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Fats Waller, born Thomas Wright Waller on May 21, 1904, in Harlem, New York, was an influential American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and comedic entertainer. He was the youngest of four children of Adaline Locket Waller and Reverend Edward Martin Waller. Waller began playing the piano at six and soon graduated to the organ in his father's church. By the age of fourteen, he was performing at Harlem's Lincoln Theater, and within a year, he composed his first rag. Waller recorded his first piano solos, "Muscle Shoals Blues" and "Birmingham Blues," in October 1922 when he was just 18 years old. He was a prize pupil of stride pianist James P. Johnson and became a professional pianist at 15, despite opposition from his father. In 1918, he won a talent contest playing Johnson's "Carolina Shout," a piece he learned by watching a player piano. Waller's life was tragically cut short when he contracted pneumonia and died on December 15, 1943, while on a train trip near Kansas City, Missouri. He had just completed a final recording session in Detroit with an interracial group that included white trumpeter Don Hirleman and was returning to Hollywood after the success of "Stormy Weather." Notably, as Waller's train stopped in Kansas City, a train carrying his dear friend Louis Armstrong also came to a halt. In recognition of

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