[Dixielandjazz] Capone and jazz

[Ulf Jagfors]

Talking about Capone and jazz. This is a story I heard a while ago on the
net.

 

While in jail Capona discover that it was a jazz band active within the
bars. His wife bought him a nice banjo to play with the boys. If he ever
played the banjo is not known. But as people then noted. This was probably
the first time a gangster had a musical instrument in an instrument case!!!.

Ulf

 

Dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com  For Robert Ringwald

Thomas Fats Waller

 

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