The late, great stride pianist and organist Fats Waller’s birthday is May 21. Often overlooked is his prodigious record as a songwriter during the heyday of Tin Pan Alley—a period in American music history in the New York City music publishing district from the late 1890s to the 1970s—where he has been credited with more than 400 songs. What is even more interesting is the fact that for many of his famous tunes, like “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose,” his lyricist was a man named Andy Razaf, who was born in the U.S. but whose mother fled Madagascar when her husband, a nephew of the queen, was murdered during the French invasion and takeover. Pregnant, the 15-year-old was able to escape to the U.S. where she gave birth to her son, a hereditary prince, in Washington, D.C., in 1895.
This story should be a movie script!
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
Noted jazz historian critic and reviewer Scott Yanow wrote an extensive biography of Waller for the Syncopated Times profiles in jazz series:
Thomas “Fats” Waller … started playing the harmonium when he was five, switching to piano at six. He gained early experience performing in his school orchestra and in church but his childhood was not entirely happy. Waller’s father was a church minister who was quite strict. He wanted his son to only play religious music but Fats was more interested in popular music, ragtime, and the new stride piano style that James P. Johnson was pioneering. After Waller’s mother died, life at home became unbearable. About that time, he met James P. Johnson, began taking informal lessons from him, and he soon moved in with James P. and his wife.
In 1919, when he was still just 15, Waller began working at the Lincoln Theatre as their house organist, playing for silent movies in a stomping style that must have delighted (or confused) the audience. He found time to give a young Count Basie organ lessons during the shows. As the 1920s began, Waller’s life was already quite busy. In addition to playing at the Lincoln Theatre, he began making piano rolls (which would eventually total 20), he cut his first solo records in 1922 (“Muscle Shoals Blues” and “Birmingham Blues”), and performed regularly at wild rent parties, sharing the piano bench with James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith, and other local pianists.
[…]
Fats was a major songwriter, starting with “Squeeze Me” in 1918 and composing such songs as “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Keeping Out Of Mischief Now,” “Jitterbug Waltz,” the first anti-racism protest song “Black And Blue,” plus dozens of others. By the early 1930s, Waller had developed into an excellent jazz singer, one who could sound quite touching on “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter,” could scat very well, always swung, and was an expert ad-libber. And as a comic personality, Waller was nearly unbeatable, satirizing the lyrics of songs, interacting with other singers, and just being a lovable character.
Here’s Waller performing “Ain’t Misbehavin’” in the 1943 film, “Stormy Weather.” The clip features quite a few notable performers including Lena Horne and dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson as a waiter.
In the 1987 documentary “This Joint Is Jumpin” on Waller’s life and early death, one of the main people interviewed is his son Maurice Waller. There are also great discussions about stride piano from fellow musicians:
As I mentioned in the introduction, the story of Waller’s lyricist, Andy Razaf, who was born Andreamentania Paul Razafkeriefo, is a notable one, as is the history of his aunt, Her Majesty the Queen Ranavalona lll.
Olga Bourlin wrote this biography of Razaf for Black Past:
Razaf’s father, who died during the French invasion of Madagascar before Razaf’s birth, was Henri Razafkeriefo, a royal prince and nephew of Queen Ranavalona III of Imerina. Razaf’s mother, Jennie Maria (Waller) Razafkeriefo, was the daughter of lawyer John Lewis Waller (no relation to Razaf’s frequent collaborator, Fats Waller), the first African American consul to Madagascar. […]
Razaf attended public schools in Harlem and received some private music lessons as well. Growing up in a family that valued poetry, Razaf began writing verses at the tender age of ten. Razaf’s mother worked as a stenographer, and to help her with finances, Razaf left school at age sixteen. Not long after getting a job as an elevator operator at a Tin Pan Alley office building, Razaf, at age seventeen, sold his first professional song, “Baltimo.” Razaf’s early poems (in 1917 and 1918) were published in The Voice, the first New Negro Movement newspaper, edited by Harlem radical Hubert Henry Harrison. By the early 1920s, Razaf was an editor of Negro World, the official newspaper of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, which at the time had the largest circulation of any black newspaper in the world.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Razaf was galvanized to write about racial injustice in America. Music critic and record producer John Henry Hammond II regarded “Black and Blue,” featured in the 1929 Broadway show, Hot Chocolates, to be the first landmark song of racial protest. Razaf had also worked on the original Broadway productions of Keep Shufflin’ in 1928 and Blackbirds of 1930.
“Honeysuckle Rose” was featured in the 1940 movie Tin Pan Alley. While Fats Waller and Razaf were credited for their hit at the end of the movie, in the actual film, white actors were shown writing the song’s music and verse.
Here’s the “white” version from the movie:
Here’s Waller/Razaf’s “Honeysuckle Rose” in a musical “soundie,” which are basically the precursors to music videos:
The New York Public Library, Archives & Manuscripts division, has more biographical information on Razaf:
Although Razaf never attended college, he was self-taught and highly educated. Numerous hours spent in the public library at 135th Street motivated him to write a poem entitled “Reflections in a Public Library.” In 1941 he married the head librarian Jean Blackwell, Chief (1948-1980) of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, formerly the 135th Street Branch Library. His love of the Schomburg Center prompted a library official to offer him a scholarship which Razaf declined for lack of time. Razaf was married three times, but had no children.
After his marriage to Jean Blackwell the couple moved to Englewood. In 1947 he decided to run for City Council. Although he lost, it marked the first political effort by a black person in that city.
Razaf moved to California in 1948. He was stricken by paralysis brought on by tertiary syphilis that confined him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Despite his physical handicap, he continued to write poems, lyrics and letters; his stationery depicts him in his wheelchair with the words, “From the Wheelchair of Andy Razaf.”
Though you might be familiar with pictures of Waller, there are very few of his handsome lyricist, shown here:
Razaf was honored numerous times by everyone from the U.S. Treasury for his special songs written for its War Bond Drive to induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. On Feb. 3, 1973, Razaf died one of Tin Pan Alleys’ greatest songwriters. He wrote over 1,000 songs.
The Andy Razaf papers, also offers a great deal about his life and body of work. The Songwriter’s Hall of Fame notes that “Razaf’s catalog boasts some of the greatest hits from the Tin Pan Alley era.”
Robert Waltrip Short, known to the music world as Bobby Short recorded an entire album dedicated to Razaf’s lyricism in 1987, “Guess Who’s in Town: Bobby Short Performs the Songs of Andy Razaf.” William Ruhlmann at AllMusic noted:
“The man has been utterly forgotten,” writes annotator Barry Singer of lyricist Andy Razaf, an oversight Singer was to redress in 1992 with the publication of his biography, Black and Blue: The Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf, but even before Bobby Short recorded this tribute album, Razaf was gaining prominence through the use of his songs in a series of all-black Broadway revues, starting with Ain’t Misbehavin’ in 1978.
Give a listen to these two selections from the album: “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Black and Blue.”
And be sure to check out Barry Singer’s biography on Razaf, “Black and Blue.”
Tin Pan Alley, where Waller and Razaf published their tunes, has an fascinating history, and in case you are unfamiliar with the term here’s a short explainer from New York’s Historic District Council:
Please join me in the comments section below for more Tin Pan Alley tunes.
Happy Birthday, Fats Waller!
