Theodore "Fats" Navarro (September 24, 1923 – July 7, 1950) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

 player. He was a pioneer of the bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

 style of jazz improvisation

Jazz improvisation

Jazz improvisation is an important aspect of jazz. Basically, improvisation is composing on the spot and coming up with melodies off the top of one's head. Traditionally, jazz improvisation was distinguished from other forms of music improvisation by its chordal complexity, often exhibiting ii V...

 in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, most notably Clifford Brown

Clifford Brown

Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...

.

Life

Navarro was born in Key West, Florida

Key West, Florida

Key West is a city in Monroe County, Florida, United States. The city encompasses the island of Key West, the part of Stock Island north of U.S. 1 , Sigsbee Park , Fleming Key , and Sunset Key...

, to Cuban

Cubans

Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

-Black-Chinese parentage. He began playing piano at age six, but did not become serious about music until he began playing trumpet at age of thirteen. He was a childhood friend of drummer Al Dreares

Al Dreares

Albert Alfred "Al" Dreares is an American jazz drummer.Dreares was a childhood friend of Fats Navarro, and studied at Hartnett Conservatory in New York City on the advice of his father, a trumpeter. He played early in his career in the bands of Paul Williams and Teddy Charles...

. By the time he graduated from Douglass high school he wanted to be away from Key West and joined a dance band headed for the midwest.

Tiring of the road life after touring with many bands and gaining valuable experience, including influencing a young J. J. Johnson when they were together in Snookum Russell

Snookum Russell

Snookum Russell was a pianist and leader of a territory band that played tobacco warehouses and dance halls in the South and Midwest in the 1930s, '40s and '50s.Members of his bands included J. J...

's territory band

Territory band

Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, 6 or 7 nights a week at venues like VFW halls, Elks Lodges,...

, Navarro settled in New York City in 1946, where his career took off. He met and played with, among others, Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

, one of the greatest musical innovators of modern jazz improvisation, but Navarro was in a position to demand a high salary, and did not join one of Parker's regular groups. He also developed a heroin addiction, which, coupled with tuberculosis and a weight problem (he was nicknamed "Fat Girl") led to a slow decline in his health and death at the age of twenty-six.

Among others, Fats Navarro played in the Andy Kirk

Andy Kirk

Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader of the "Twelve Clouds of Joy," popular during the swing era....

, Billy Eckstine

Billy Eckstine

William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...

, Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

, and Lionel Hampton

Lionel Hampton

Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...

 big bands, and participated in small group recording sessions with Kenny Clarke

Kenny Clarke

Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...

, Tadd Dameron

Tadd Dameron

Tadley Ewing Peake "Tadd" Dameron was an American jazz composer, arranger and pianist. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon called Dameron the "romanticist" of the bop movement, while reviewer Scott Yanow writes that Dameron was the "definitive arranger/composer of the bop era".-Biography:Born in Cleveland,...

, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis

Eddie Davis (saxophonist)

Edward Davis , who performed and recorded as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:...

, Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...

, Illinois Jacquet

Illinois Jacquet

Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, best remembered for his solo on "Flying Home", critically recognized as the first R&B saxophone solo....

, Howard McGhee

Howard McGhee

Howard McGhee was one of the very first bebop jazz trumpeters, together with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Idrees Sulieman. He was known for lightning-fast fingers and very high notes...

, and Bud Powell

Bud Powell

Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...

.

In Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

' somewhat counter-factual autobiography Beneath the Underdog, Navarro and Mingus strike up a deep friendship while touring together. Navarro was hospitalized on July 1 and died in the evening of July 7, 1950. His last performance was with Charlie Parker on July 1 at Birdland.

Navarro was survived by wife Rena (née Clark; 1927–1975) and daughter Linda (born 1949), who currently lives in Seattle, Washington.

Discography

1943

• Andy Kirk - "Fare Thee Well Honey" c/w "Baby, Don't You Tell Me No Lie" (Decca 4449)

1944

• Andy Kirk and his Orchestra Live at the Apollo 1944-1947 (Everybody's EV 3003)
• Andy Kirk - Andy's Jive (Swing House (E) SWH 39)
• The Uncollected Andy Kirk - Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy (Hindsight (E) HSR 227)
• Andy Kirk and his Orchestra (no details) (Caracol (F) CAR 424)

1945

• Andy Kirk and his Orchestra (no details) (Swing House (E) SWH 130)
• Billy Eckstine - Together (Spotlite (E) SPJ 100)
• Billy Eckstine - Blues for Sale (EmArcy MG 36029)
• Billy Eckstine - The Love Songs of Mr. "B" (EmArcy MG 36030)
• V.A. - The Advance Guard of the '40s (EmArcy MG 36016)
• Billy Eckstine - You Call It Madness (Regent MG 6058)
• Billy Eckstine - Prisoner of Love (Regent MG 6052)

1946

• Andy Kirk - "He's My Baby" c/w "Soothe Me" (Decca 23870)
• Andy Kirk - "Alabama Bound" c/w "Doggin' Man Blues" (Decca 48073)
• Billy Eckstine - My Deep Blue Dream (Regent MG 6054)
• Billy Eckstine - I Surrender, Dear (EmArcy MG 36010)
• V.A. - Boning Up the 'Bones (EmArcy MG 36038)
• Billy Eckstine - Mr. B and the Band (Savoy SJL 2214)
• V.A. - The Bebop Era (RCA Victor LPV 519)
• Fats Navarro Memorial - Fats - Bud - Klook - Sonny - Kinney (Savoy MG 12011)
• Earl Bud Powell, Vol. 2 - Burning in U.S.A., 53-55 (Mythic Sound MS 6002-2)
• Fats Navarro Memorial, Vol. 2 - Nostalgia (Savoy MG 12133)
• V.A. - In the Beginning Bebop! (Savoy MG 12119)
• Coleman Hawkins - Bean and the Boys (Prestige PR 7824)

1947

• Illinois Jacquet and his Tenor Sax (Aladdin AL 803)
• V.A. - Opus de Bop (Savoy MG 12114)
• Billy Stewart/Ray Abrams - Gloomy Sunday c/w In My Solitude (Savoy 647)
• Milton Buggs/Ray Abrams - I Live True to You c/w Fine Brown Frame (Savoy 648)
• V.A. - Jazz Off the Air, Vol. 2 (Vox VSP 310)
• The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol. 1 (Blue Note
  Blue Note Records
  Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
  
   BLP 1531)
• Fats Navarro - Fat Girl
  Fat Girl (composition)
  "Fat Girl" is a jazz composition by trumpet player Fats Navarro. It was first recorded by Navarro and his band in 1946. The tune's only vocals is the line "fat girl fat girl" which is announced at the beginning and end of the tune. The reason for the title may be because Fats Navarro's nickname was...
  
  (Savoy SJL 2216)
• Charlie Parker - "Anthropology
  Anthropology (composition)
  "Anthropology" is a bebop-style jazz composition written by saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie from 1945. Like many other jazz compositions, it uses the chords known as "rhythm changes".-See also:...
  
  " (Spotlite (E) SPJ 108)
• Coleman Hawkins - His Greatest Hits 1939-47, Vol. 17 (RCA (F) 730625)
• Coleman Hawkins - Body and Soul: A Jazz Autobiography (RCA Victor LPV 501)
• V.A. - All American Hot Jazz (RCA Victor LPV 544)

1948

• Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra 1948 (Weka (Swt) Jds 12-1)
• Lionel Hampton in Concert (Cicala Jazz Live (It) BLJ 8015)
• Fats Navarro Featured with the Tadd Dameron Quintet (Jazzland JLP 50)
• The Tadd Dameron Band 1948 (Jazzland JLP 68)
• Benny Goodman/Charlie Barnet - Capitol Jazz Classics, Vol. 15: Bebop Spoken Here (Capitol M 11061)
• The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol. 2 (Blue Note
  Blue Note Records
  Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
  
   BLP 1532)
• V.A. - The Other Side Blue Note 1500 Series (Blue Note (J) BNJ 61008/10)
• The Complete Blue Note and Capitol Recordings of Fats Navarro and Tadd Dameron (Blue Note CDP 7243 8 33373-2)
• Earl Coleman - I Wished on the Moon c/w Guilty (Dial 756)
• Dexter Gordon on Dial - Move! (Spotlite (E) SPJ 133)

1949

• The Metronome All Stars - From Swing to Be-Bop (RCA Camden CAL 426)
• Dizzy Gillespie - Strictly Be Bop (Capitol M 11059)
• Jazz at the Philharmonic - J.A.T.P. at Carnegie Hall 1949 (Pablo PACD 5311-2)
• The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1 (Blue Note BLP 1503)
• V.A. - 25 Years of Prestige (Prestige PR 24046)
• Miles Davis/Dizzy Gillespie/Fats Navarro - Trumpet Giants (New Jazz NJLP 8296)
• Don Lanphere/Fats Navarro/Leo Parker/Al Haig - Prestige First Sessions, Vol. 1 (Prestige PRCD 24114-2)

1950

• Charlie Parker - Fats Navarro - Bud Powell (Ozone 4)
• Charlie Parker - One Night in Birdland (Columbia JG 34808)
• Charlie Parker - Bud Powell - Fats Navarro (Ozone 9)
• Hooray for Miles Davis, Vol. 1 (Session Disc 101)
• Miles Davis All Stars and Gil Evans (Beppo (E) BEP 502)
• The Persuasively Coherent Miles Davis (Alto AL 701)
• Hooray for Miles Davis, Vol. 2 (Session Disc 102)

Compilations

• 1995: The Complete Blue Note and Capitol Recordings of Fats Navarro and Tadd Dameron (Blue Note)

External links

• Biography of Fats Navarro
• http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/Singlebook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdatarq=0810867214The Music and Life of Theodore "Fats" Navarro by Leif Bo Petersen & Theo Rehak
  Theo Rehak
  Theo Rehak is a typefounder and the author of Practical Typecasting , The Fall of ATF; a Serio-Comedic Tragedy and co-author of The Music and Life of Theodore "Fats" Navarro" . He is one of the few remaining craftsmen in the field of metal typefounding...
  
  ]