On Tuesday, April 20 the National Jazz Museum in Harlem (104 East 126th St.) will present "The Joint is Jumpin': Fats Waller: The Organist" from 7 PM - 8:30 PM. The event will be free at the NJMH Visitors Center (Suite 2C).
Jazz organ fans of what some call the "modern" age of jazz-from bebop and beyond-often gravitate to
Jimmy Smith as the icon of the Hammond B3. But if we go back, through the careers of Wild
Bill Davis and Sarah McLawler, preceding Smith, we'd end up at the start of jazz organ: Fats Waller.
The son of a Baptist minister, Waller played church organ even before playing piano. During the silent film era he was a theatre organist in New York. Fats also taught
Count Basie how to play the organ and he probably had the first recording featuring an electric Hammond organ.
However, it's on the pipe organ that Waller made several recordings lost to obscurity that will be resurrected and placed properly in the light of recognition tonight, as we'll hear rare Waller gems heretofore only recognized by the jazz cognoscenti.
On Wednesday, April 21 join the Aaron Diehl Trio at 7 PM at
The Players (16 Gramercy Park S.). Tickets will cost $20.
Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "The most promising discovery that [Wynton] Marsalis has made since Eric Reed," Aaron Diehl's distinctive interpretations of the music of
Scott Joplin, "Jelly Roll" Morton, Art Tatum,
Duke Ellington, and other masters pay homage to the tradition while establishing his own original voice.
He has performed with the
Wynton Marsalis Septet, the JALC Orchestra, The Boston Symphony Orchestra,
Hank Jones, Wycliffe Gordon, Wessell Anderson, Benny Golson, NJMH executive director Loren Schoenberg, and has been featured on
Marian McPartland's NPR radio show "Piano Jazz." His international touring includes major European jazz festivals as well as performances in South America and Asia. "Mozart Jazz," his first CD as a leader, was released in 2006 on the Pony Canyon label (Japan). Recent performances include the Caramoor Festival and the Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall.
A native of Columbus, Ohio, Diehl is a 2007 graduate of the Juilliard School, where his teachers included recent Harlem Speaks guest and NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron, Eric Reed, and Oxana Yablonskaya. His honors include Lincoln Center's prestigious
Martin E. Segal award in 2004, winner of the 2003 Jazz Arts Group Hank Marr Jazz Competition, and Outstanding Soloist at Jazz at Lincoln Center's 2002 Essentially Ellington Competition. Immediately following graduation from high school he toured with the
Wynton Marsalis Septet.
Aaron Diehl currently resides in Manhattan where he serves as music director of St. Joseph of the Holy Family Church in Harlem. Check out a master-in-the-making playing live at Jazz at
The Players.
Other upcoming events include a concert by Darcy James Argue (April 22), the Etienne Charles Band (April 23), and a presentation of "Fats Waller's Harlem: Reflection on the 1920s and 30s" (April 24).
For more information and to order tickets, visit online at
www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org.
