Fats Waller—Your Feet’s Too Big

I was reminded of Fats because an album of his was one of the best Christmas presents I ever received. And ’tis the season.

10 Comments

  1. JH

    Playful! Reminds me of Louis Armstrong.

    People with big ears are said to live longer. I am not sure what good things happen to those with big feet though. Maybe they fall less often?

  2. j ferguson

    http://jazz-on-line.com/

    The collection on this site is staggering. almost everything except Art Tatum’s Dardanella.

    Some great Lonnie Johnson, though.

  3. Briggs

    j ferguson,

    Holy moly! What a great site!

  4. j ferguson

    Briggs,
    I cannot gauge your affection for this stuff, but if you’re interested i can send you a list of astonishing things on this site. I haven’t ever been able to find anyplace else which even begins to cover this genre the way these guys do.

    best regards,

    john

  5. Briggs

    j ferguson,

    My affection strong. Any tips greatly appreciated.

  6. j ferguson

    gimme a couple of days. best … , john

  7. j ferguson

    Briggs,
    It may be that this thread has gone moribund, but I’ve been coping with how to share my favorites within the incredible collection at Jazz-On-Line.

    One way to find a better sieve for what you might like is to download all the versions of a series of standards, then queue them up with Amarok (if you’re still running Linux) and decide who you like and who not. It’s amazing to listen to 18 or 20 versions of Rosetta, or Sweet lorraine, or After You’re Gone, Exactly like you, or maybe Honeysuckle rose, and discover who “got” it and who was just turning the crank. Not all artists are always good, but some seem to hit it more than others. If you don’t already have them, the Billy Holiday, teddy Wilson, Lester Young recordings from the late ’30s are beguiling.

    Jazz-on-line’s Fiesta in Brass (the littlejazz group version)has the first two bars cut off – they shouldn’t be. but you can find a complete recording elsewhere.

    If any of the above makes any sense to you, let me know and I’ll suggest some more things.

    I suspect jazz-on-line has pretty much all of the Django Reinhardt recordings – get Tears for a hint, also Shine from 1936-7. I think I have all the django that’s there – but it isn’t all wonderful, just an awful lot.

    on another note, we bought a cd of patti page songs, including Tennessee waltz, mockingbird hill, and so forth. I was disappointed having remembered them with a lot more wail than she was able to muster. I began to wonder if my musical memory was defective, or dwindling like taste and smell.

    It wasn’t. the versions I remembered were Les Paul and Mary Ford’s. My Dad played swing sax in a couple of groups in Minneapolis in the late ’40s and early ’50s, had a big record collection. I grew up with this stuff -and so may have been warped a bit by what he liked.

  8. Briggs

    j ferguson,

    Thanks for the tips!

    Yes, still on Linux (what else?). I’ll give the Amarok thing a go.

  9. j ferguson

    hi,
    let me know how you get on with it, and particularly anything you find that you really like.

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