FREE ESSAY ON FATS NAVARRO

FATS NAVARRO

Early Background
The story begins in Key West, Florida where Theodore Fats Navarro was born of mixed
Cuban-Black-Chinese parentage on September 24, 1923. His musical training began early
with piano lessons at age six, but he did not start taking music seriously until he took
up the trumpet at age thirteen. He became good during his high school years. He also
played tenor saxophone and played briefly with Walter Johnson's band in Miami. Apparently
Fats did not care much for Key West. He was once quoted as saying I didn't like Key West
at all. I'll never go back. So, after graduating high school, he joined Sol Allbrights's
band in Orlando, so Fats traveled with him to Cincinnati, and took further trumpet
lessons from an Ohio teacher. He then went on the road with Snookum Russell's
Indianapolis orchestra. Russell's group, a band well known in the area in the 1940s,
proved to be very good for Fats. It was a place where he developed, experimented, and
made mistakes that no one would remember before heading on to the national stage. Fats
stayed with Russell for about two years (1941-42) and became their trumpet soloist. Fats
worked next with Andy Kirk and his Kansas City Clouds of Joy. Here he made a friendship
with trumpeter Howard McGhee. 
Fats role in the Andy Kirk band explains this story retold by Billy Eckstine describing
how Fats moved over to his band. 
Dizzy Gillespie left my band in Washington, D.C. He told me to go over to hear Andy Kirk,
because there was a fellow with Kirk named Fats Navarro. 'Take a listen to him,' said
Dizzy, 'he's wonderful!' So I went out to the club, and the only thing Fats had to blow
was behind a chorus number. But he was wailing behind this number, and I said to myself,
'This is good enough this'll fit.' So I got Fats to come by and talk it over, and about
two weeks after that he took Dizzy's chair, and take it from me, he came right in ...
Great as Diz is ... Fats played his book and you would hardly know that Diz had left the
band. 'Fat Girl' played Dizzy's solos, not note for note, but his ideas on Dizzy's parts
and the feeling was the same and there was just as much swing. 
Eckstine's band was very successful, due to Eckstine's romantic vocals, and the most
musically advanced voice. Besides Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the band included
at one time or other during a four year span a lineup of future stars that is very well
known in all of jazz: Kenny Dorham, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Gene
Ammons, Lucky Thompson, Bud Johnson, Frank Wess, Charlie Rouse, Sonny Stitt, Leo Parker,
Cecil Payne, Tadd Dameron, Jerry Valentine, Tommy Potter, Art Blakey, and Sarah Vaughan
were some of the more famous to pass through the band. 
The End Comes
Somewhere along the way, Fats contracted tuberculosis, which is usually a slow developing
malady. The combination of his drug habit, and the TB led to a sharp decline in his
health and a decrease of his musical activity over the last seventeen months of his life.
He nevertheless went on the road one last time with the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour for
about seven weeks in February and March of 1949. Fats had been described as coughing
uncontrollably and appearing physically drained during this period. Theodore Fats Navarro
died on July 7, 1950 in a New York City hospital.