Fats Navarros 100th Birthday

[blacksaint]

It's very sad that Fats Navarro's 100th birthday went completely unnoticed. He was definitely a master of the trumpet. He deserved more attention.

[ghost of miles]

Agreed, and I've been playing some Fats this week on my daily afternoon show.  There's a Night Lights program in the works as well, coming in November.

[bertrand]

I will try to get a Fats tribute concert together in DC as part of the Lee Morgan Festival I am organizing. I already have a Woody Shaw concert scheduled for 10/15, and three of Lee's music on 10/14, 10/22 and 11/19.

[Gheorghe]

Well yes, but Fats Navarro is always in the mind of those, who play "modern" trumpet style. As much as I love Diz, I think many following trumpet player until today could not be where they are if there had not been Fats Navarro. 

I love his music and know it very very well and have learned from his style (and I am a piano player). 
He was on one of my first LPs when I learned that there is somebody like Charlie Parker. It was this stuff Bird, Bud and Fats at Birdland, and it was some of the best stuff I heard, even if the sound quality was lousy.

So, if I don´t think about that anniversary in a special manner , nevertheless I think I learned much from him and am so glad that he WAS there ! 

[adh1907]

BBC radio 3 Jazz Record Requests, presented by Alyn Shipton, focused on Fats Navarro on 24 September. Not yet listened but it appears from the playlist that my request for Street Beat with Parker didn’t make the show! Navarro and Parker trading fours is I think one of the peaks of bebop:

 

 

[gmonahan]

The anniversary got away from me too. Playing some Fats tonight!

[Gheorghe]

9 hours ago, adh1907 said:

BBC radio 3 Jazz Record Requests, presented by Alyn Shipton, focused on Fats Navarro on 24 September. Not yet listened but it appears from the playlist that my request for Street Beat with Parker didn’t make the show! Navarro and Parker trading fours is I think one of the peaks of bebop:

 

 

I agree totally. That Night at Birdland was the first Fats Navarro I ever heard. Then I didn´t even know his name and had to try to read the liner notes when my English still was very poor. 

Those solos from about the last time Fats was on stage, shortly before he died are so good. I think on this double LP is more Fats than on the few studio albums he made, where due to the short tracks there are only short solos. 

On Street Beat, even when Fats thinks he´s done, a fellow musician shouts "Play Fats !" and he plays another chorus. 
There are some tunes where Fats is layin out (Midnight, April I think), but who can play "Dizzy Atmosphere" at that speed ?!. 

This was pretty 45 or more years ago I bought that and the next day I went back to the record store and bought the Savoy Sessions album and the Blue Note Sessions album which I still have of course. 

And the book about Fats Navarro is one of the very best jazz books I ever read, since it´s especially for someone like me. Written mostly for musicians, with transcriptions, and very good analysis of his soloes, his quotes from other songs etc ......