Were Fats Waller and Duke Ellington friends at all???

[BERIGAN]

My Dad for some reason keeps asking me this...I said a week ago I'd mention it on this forum...you'd think at nearly 80 he'd forgot something like this, but nooooo, every day he asks if I asked here...so, help me out!

[jazzbo]

I am sure they knew each other, and that Waller probably was a help in the earliest years in NYC. "Friends" . . . rivals. . . both?

[JSngry]

Didn't they both do the rent party circuit? I know Duke talked about all the great pianists who showed up there, pretty sure Fats was among them.

[medjuck]

Weren't they both acolytes of Willie the Lion? They don't seem to have been close friends. I checked the index of the 4 EKE bios I have at hand and Waller isn't even listed in one of them. The only real mention of them being in the same room together was a vague reference to Waller being amongst the NY pianists who came to hear Ellington when he first arrived in NY.

Edited August 11, 2011 by medjuck

[JSngry]

Yeah!

[Hot Ptah]

In "Music Is My Mistress", Duke speaks of going around as a youth with his friends to see the established pianists, naming Willie "The Lion" Smith, James P. Johnson and Fats Waller.

At the beginning of a chapter entitled "The Big Apple", Duke says that he and his friends had come to know Fats Waller quite well, and that they had a "chummy exchange" in which Fats gave Duke information about a gig. The next section of the chapter describes Duke's mishaps with that gig.

There is too little written about Waller in these passages to come to any conclusion.

I have found "Music Is My Mistress" to be more poetic than coldly factual. It is difficult to draw conclusions from what Duke says about a person in that book. Maybe if the reader knew Duke well, the reader could fill in the blanks of what Duke is really saying

Edited August 11, 2011 by Hot Ptah

[miles65]

Mark Tucker writes in Duke Ellington The Early Years page 95 "He had become friendly with Willie "The Lion" SMITH, James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and other musicians whom he had met at clubs and jam sessions.

So friendly not friends

Fats is named a number of times buit always as being similar in piano style and once as a tutor to Ellington.

Tucker´s book follows Ellington upto his openingnight at the Cotton Club

[medjuck]

In "Music Is My Mistress", Duke speaks of going around as a youth with his friends to see the established pianists, naming Willie "The Lion" Smith, James P. Johnson and Fats Waller.

At the beginning of a chapter entitled "The Big Apple", Duke says that he and his friends had come to know Fats Waller quite well, and that they had a "chummy exchange" in which Fats gave Duke information about a gig. The next section of the chapter describes Duke's mishaps with that gig.

There is too little written about Waller in these passages to come to any conclusion.

I have found "Music Is My Mistress" to be more poetic than coldly factual. It is difficult to draw conclusions from what Duke says about a person in that book. Maybe if the reader knew Duke well, the reader could fill in the blanks of what Duke is really saying

Good for you for finding this. Mistress doesn't have an index. (Or at least my copy doesn't-- though I think someone has done one.)

[JSngry]

Just in general, people interested in all this should find and listen to the Willie The Lion talking record on RCA. It's pretty darn compelling.

[Ted O'Reilly]

With both being pianists/composers/bandleaders, with pretty big personalities (egos?), It might have been a respectful "friendly rivalry".

For certain, neither played the other's compositions very often.

[BERIGAN]

Wow, more info than I thought would come about, thanks!!!

I wonder if Duke found it hard to be friends with his fellow contemporaries...I remember reading (Somewheres) that Duke and Louis weren't particularly close, very different backgrounds of course, but one time on the road (in the 50's?) they crossed paths and they sat in a car, just the two of them, and talked for quite some time....

[Ted O'Reilly]

Wow, more info than I thought would come about, thanks!!!

I wonder if Duke found it hard to be friends with his fellow contemporaries...I remember reading (Somewheres) that Duke and Louis weren't particularly close, very different backgrounds of course, but one time on the road (in the 50's?) they crossed paths and they sat in a car, just the two of them, and talked for quite some time....

Well, there's always "The Great Summit" album, from which comes "Azalea" with an interesting intro saying that Duke wrote it years before, with Louis in mind... Don't know if that's so, but Satchmo does a beautiful job on it.

(And don't forget, Duke's main trumpet man for decades was Cootie Williams, who adored Armstrong...)

[JSngry]

.I remember reading (Somewheres) that Duke and Louis weren't particularly close, very different backgrounds of course, but one time on the road (in the 50's?) they crossed paths and they sat in a car, just the two of them, and talked for quite some time....

You probably answered your own question right there, inadvertently...those guys both spent most of their careers travelling, and even when they were in the same city, they had their own business to tend to. But I would be shocked to find out that there was not a deep mutual respect and admiration between them.

[Ted O'Reilly]

...those guys both spent most of their careers travelling, and even when they were in the same city, they had their own business to tend to. But I would be shocked to find out that there was not a deep mutual respect and admiration between them.

Good point!

[JSngry]

It would be interesting (and probably possible, if overwhelmingly laborious to compile) to compare lifetime itineraries of both after they both settled in New York.