Thomas "Fats" Waller, 1934 - 1944

SUB-SERIES 3A: LEGAL/FINANCIAL, This sub-series details Fats Wallers contractual relationships with RCA, booking agencies and promoters as well as documenting a sampling of royalties and band and musician expenses. Listings of Waller's compositions, some by publisher, are available in this series.

SUB-SERIES 3B: BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE, This sub-series begins with correspondence between Kirkeby and Phil Ponce, Waller's previous manager, and Ponce's assistant surrounding Kirkeby's first major initiative to rejuvenate Waller's career: the stunningly successful European tour in July and September 1938 to Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Other correspondence deals with recording, personal appearances and letters from Waller's ex-wife Edith, who pursued Waller over the years for back alimony payments. Two items from 1943 indicate problems of reliability Kirkeby faced with Waller. Notes from April touch on Waller's claim that he was not paid for an appearance, behavior which Kirkeby attributes to his drinking; a letter to Waller in August explicitly warns that his drinking is dragging down his performance and his health. There is an undated handwritten note from Waller to Kirkeby telling his plans to spend Christmas with his family. There is an extended series on Waller's six-part London Suite, that continues from 1939 until 1962 in order for researchers to conveniently access material regarding this important Waller composition.

SUB-SERIES 3C: PERFORMANCE AND RELATED ACTIVITIES, This sub-series is commensurate with a stature of Fats Waller, who was constantly on the move during the last phase of his career as well as being one of RCA's top-selling artists. Among the highlights are Kirkeby's extensive notes on venues, other musicians and even comedians who Kirkeby could tap for Waller appearances; extensive publicity materials generated by Kirkeby and RCA; band rosters, set lists, and billing and lighting instructions; flyers and handbills; radio scripts; fan mail; clippings; and other ephemera.

SUB-SERIES 3D: THE DEATH OF FATS WALLER, This sub-series is notable for Kirkeby's 14-page intimate, eyewitness and contemporaneous account of the death of Fats Waller on a train from Los Angeles to Chicago as it reached the outskirts of Kansas City on December 15, 1943. Kirkeby begins as he and Waller were preparing to leave on Monday, December 13, Waller's death from pneumonia two days later and concluding the following Saturday, December 18, when he and the casket finally arrived in New York. Also included are ephemera and notes in Kansas City and New York as Kirkeby worked on funeral arrangements as well as eulogies, letters of condolence, press coverage of the funeral and a sound recording of an all-star tribute to Waller broadcast live by WNEW from Cafe Society Downtown on December 21.

SUB-SERIES 3E: NOTES AND EPHEMERA, Kirkeby's notes, a source for commentary and detail, cover the six years with which he was associated with Waller. Also included are two drawings of Waller as well as a sheet of original Waller signatures, possibly for Kirkeby to master in "signing" Waller autographs.

SUB-SERIES 3F: MUSIC MANUSCRIPTS, LEAD SHEETS AND PARTS, AND LYRICS, Original music manuscripts included in this series are those composed by Waller or others, and performed and recorded by Waller between 1938 and 1943. The sub-series contains both complete parts and lead sheets only; some folders also contain lyric sheets while lyrics are frequently written on the music itself. Several of the arrangements were done by Robert Hicks and are clearly identified with Waller. Others arranged by Hicks cannot be traced to Waller discographies or accounts of live or radio performances, but are maintained within this series on the grounds that they were probably written for Waller.

SUB-SERIES 3G: MUSIC MANUSCRIPTS, LEAD SHEETS AND PARTS, AND LYRICS notated by Paul Machin contains Waller lead sheets and parts, notated by Dr. Paul S. Machlin, Waller expert and a longtime music professor at Colby College in Maine, who described 41 items during many visits to IJS researching Waller music in the Ed Kirkeby Collection.

SUB-SERIES 3H: PRINTED SHEET MUSIC AND MUSIC BOOKS, This sub-series contains Waller compositions and stylistic reconceptions of others' music as well as sheet music and music books owned (and frequently signed) by Waller. Other than Waller, other major composers and lyricists whose work is included are frequent Waller collaborator Andy Razaf, Clarence Williams, Spencer Williams, George Marion and Ed Kirkeby. Printed music books range from popular music, jazz, blues and songs from minstrel shows to classical music, light classics and organ music.

SUB-SERIES 3i: PRINTED MUSIC BOOKS OWNED BY WALLER MUSIC

SUB-SERIES jI: PRINTED SHEET MUSIC

SUB-SERIES 3K: PRINTED SHEET BOOKS WITHOUT WALLER COMPOSITIONS

SUB-SERIES 3L: PHOTOGRAPHS, Over 300 images, documenting Waller's travel and performances during the Kirkeby years, have been widely published through the years, most recently in a Grammy Award-winning 2006 Sony/BMG reissue, Fats Waller and His Rhythm: "If You've Got to Ask, You Ain't Got It." The photographs are notable because Kirkeby went beyond performance photos to capture life on the road, from the musicians themselves to also feature theaters, venues and marquees, modes of transportation, interaction with fans, landscapes and other detail that make this an invaluable record of the traveling jazz musician in the late thirties and early forties. Among the highlights are 13 rolls of Waller's tours of Great Britain in 1938 and 1939; performances at Carr's Beach, Maryland and Old Orchard Beach, Maine in 1941; entertaining troops in 1942; five photographs with Waller and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson on the set of the Warner Bros. film Stormy Weather in 1943; and the last photograph of Waller on the train where he died, December 13-15, 1943.