Willie "The Lion" Smith--would that I were sufficiently prolific to expound on the endless excitement and adventure of my first meeting and total exposure to this melodic, harmonic kaleidoscope. My first impression of The Lion--even before I saw him--was the thing I felt as I walked down those steps [to the Capitol Palace, NY]. A strange thing… To those who had become acclimatized --the tempo was the lope--actually everything and everybody seemed to be doing whatever they were doing in the tempo The Lion's group was laying down. The walls and furniture seemed to lean understandingly--one of the strangest and greatest sensations I ever had. The waiters served in that tempo; everybody who had to walk in, out, or around the place walked with a beat… The Lion has been the greatest influence on most of the great piano players who have been exposed to his fire, his harmonic lavishness, his stride--what a luxury! Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Count Basie, Donald Lambert, Joe Turner, Sam Ervis, and of course I swam in it… Most of it still clings--agreeably… I have never heard anybody accompany a singer like The Lion (they used to sing twenty or thirty choruses, each one different), and every supporting phrase that Willie played fit like a glove and drove her into her next melodic statement. << less