Waller Biographies and Biographical Articles, 1943 - 1976

SUB-SERIES 4A: LEGAL/FINANCIAL, Boxes 11 and 22. This subseries focuses on Waller estate business, a lawsuit by Waller's sons against Kirkeby and others alleging copyright infringement and royalty payments in the mid to late 1940s.

SUB-SERIES 4B: BUSINESS AND GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, Boxes 11, 12 and 22. Correspondence with the Waller family shows that his widow was looking into a government job within weeks of her husband's death, demonstrating that Fats Waller blew through his money about as quickly as he earned it and left his family stranded economically. Also of interest is correspondence with one of Waller's most significant collaborators, lyricist Andy Razaf, and ongoing business with RCA, Waller's primary recording company.

SUB-SERIES 4C: PUBLICITY, PUBLICATIONS, CLIPPINGS, KIRKEBY NOTES, Boxes 12, 23 and 33. RCA publications and publicity from the mid 1940s through the late 1950s underscore Waller's endurance as a jazz icon, who died still at the height of his career and popularity. Among the highlights are articles on Kirkeby's years managing Waller written along with Bill Zeitung for a four-part series for Britain's Melody Marker in March 1955.

SUB-SERIES 4D: WALLER TRIBUTES, Boxes 13, 14, 22, 23, 32. Kirkeby was diligent in keeping Waller's life and music in the forefront in two main ways: organizing Fats Waller Memorial Week, which took place the third week in May from 1946 until around 1958 (the last year for which there are any records in the Kirkeby Collection), and as the driving force behind international Friends of Thomas "Fats" Waller societies. Memorial Week documents reveal a tightly-coordinated effort between Kirkeby, RCA, general interest and the African-American press, hundreds of radio stations around the United States and Friends of Fats chapters in the United States and abroad. Ample correspondence, notes by Kirkeby, press releases and Friends of Fats newsletters from Britain, France and West Germany attests to the interest arising from Kirkeby's work. Also chronicled are an April 1944 memorial concert at Carnegie Hall and a five-night Waller tribute broadcast by WNEW in February, parts of which are contained in a sound recording included in the collection.

SUB-SERIES 4E: WALLER BIOGRAPHIES AND BIOGRAPHICAL ARTICLES, Boxes 15, 16 and 22. Two attempts to produce a Fats Waller biography are documented in the Kirkeby Collection. The first, tentatively entitled One Never Knows, Do One?, was undertaken by Boston Globe writer Paul Kneeland beginning in the weeks following Waller's death in December 1943 and continuing through late 1945 when publishers rejected the project and it was abandoned. Aside from correspondence between Kirkeby and Kneeland, there are two sample chapters, an outline of the book and table of contents. Kirkeby, who ultimately took a Waller biography to fruition in 1966 as Ain't Misbehavin', was thinking along the same lines, according to notes beginning around 1949. A 1953 agreement shows Kirkeby joining forces with record producer, broadcaster, educator and jazz historian and author Rudi Blesh (whose collection is held at the Institute of Jazz Studies) and Duncan Schiedt, best known a jazz photographer and collector of jazz photography, who was still living at the time the Kirkeby collection was processed in 2012. Melody Maker writer Sinclair Traill replaced Blesh as co-author of the finished work. Highlights include 31 interviews of major jazz artists and others involved with Waller, most dating from 1950s. Among those interviewed were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum and many members of Waller's bands. However, many of these interviews are little more than cursory impressions, some only a few lines, and represent something of a missed opportunity. Also included are partial drafts of the manuscripts, correspondence with publishers in the United States and Great Britain and reviews of the book.

SUB-SERIES 4F: PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED WALLER DISCOGRAPHY PROJECTS, Boxes 17 and 22. This series includes Kirkeby notes, lists and correspondence regarding Waller recordings and two editions of a discography compiled by British discographer John J.T. Davies in the early 1950s.