Description

Schirmer Books, Published 1977. Hardcover, xix, 235 pp.; 24 cm; Second printing; illustrated with black-and-white photographs. In Good Plus condition with a Good dust jacket. Black cloth-covered boards, silver lettering on spine; light bumping to edges and corners, mild shelf wear. Thin crack to the binding at the hinge along the half-title page, but binding still sound; pages clean and unmarked. Pictorial dust jacket shows a photograph of Waller at the piano; several nicks and tears of one inch or less with creasing along edges, mild to moderate shelf wear, and damp staining to the verso along the bottom border (not visible from the front). Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. The life of jazz stride pianist, organist, singer, and composer Thomas "Fats" Waller (1904-1943), written by his son Maurice Waller with Anthony Calabrese. Drawing on family memory and firsthand recollection, it follows Waller from his Harlem childhood through the rent-party and Tin Pan Alley years, his apprenticeship to James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith, the songwriting partnership with Andy Razaf, and his rise to national fame as a recording and radio star. With a foreword by Michael Lipskin.