Fats Waller: the Last Years, 1940-1943. - sound recording reviews

National Review, March 5, 1990 by Ralph De Toledano

Fats Waller: the Last Years, 19401943 (BMG RCA-bluebird 9883-2 RB). Fats Waller, the rotund stride pianist, contributed mightily to the school of Harlem jazz. On the stage of the old Apollo Theater in New York, he could electrify an audience by the power and inventiveness of his pianistics, his tremendous drive, and a personality which rose to the topmost balcony.

But at small recording sessions and when jamming with his contemporaries, he evoked a blues spirit and a sensitivity which rivaled that of any jazz pianist of his time. He was also a showman and a clown, in the classic sense of the word, and thus transformed some of the shoddiest products of Tin Pan Alley into music and entertainment. He also wrote and popularized some of the finest jazz standards of his era, "Aint Misbehavin"' being the best known of them. Now Bluebird has put together three CDs of his final output-a memorial to a jazz great.