Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Classic Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It

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text excerpt

[... At] the Louisiana Club, where Andy Kirk was working, […] was a fellow with Kirk called [Theodore] Fats Navarro. "Take a listen to him, man," said Dizzy [Gillespie]. "He's wonderful!"

So I went to the club, and the only thing Fats had to blow (because Howard McGhee was the featured trumpet player) was behind a chorus number. But he was wailing behind this number, and I said to myself, "This is good enough; this'll fit."

[... A]bout two weeks after that he took Dizzy's chair, and take it from me, he came right in. Fats came in the band, and great as Dizzy is--and I'll never say other than that he is one of the finest things that ever happened to a brass instrument--Fats played his book and 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.

Fats stayed with me , I imagine, for about a year and a half.

excerpt from 'Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Classic Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It' pp. 369 (178 words)

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