"The Very Best of Fats Waller" (Fats Waller)
Kottke pointed out this great incident in Jazz history.
One evening Fats felt a revolver poked into his paunchy stomach. He found himself bullied into a black limousine, heard the driver ordered to East Cicero. Sweat pouring down his body, Fats foresaw a premature end to his career, but on arrival at a fancy saloon, he was merely pushed toward a piano and told to play. He played. Loudest in applause was a beefy man with an unmistakable scar: Al Capone was having a birthday, and he, Fats, was a present from "the boys".
[From First encounters: When Fats Waller met Al Capone | Independent, The (London) ]
The party lasted three days. Fats exhausted himself and his repertoire, but with every request bills were stuffed into his pockets. He and Capone consumed vast quantities of food and drink. By the time the black limousine headed back to the Sherman, Fats had acquired severeal thousand dollars in cash and a decided taste for vintage champagne
I've always had an affection for Fats Waller (and in fact, we have a song of his that is 'penciled in' to our screenplay), now I love him even more. What a cool cat.
I know his music thru GHR, my famous son, who loves American music from ragtime to this era, but won't learn the blues or rock. I have a couple of his recordings from iTunes. Awesome story. Three days? Wow, dude.