[Dixielandjazz] Thomas Fats Waller

[Robert Ringwald]

By Jim Triller, Federal Way resident
Thomas “Fats” Waller, the great jazz musician, stride piano player, singer and entertainer,
had just finished a rollicking performance at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago during
the winter of 1926. Four men wearing dark suits with wide lapels, black and white
shoes and faces that meant business surrounded him and made him “an offer he couldn’t
refuse.” With the cold steel of a gun shoved into his belly, he was told to go outside
and get into a black limo. Terror washed over his large frame as he yielded to their
direction. The car took off into the freezing night.
The driver was ordered to drive to East Cicero, a Chicago suburb. Sweating bullets,
Fats foresaw an early end to his career. The limo pulled up to the Hawthorne Inn
and Fats was shoved inside toward a piano and told to play. He played. The audience
loved him. Loudest in applause was a stocky man with an unmistakable scar: Al Capone
was having a birthday, and he, Fats, was a present from "the boys."
Capone’s party lasted three days. Fats exhausted himself and his repertoire, but
with every request he played, $100 bills were stuffed into his pockets. He and Capone
consumed vast quantities of food and drink. By the time the black limo headed back
to the Sherman, Fats had acquired several thousand dollars in cash and a taste for
vintage champagne.

 

-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street 
with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.