Friday, September 21, 2012

The Fat Man Swings



6 comments:

Jeffrey Davis said...

He's our Chopin, but with American exuberance instead of European mopery.

Try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Wwhe9Hx_w

I love the variety and surprise in his embellishments. Liquid gold. Let me hear Waller, Armstrong, Django, Lester Young, and Ben Webster ... and I care not who writes the laws.

dhogaza said...

That's a rag, not swing ... :)

mike roddy said...

Thanks for this, Eli, since my grandmother used to play piano duets with Fats in the 30's. He would drive from New Orleans just to play with her on the roof of a hotel in San Antonio.

If we ever get together I'll try to bring my old Fats collection, put together by a producer friend from LA. As mentioned earlier, I'll be in SF next month and want to see you. I'll bring a tape of my grandmother.

My email to your old address seems to have not gotten through- please send me your new email address. I'm trying to start a climate media monitoring service.

mike roddy said...

Thanks for this, Eli, since my grandmother used to play piano duets with Fats in the 30's. He would drive from New Orleans just to play with her on the roof of a hotel in San Antonio.

If we ever get together I'll try to bring my old Fats collection, put together by a producer friend from LA. As mentioned earlier, I'll be in SF next month and want to see you. I'll bring a tape of my grandmother.

My email to your old address seems to have not gotten through- please send me your new email address. I'm trying to start a climate media monitoring service.

Jeffrey Davis said...

That's stride not ragtime. Although the difference is sketchy (and probably more a matter of date than music).

If you're in the mood for INSANE piano technique, here's Luckey Roberts. (Roberts was one of Gershwin's piano teachers. And it shows.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8f9sQsPN8s

Jeffrey Davis said...

Another Luckey Roberts piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=h3uQL19AIgg

There's a 50s LP of him and Willie "The Lion" Smith with about 5 cuts. I have it somewhere. It's a good representative of Smith, but Roberts by then had suffered a stroke and been in a car accident that had smashed his fingers. It's dazzling, but it's not his peak.