivated an exuberant stage persona that audiences heartily embraced. But because “white America preferred its jazzmen to be Falstaffs rather than … Hamlets, ” suggested Jack Kroll in Newsweek, “Waller … was granted a certain measure of success because he agreed to emphasize his real gift for comedy and buffoonery, letting the jazz fall where it might. His dynamic, creative keyboard style extended to the organ and the celesta he was, in fact, the first significant jazz organist, his swing on the pipe organ unsurpassed. Johnson, Waller was a wizard at this successor to ragtime, in which the left hand carries the beat and the right delivers the melody. ![]() Introduced to this particular piano idiom by Harlem stride master James P. While best remembered for his comic songwriting and musical performances, show business legend Fats Waller was a gifted jazz musician whose greatest contribution to music lay in his brilliant stride piano compositions. ![]() Keyboards player, songwriter,bandleader, singer
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