The Very Best of Fats Waller

Fats Waller need not arrive as a history lesson. Start with a title that makes you curious: Handful of Keys invites attention to the piano before you know anything about its player. This collection offers a useful way to explore the relationship between skill and entertainment. Enjoying the personality need not mean overlooking the musician; concentrating on the musician need not mean suppressing the fun. Let your first favourite be the performance you want to hear twice.

The linked BMG edition is a twenty-track compilation dated 12 September 2000 on Apple Music. The archive’s 1929–43 period is not the release date of an original album with this running order. These performances have been assembled retrospectively. There is no need to hear the sequence as a single narrative, and the repeated title Honeysuckle Rose is a reminder that a composition and an individual recording are different things.

Find the walking part

Stride piano takes its name from a left hand travelling between low bass notes and chords higher up. Try following that lower movement before attending to the melody. Can you keep a comfortable pulse while the upper part attracts your attention? You do not need to identify chords. Switching your attention between the two regions gives you a practical question to bring to the keyboard performances.

A song and its different audiences

Ain’t Misbehavin’ belongs to the 1929 revue Hot Chocolates. The Library of Congress essay distinguishes its early success across recordings from the later significance of Waller’s solo-piano version. A familiar composition need not owe its reputation to one performance or one audience. Here, allow an accessible melody to catch your ear, then redirect attention to the keyboard: liking a song can become an invitation to notice a musician.

Keep two favourites

Choose Handful of Keys and Ain’t Misbehavin’ rather than treating all twenty tracks as compulsory listening. Pause between them and ask what you can remember without the recording. An unfamiliar historical sound can take time to feel comfortable; a manageable volume and a short visit are enough. Return to the piece that leaves a phrase in your head, then let that preference guide the next visit.