Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Fate Marable was born on December 2, 1890 in Paducah, Kentucky. His mother was a piano teacher who gave her son music lessons, both in reading music and playing piano. At the age of 17 he began playing on the Mississippi River steamboats. John and Joseph Streckfus hired him to replace their piano player, Charles Mills, who had accepted an engagement in New York City.

Later in 1907 he became bandleader for a paddlewheeler on the Streckfus Line running between New Orleans, Louisiana and St. Paul, Minnesota, a position he retained for 33 years. Later he spent late nights in New Orleans’ clubs scouting for talent and playing at jam sessions. There he discovered Louis Armstrong blowing cornet, and recruited him to play for his band on evening riverboat excursions cruising around the Crescent City.

As a bandleader, Marable shared the lessons from his mother with his musicians as many of the musicians he hired played by ear. He augmented their skills by teaching them to read music, and expected them all to learn how to play from sheet music on sight. His training boosted many of the musician’s careers when they were ready to move on. They went on to play with bandleaders such as Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Fats Waller, and Chick Webb.

Members of Marable’s bands were expected to be able to play a wide variety of music, from hot numbers to light classics, playing by memory or ear, and from sheet music. As a strict bandleader he demanded musical proficiency and rigid discipline from all his band members as they developed their individual strong points. His band served as an early musical education for many other players who would later become prominent in jazz, including Red Allen, Baby Dodds, Johnny Dodds, Pops Foster, Erroll Garner, Narvin Kimball, Al Morgan, Jimmy Blanton, Elbert Pee Wee Claybrook, Joe Poston, and Zutty Singleton.

Pianist and bandleader Fate Marable, who published the only original composition of his career, Barrell House Rag, co-written with Clarence Williams in 1916, transitioned from pneumonia in St. Louis, Missouri on January 16, 1947 at 56 years old.

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