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The three of us, The Lion, The Brute and Filthy, and a guy called Lippy used to run all over town playing piano.' Later we gave Fats Waller the name Filthy. called him 'the Lion' because of his spunk. One explanation of his nickname put it down to his bravery during the First World War, but he said that James P. Like Roberts, Smith played distinctive harmonies and arabesques, and had a pop song recorded by Glenn Miller, 'Sweeter than the Sweetest'. His compositions include 'Contrary Motion', 'Rippling Waters', 'Echo of Spring', 'Portrait of the Duke' and 'The Stuff is Here (and It's Mellow)' (the latter, written with Clarence Williams and Walter Bishop, was recorded by Cleo Brown, who sang and played piano on Chicago radio and recorded for Decca in the 1930s). Like the ragtime 'perfessers' who preceded him, he was a dapper dresser he would stride into a club growling a warning: 'The Lion is here.' Like Jelly Roll Morton, he was fond of bragging and could back up everything he said. Willie 'the Lion' Smith was born William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff Smith, and had an outsized personality to match his name.

He was an extraordinary pianist who played the instrument like an orchestra sadly he recorded very little. Roberts fronted a Harlem club for many years, and was a society bandleader a favourite of President Roosevelt and the Duke of Windsor, he advised the Duke on his collection of hot records. In 1913 he published 'Junk Man Rag' and 'Pork and Beans' he saw more than a dozen of his musical comedies produced, and part of one of his tunes, 'Ripples on the Nile', was slowed down and became Glenn Miller's 'Moonlight Cocktail' in 1942.

But the great artists of classic stride could also play the melody in the bass, while improvising beautiful ornamentation with the right hand: the artist was a Chopin or a Liszt, and the rediscovery of the tradition of the recitalist as improviser was complete.Ĭharles Luckyeth 'Luckey' Roberts was drawn to Harlem by 1910, along with many other talented and ambitious blacks. The East Coast stride piano style was based on ragtime, with complete freedom in the right hand, and the left paying harmonic tribute as it strode along, tenths in the bass being common when a strong beat was wanted. There was music in every neighbourhood, just as in New Orleans even the poorest family had a 'moth-box' (a piano - you could buy one for $100 on a time-payment plan), and keyboard ticklers were employed in every tavern. Why, it is just like the Arabian Nights!' said Duke Ellington, the first time he saw Harlem.

Billie holiday the complete commodore recordings rarest